Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/145

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Tamer said it wuz a good deal more work, but it wuz genteel to employ a servant, it give a sort of a air to a house to have a servant in it.

And I sez, "Yes, it duz give considerable air, if you have to be rushin' round at any time of night to drag her in and nail her up."

"Yes," sez Tamer, "of course my family help me, but that has made me sights of worriment agin, for I most know that Cicero has kep' up a clandestine correspondence with her, and would slip notes into her hand while he wuz helpin' me drag her back. I have ketched him," sez she, "leavin' the nails loose so she could break out while he wuz helpin' me nail her up."

"Tamer," sez I, real earnest, "do hear to me; do git rid of Arabeller, or you will sup sorrer from it in the end." And I see that all that wuz keepin' her back from it wuz the idee of style and gentility.

I didn't dread her influence so much over Anna, for I felt that her nater wuz so healthy and wholesome and well grounded in good actions that it would reject the pizen atmosphere. And little Jack, I hoped and prayed none of her acts would even be known to him by name. But I worried more than considerable over the hull matter, and so did the neighbors, I could see. Why, one night while I wuz there a neighborin' woman, Miss Presley, walked right into Tamer's kitchen without knockin', with an old shawl over her head and a lantern in both hands. Cicero had gone into her paster and took both her horses and gone off somewhere with 'em, he and Arabeller. She wuz a old maid and said she had always been imposed upon, but she demanded help to hunt her horses.

So Tamer and Hamen had to git up and pacify Miss