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

Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought the worth on it.

And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she calculated to make the old ones do.

And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.

She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she had to have to get Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands, besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.

Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.

Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for emergincies or bunnets.

She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work. When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the Deacon's feet.

Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.

And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and gin it to the fair to sell.

We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy needed it.

But she would make us take it; she said “if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive, she would say to her,

“Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress and mourn fer me in a black calico.”

That Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say to her if she wuz alive.

And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything. She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps, and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral: