They say there is a sight of flirtin' done at Saratoga.I didn't hear so much about it as Josiah did, naturally there are things that are talked of more amongst men than women.Night after night he would come home and tell me how fashionable it wuz, and pretty soon I could see that he kinder wanted to follow the fashion.
I told him from the first on't that he'd better let it entirely alone.Says I, "Josiah Allen, you wouldn't never carry it through successful if you should undertake it -- and then think of the wickedness on't."But he seemed sot.He said "it wuz more fashionable amongst married men and wimmen, than the more single ones," he said "it wuz dretful fashionable amongst pardners."`"Wall," says I, "I shall have, nothin' to do with it, and I advise you, if you know when you are well off, to let it entirely alone.""Of course," says he, fiercely, "You needn't have nothin' to do with it.It is nothin' you would want to foller up.And I would ruther see you sunk into the ground, or be sunk myself, than to see you goin' into it.Why," says he, savagely, "I would tear a man lim from lim, if I see him a tryin' to flirt with you."(Josiah Allen worships me.) "But," says he, more placider like, "men have to do things sometimes, that they know is too hard for their pardners to do -- men sometimes feel called upon to do things that their pardners don't care about -- that they haint strong enough to tackle.Wimmen are fragile creeters anyway.""Oh, the fallacy of them arguments -- and the weakness of 'em.
But I didn't say nothin' only to reiterate my utterance, that "if he went into it, he would have to foller it up alone, that he musn't expect any help from me.""Oh no!" says he."Oh! certainly not."
His tone wuz very genteel, but there seemed to be sumthin' strange in it.And I looked at him pityin'ly over my specks.The hull idea on it wuz extremely distasteful to me, this talk about flirtin', and etc., at our ages, and with our stations in the Jonesville meetin' house, and with our grandchildren.
But I see from day to day that he wuz a hankerin' after it, and Ialmost made up my mind that I should have to let him make a trial, knowin' that experience wuz the best teacher, and knowin' that his morals wuz sound, and he wuz devoted to me, and only went into the enterprize because he thought it wuz fashionable.
There wuz a young English girl a boardin' to the same place we did.She dressed some like a young man, carried a cane, etc.But she wuz one of the upper 10, and wuz as pretty as a picture, and Isee Josiah had kinder sot his eyes on her as bein' a good one to try his experiment with.He thought she wuz beautiful.But good land! I didn't care.I liked her myself.But I could see, though he couldn't see it, that she wuz one of the girls who would flirt with the town pump, or the meetin' house steeple, if she couldn't get nobody else to flirt with.She wuz born so, but I suppose ontirely unbeknown to her when she wuz born.
Wall, Josiah Allen would set and look at her by the hour --dretful admirin'.But good land! I didn't care.I loved to look at her myself.And then too I had this feelin' that his morals wuz sound.But after awhile, I could see, and couldn't help seein', that he wuz a tryin' in his feeble way to flirt with her.
And I told him kindly, but firmly, "that it wuz somethin' that Ihated to see a goin' on."
But he says, "Well, dumb it all, Samantha, if anybody goes to a fashionable place, they ort to try to be fashionable.'Taint nothin' I want to do, and you ort to know it."And I says in pityin' axents but firm, "If you don't want to, Josiah, I wouldn't, fashion or no fashion."But I see I couldn't convince him, and there happened to be a skercity of men jest then -- and he kep' it up, and it kep' me on the key veav, as Maggie says, when she is on the tenter hooks of suspense.
I felt bad to see it go on, not that I wuz jealous, no, my foretop lay smooth from day to day, not a jealous hair in it, not one --but I felt sorry for my companion.I see that while the endurin'
of it wuz hard and tejus for him (for truly he was not a addep at the business; it come tuff, feerful tuff on him), the endin' wuz sure to be harder.And I tried to convince him, from a sense of duty, that she wuz makin' fun of him -- he had told me lots of the pretty things she had said to him -- and out of principle I told him that she didn't mean one word of 'em.But I couldn't convince him, and as is the way of pardners, after I had sot the reasen and the sense before him, and he wouldn't hear to me, why then I had to set down and bear it.Such is some of the trials of pardners?
Wall, it kep' agoin' on, and a goin' on, and I kep' a hatin' to see it, for if anybody has got to flirt, which I am far from approvin' of, but if I have got to see it a goin' on, I would fain see it well done, and Josiah's efforts to flirt wuz like an effort of our old mair to play a tune on the melodian, no grace in it, no system, nor comfort to him, nor me.
I s'pose the girl got some fun out of it; I hope she did, for if she didn't it wuz a wearisome job all round.
Wall, a week or so rolled on, and it wuz still in progress.And one day an old friend of ours, Miss Ezra Balch, from the east part of Jonesville, come to see me.She come to Saratoga for the rheumatiz, and wuz gettin' well fast, and Ezra was gettin' entirely cured of biles, for which he had come, carbunkles.
Wall, she invited Josiah and me to take a ride with 'em, and we both accepted of it, and at the appointed time I wuz ready to the minute, down on the piazza, with my brown cotton gloves on, and my mantilly hung gracefully over my arm.But at the last minute, Josiah Allen said "he couldn't go."I says "Why can't you go?"
"Oh," he says, kinder drawin' up his collar, and smoothin' down his vest, "Oh, I have got another engagement."He looked real high-headed, and I says to him:
"Josiah Allen didn't you promise Druzilla Balch that you would go with her and Ezra to-day?""Wall yes," says he, "but I can't."
"Why not?" says I.
