Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/290



AUNT KEZIAH’S NIECE.

BY CLARA AUGUSTA.

“Wall, if it don’t seem guod to git sot down once more! Here I’ve been upon the trot ever since four o’clock this mornin’—up stairs and down stairs, and in the sullur; it’s the way of 3 woman, they must work hard all the time, and git precious little thanks for it!

“Yer uncle’s allers for everlastingly dreadin’ washing day; says it’s wurs’n Bedlam, and a complete panorama—equal to town meetin’, or trainin’ day! That’s all a man knows! Jest as if anybody could wash, and scrub, and bile, and slush from sunrise till sunset without makin’ a noise! I’d like to see him try it! I’ve never knowed him, in the course of all our marriage- able life, to miss gittin’ mad washin’ days—he invariably does—and he allers swears when he’s mad! Yer uncle Joshua ain’t a perfain man naturally, but the minit the steam begins to rise Monday mornin’, it runs the chronometer of his temper clean up to Nero, and he’ll blow off like a railroad whistle!

“As for yer cuzzin, Ichabod Jefferson, he allers goes off in the mornin’ to get rid of lug- gin’ water, and he’ll stay till jest the minit I begin to wash the floor; then in he’ll come, and begin to tramp, tramp, and gallop across the room; trackin’ the floor, and eatin’ cake and butter. Ichabod is a ter’ble case for eatin’; there ain’t no end to his appatite. He’d devour the whole airth, and then think nothin’ of crammin’ down a doughnut on top of it! I never knowed him to eat less’n fifteen putaters to a meal, afore last summer. Along the fust of June, my niece, Seraphina Ricanny, came up  here to churalize and smell the country air. As soon as she arriv’, Ichabod sot his cap for her, and of course he had to leave off eatin’ so many putaters, because Seraphina said only Irishers eat ’taters. We made a powerful savin’ in that way.

“Seraphina was about as romantic a bunch of plurality as ever you cum across. Allers drest in white, and wore her hair in dangles, because she said it was poetical; but her gowns made the awfullest sight of washin’ and ironin’! They was more to wash than yer uncle’s shirts when he’s to work in the loggin’ swamp—for she had “em clean down to the ground, and was allers a ‘goin’ out in the dewy bushes draggling round, climbin’ rocks, and doin’ all manner of shaller things; and them white gowns trailin’ arter her  jest like a peacock’s tail ina rainy day! Sez I to her one mornin’,

“Seerypheen, why don’t you wear a caliker gown out in the woods?’

“La! aunty!’ sez she, rollin’ up her eyes clean out of their ribbets, ‘what if any destiny   should meet me?’

“‘Destiny?’ sez I, ‘ who’s yer destiny? I guess  they ain’t much if they wouldn’t be perlite to ye in a caliker gown! Besides, they wouldn’t be at all likely to be out a strolin’ in them woods!’ “Ah!’ sez she, ‘aunt Keziah, you’ve no receptive of the rhumetic visions that float athwart the gold of my metal horizontal!’

“I wonder if I hain’t?’ sez I, ‘I’ve had the  rhumatiz nigh onto ten year, and if I don’t know  what it is by this time, it’s a pity! It’s a ter’ble cumplaint, and I’m sorry you’ve got it—did you ever try mustard poultices?’

“Seraphina kinder looked at me as if she’d seen a sperit, or somethin’, but she didn’t say nothin’—only took a book and went off out inter the sheep’s pasture.

“Ichabod scolded to me for sayin’ anything to her. He said she was too fine bred to under- stand my common talk, and I'd better keep still. Ye see, Ichabod took a shine to her, and couldn’t bear to have anybody speak a word agin her no how. She hadn’t been to our house a fortnight  afore he took to ilin’ his chin and wearin’ standing collars. He kept one hand a pullin’ up his dicky, and ’tother feeling of his chin, the whole of the time, till I got wore out with him.

“‘Don’t, Ichabod,’ sez I, one day at dinner— ‘don’t be a borrying trouble so much; it’ll be   time enuff to worry about yer beard when it   comes! You'll drive it all back if you keep rubbin’ it so!' “Ichabod was mad, and Seraphina pulled out her smelling-bottle, her vinegar grater, she calls it, and clapped it to her nose. Yer uncle sez I’m allers a shockin’ somebody’s modesty, but I can't help it! I’m an honest woman, and bound to speak the truth—shock or no shock! Seraphina got over it though; folks ginerally revive sich things—and along toward night, she started of for the woods agin. Ichabod he went down in