"I wonder if he'd want to subscribe for the 'Twin Crimes'?" And sez she, "I am sorry I didn't go over with you and canvass him." Poor thing! she little knew he had got beyend canvassin' and all other cares and troubles of life two hundred years ago. But Miss Meechim wuz dretful worked up about the gambling going on at Maceo, and she sez it is as bad as at Monte Carlo. (I didn't know who he wuz, but spozed that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). And sez she, "Oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. How it makes my heart yearn for my own dear America!" Miss Meechim is good in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root, but Arvilly sez:
"I guess we Americans hadn't better find too much fault with foreign natives about gambling, when we think of our stock exchanges, huge gamblin' houses where millions are gambled for daily; thousands of bushels of wheat put up there that never wuz growed only in the minds of the gamblers. Why," sez Arvilly, warmin' up with her subject, "we are a nation of gamblers from Wall Street, where gamblin' is done in the name of greed, down to meetin' houses, where bed-quilts and tidies are gambled for in the name of religion. From millionaires who play the game for fortunes down to poor backwoodsmen who raffle for turkeys and hens, and children who toss pennies for marbles."
Sez Miss Meechim, "I guess I will take a little quinine and lay down a spell." Arvilly tosted her head quite a little after she retired and then she went out to canvass a clerk in the office. Arvilly is dantless in carriage, but she is too hash. I feel bad about it.
Arvilly and I went out for a walk, takin' Tommy with us. We thought we would buy some sooveneers of the place. Sez Arvilly, "I want to prove to the Jonesvillians that I've been to China, and I want to buy some little presents for Waitstill Webb, that I can send her in a letter."
And I thought I would buy some little things for the children, mebby a ivory croshay hook for Tirzah Ann and a paper cutter for Thomas J., and sunthin' else for Maggie and Whitfield. It beats all what exquisite ivory things we did see, and in silver, gold, shell, horn and bamboo, every article you can think on and lots you never did think on, all wrought in the finest carvin' and filigree work. Embroideries in silk and satin and cloth of gold and silver, every beautiful thing that wuz ever made you'd see in these shops.