Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete by Marietta Holley (booksvooks .TXT) 📕

And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift 'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.

But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin' is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.

Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'), she gin the hull to the meetin' house.

There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.

And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money got in that way.

But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument, and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.

But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her—she wuz the widder Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to Sister Grimshaw, by right.

Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:

“Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own use, and for church work, and charity?”

“Because he is so hard with her,” sez Sister Lanfear, “and tears round so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should dress well—wants her to—and live well. But he don't want her to spend a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin' any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin.”

“Wall,” sez I, “what business is it to him what she does with her own money and her own property?”

I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more openly.

And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day for contogglin'.

She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She would be willin', so it is spozed.

Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more of'em.

But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.