Samantha at Saratoga by Marietta Holley (online e book reader TXT) 📕

in New York village, down on Wall street. He had to stay there, so she said. I don’t know why, but s’pose sunthin’ wuz the matter with the wall; anyway he couldn’t leave it. And she went round to different places a good deal for her health. There didn’t seem to be much health round where her husband wuz, so she had to go away after it, go a huntin’ for it, way over to Europe and back ag’in; and away off to California, and Colorado, and Long Branch, and Newport, and Saratoga, and into the Country. It made it real bad for Miss Flamm.

Now I always found it healthier where Josiah wuz than in any other place. Difference in folks I s’pose. But they say there is sights and sights of husbands and wives jest like Miss Flamm. Can’t find a mite of health anywhere near where their families is, and have to poke off alone after it. It makes it real bad for ’em.

But anyway she came to Jonesville for her health. And she hearn of Thomas Jefferson and employed him. It wuz money that fell onto her from her father, or that should have fell, that she wuz a tryin’ to git it to fall. And he won the case. It fell. She wuz rich as a Jew before she got this money, but she acted as tickled over it as if she wuzn’t worth a cent. (Human nater.) She paid Thomas J. well and she and Maggie and he got to be quite good friends.

She is a well-meanin’, fat little creeter, what there is of her. I have seen folks smaller than she is, and then ag’in we seen them that wuzn’t so small. She is middlin’ good lookin’, not old by any means, but there is a deep wrinkle plowed right into her forward, and down each side of her mouth. They are plowed deep. And I have always wondered to myself who held the plow.

It wuz’nt age, for she haint old enough. Wuz it Worry? That will do as good a day’s work a plowin’ as any creeter I ever see, and work as stiddy after it gits to doin’ day’s works in a female’s face.

Waz it Dissatisfaction and Disappointment? They, too, will plow deep furrows and a sight of ’em. I don’t know what it wuz. Mebby it wuz her waist and sleeves. Her sleeves wuz so tight that they kep’ her hands lookin’ a kinder bloated and swelled all the time, and must have been dretful painful. And her waist—it wuz drawed in so at the bottom, that to tell the livin’ truth it wuzn’t much bigger’n a pipe’s tail. It beat all to see the size immegatly above and below, why it looked perfectly meraculous. She couldn’t get her hands up to her head to save her life; if she felt her head a tottlin’ off her shoulders she couldn’t have lifted her hands to have stiddied it, and, of course, she couldn’t get a long breath, or short ones with any comfort.

Mebby that worried her, and then ag’in, mebby it wuz dogs. I know it would wear me out to take such stiddy care on one, day and night. I never seemed to feel no drawin’s to take care of animals, wash ’em, and bathe ’em, and exercise ’em, etc., etc., never havin’ been in the menagery line and Josiah always keepin’ a boy to take care of the animals when he wuzn’t well. Mebby it wuz dogs. Anyway she took splendid care of hern, jest wore herself out a doin’ for it stiddy day and night and bein’ trampled on, and barked at almost all the time she wuz a bringin’ on it up.

Yes, she took perfectly wonderful care on’t, for a woman in her health. She never had been able to take any care of her children, bein’ very delicate. Never had been well enough to have any of ’em in the room with her nights, or in the day time either. They tired her so, and she wuz one of the wimmen who felt it wuz her duty to preserve her health for her family’s sake. Though when they wuz a goin’ to get the benefit of her health I don’t know.

But howsumever she never could take a mite of care of her children, they wuz brought up on wet nurses, and bottles, etc., etc., and wuz rather weakly, some on ’em. The nurses, wet and dry ones both, used to gin ’em things to make ’em sleep, and kinder yank ’em round and scare ’em nights to keep ’em in the bed, and neglect ’em a good deal, and keep ’em out in the brilin’ sun when they wanted to see their bows; and for the same reeson keepin’ em out in their little thin dresses in the cold, and pinch their little arms black and blue if they went to tell any of their tricks. And they learnt the older ones to be deceitful and sly and cowerdly. Learnt ’em to use jest the same slang phrases and low language that they did; tell the same lies, and so they wuz a spilin’ ’em in every way; spilin’ their brains with narcotics, their bodies by neglect and bad usage, and their minds and morals by evil examples.

You see some nurses are dretful good. But Miss Flamm’s health bein’ so poor and her mind bein’ so took up with fashion, dogs, etc., that she couldn’t take the trouble to find out about their characters and they wuz dretful poor unbeknown to her. She had dretful bad luck with ’em, and the last one drinked, so I have been told.

Yes, it made it dretful bad for Miss Flamm that her health was so poor, and her fashionable engagements so many and arduous that she didn’t have the time to take a little care of her children and the dog too. For you could see plain, by the care that she took of that dog, what a splendid hand she would be with the children, if she only had the time and health.

Why, I don’t believe there wuz another dog in America, either the upper or lower continent, that had more lovin’, anxus, intelligent, devoted attention than that dog had, day and night, from Miss Flamm. She took 2 dog papers, so they say, to get the latest information on the subject; she compared notes with other dog wimmen, I don’t say it in a runnin’ way at all. I mean wimmen who have gin their hull minds to dog, havin’, some on ’em, renounced husbands, and mothers, and children for dog sake.

You know there are sich wimmen, and Miss Flamm read up and studied with constant and absorbed attention all the latest things on dog. Their habits, their diet, their baths, their robes, their ribbons, and bells, and collars, their barks—nothin’ escaped her; she put the best things she learned into practice, and studied out new ones for herself. She said she had reduced the subject to a science, and she boasted proudly that her dog, the last one she had, went ahead of any dog in the country. And I don’t know but it did. I knew it had a good healthy bark. A loud strong bark that must have made it bad for her in the night. It always slept with her, for she didn’t dast to trust it out of her sight nights. It had had some spells in the night, kinder chills, or spuzzums like, and she didn’t dast to be away from it for a minute.

She wouldn’t let the wet nurse tech it, for her youngest child, little G. Washington Flamm, Jr., wuzn’t very healthy, and Miss Flamm thought that mebby the dog might ketch his weakness if the nurse handled it right after she had been nursin’ the baby. And then she objected to the nurse, so I hearn, on account of her bein’ wet. She wanted to keep the dog dry. I hearn this; I don’t know as it wuz so. But I hearn these things long enough before I ever see her. And when I did see her I see that they didn’t tell me no lies about her devotion to the dog, for she jest worshiped it, that was plain to be seen.

Wall, she has got a splendid place at Saratoga; a cottage she calls it. I, myself, should call it a house, for it is big as our house and Deacon Peddick’ses and Mr. Bobbett’ses all put together, and I don’t know but bigger.

Wall, she invited Josiah and me to drive with her, and so her dog and she stopped for us. (I put the dog first, for truly she seemed to put him forward on every occasion in front of herself, and so did her high-toned relatives, who wuz with her.)

Or I s’pose they wuz her relatives for they sot up straight, and wuz dretful dressed up, and acted awful big-feelin’ and never took no notice of Josiah and me, no more than if we hadn’t been there. But good land! I didn’t care for that. What if they didn’t pay any attention to us? But Josiah, on account of his tryin’ to be so fashionable, felt it deeply, and he sez to me while Miss Flamm wuz a bendin’ down over the dog, a talkin’ to him, for truly it wuz tired completely out a barkin’ at Josiah, it had barked at him every single minute sense we had started, and she wuz a talkin’ earnest to it a tryin’ to soothe it, and Josiah whispered to me, “I’ll tell you, Samantha, why them fellers feel above me; it is because I haint dressed up in sech a dressy fashion. Let me once have on a suit like their’n, white legs and yellow trimmin’s, and big shinin’ buttons sot on in rows, and white gloves, and rosettes in my hat—why I could appear in jest as good company as they go in.”