Wall, I don't s'pose there had been a teacher in our deestrict for years and years that gin' better satisfaction than Ardelia Tutt.Good soft little creeter, the scholars any one of 'em felt above hurtin' on her or plagin' her any way.She sort a made 'em feel they had to take care on her, she wuz so sort a helpless actin', and good natured, and yet her learnin' wuz good, fust-rate.
Yes, Ardelia was thought a sight on in Jonesville by scholars and parents and some that wuzn't parents.One young chap in perticiler, Abram Gee by name, who had just started a baker's shop in Jonesville, he fell so deep in love with her from the very start that I pitied him from about the bottom of my heart.
It wuz at our house that he fell.
The young folks of our meetin'-house had a sort of a evenin'
meetin' there to see about raisin' some money for the help of the steeple -- repairin' of it.Abram is a member, and so is Ardelia, and I see the hull thing.I see him totter and I see him fall.And prostrate he wuz, from that first night.Never was there a feller that fell in love deeper, or lay more helpless.And Ardelia liked him, that wuz plain to see; at fust as I watched and see him totter, I thought she wuz a sort o'
wobblin' too, and when he fell deep, deep in love, I looked to see her a follerin' on.But Ardelia, as soft as she wuz, had an element of strength.She wuz ambitious.She liked Abram, but she had read novels a good deal, and she had for years been lookin' for a prince to come a ridin' up to their dooryard in disguise with a crown on under his hat, and woo her to be his bride.
And so she braced herself against the sweet influence of love and it wuz tuff -- I could see for myself that it wuz, when she had laid out to set on a throne by the side of a prince, he a holdin'
his father's scepter in his hand -- to descend from that elevation and wed a husband who wuz a moulder of bread, with a rollin' pin in his hand.It wuz tuff for Ardelia; I could see right through her mind (it wuzn't a great distance to see), and I could see jest how a conflict wuz a goin' on between love and ambition.
But Abram had my best wishes, for he wuz a boy I had always liked.The Gees had lived neighbor to us for years.He wuz a good creeter and his bread wuz delicious (milk emptin's).He wuz a sort of a hard, sound lookin' chap, and she, bein' so oncommon soft, the contrast kinder sot each other off and made 'em look well together.
He had a house and lot all paid for, with no incumbrances only a mortgage of 150 dollars and a lame mother.But he laid out to clear off the mortgage this year, and I wuz told that mother Gee wuz a goin' to live with her daughter Susan, who had jest come into a big property -- as much as 700 dollars worth of land, besides cows, 2 heads of cow, and one head of a calf.
I knew Mother Gee and she wuz goin' to stay with Abram till he got married and then she wuz goin' to live with Susan.And Is'pose it is so.She is a likely old woman with a milk leg.
Wall, Abram paid Ardelia lots of attention, sech as walkin' home with her from protracted meetin's nights, and lookin' at her durin' the meetin's more protracted than the meetin's wuz fur.
And 3 times he sent her a plate of riz biscuit sweetened, sweetened too sweet almost, he went too fur in this and I see it.
Yes, he done his part as well as his condition would let him, paralyzed by his feelin's -- but she acted kinder offish, and Isee that sonthin' wuz in the way.I mistrusted at first, it might be Abram's incumbrance, but durin' a conversation I had with her, I see I wuz in the wrong on't.And I could see plain, though some couldn't, that she liked Abram as she did her eyes.
Somebody run him down a little one day before me and she sprouted right up and took his part voyalent.I could see her feelin's towards him though she wouldn't own up to 'em.But one day she came out plain to me and lamented his condition in life.
Somebody had attact her that day before me about marryin' of him -- and she owned up to me, that she had laid out to marry somebody to elevate her.Some one with a grand pure mission in life.
And I spoke right up and sez, "Why bread is jest as pure and innocent as anything can be, you won't find anything wicked about good yeast bread, nor," sez I, cordially, "in milk risin', if it is made proper."But she said she preferred a occupation that wuz risin', and noble, and that made a man necessary and helpful to the masses.
And I sez agin -- "Good land! the masses have got to eat.And Iguess you starve the masses a spell and they'll think that good bread is as necessary and helpful to 'em as anything can be.And as fer its bein' a risin' occupation, why," sez I, "it is stiddy risen' -- risin' in the mornin,' and risin' at night, and all night, both hop and milk emptin's.Why," sez I, "I never see a occupation so risin' as his'n is, both milk and hop." But she wouldn't seem to give in and encourage him much only by spells.
And then Abram didn't take the right way with her.I see he wuz a goin' just the wrong way to win a woman's love.For his love, his great honest love for her made him abject, he groveled at her feet, loved to grovel.
I told him, for he confided in me from the first on't and bewailed her coldness to me, I told him to sprout up and act as if he had some will of his own and some independent life of his own.Sez I, "Any woman that sees a man a layin' around under her feet will be tempted to step on him," sez I."I don't see how she can help it, if she calcerlates to get round any, and walk."Sez I, "Sprout up and be somebody.She is a good little creeter, but no better than you are, Abram; be a man."And he would try to be.I could see him try.But one of her soft little glances, specially if it wuz kind and tender to him, es it wuz a good deal of the time, why it would just overthrow him ag'in.He would collapse and become nothin' ag'in, before her.Why I have hearn him sing that old him, a lookin' right at Ardelia stiddy:
"Oh to be nothin', nothin'!"
