Says I coldly, “I should know they was yours Betsey, I should know they was yours, if I should meet ’em in my porridge dish.”
But the time drew near for the cars to bear me away from Josiah, and I began to feel bad.
I don’t believe in husbands and wives partin’ away from each other, one livin’ in Europe, and one in New York village, one in Wall street, and the other on a Long Branch, one in Boston, and the other in North America. As the poet truly observes,
“When the cat is away the mice’s will go to playin’.”
As for me, I want my husband Josiah where I can lay my hand on him any time, day or night, I know then what he is about. Though so far as jealousy is concerned, Bunker Hill monument, and Plymouth Rock would be jest as likely to go to flirtin’ and cuttin’ up, as either of us. We have almost cast iron confidence in each other. But still it is a sweet and satisfyin’ thought to know jest where your consort is, and what he is about, from hour to hour.
Josiah and me didn’t shed no tears as we each of us parted, though our hearts ached with anguish we both of us felt it our duty to be calm. I felt a tear risin’ to my eye, but with a almost fearful effort I choked it back and said in low accents as we grasped holt of each others hands at partin’,
“Good by, Josiah, remember to feed the hens, and keep the suller door shet up.”
He too struggled nobly for composure and conquered, and in a voice of marble calm he said,
“Good by Samantha, don’t spend no more money than is necessary.”
The Ingin hitched to the front car give a wild yell, as if he felt our two woes--Josiah’s and mine--and we parted for the first time in goin’ on 15 years.
As I sunk back on the wooden bottomed car seat, perfectly onmanned by my efforts at commandin’ myself, for the first time I felt regret at my wild and perilous undertakin’.
We had to change cars about noon, as we went into the depot to get our tickets, the ticket man looked so kinder lonesome stuck in there alone, for all the world as if he had done somethin’ and his mother had shet him up, that I thought I would make a little talk with him.
He favored Celestine Wilkins’es husband considerable, jest such a meachin’ lookin’ feller, and I knew Celestine’s husband had a brother down this way somewhere, and so to kinder open a conversation with him, I asked him “If he ever had any relation that married a girl by the name of Gowdey?”