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I used to play with a bear when I was a boy; and the bear used to hug me, and I used to kiss him, so!" It was too bad of Mr. Bernard, only the second time he had seen Alminy; but her kind feelings had touched him, and that seemed the most natural way of expressing his gratitude. Ahniny looked round to see if anybody was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no good to "holler."
Sez I, "Alminy Hagidone, do you s'pose that I, a woman of my age, and a member of the meetin' house, am a goin' to wear a low-necked dress?" "Why not?," sez she, "it is all the fashion and wimmen as old agin as you be wear 'em." Well, sez I, "It is a shame and a disgrace if they do, to say nothin' of the wickedness of it. Who do you s'pose wants to see their old skin and bones?
It was natural that the two prettiest girls in the village, called in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited alphabet will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly Braowne, should feel and express an interest in the good-looking stranger, and that, when their flattering comments were repeated in the hearing of their indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older "boys" of the school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of the turbulent youth.
I wuz agast at the idee, and to think Alminy should broach it to me, and I give her a piece of my mind that must have lasted her for days and days. It wuz a long piece, and firm as iron.
It haint nothin' pretty anyway. And as fer the waists bein' all girted up and drawed in, that is nothin' but crushed bones and flesh and vitals, that is just crowdin' down your insides into a state o' disease and deformity, torturin' your heart down so's the blood can't circulate, and your lungs so's you can't breathe, it is nothin' but slow murder anyway, and if I ever take it into my head to kill myself, Alminy Hagidone, I haint a goin' to do it in a way of perfect torture and torment to me, I'd ruther be drownded."
Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" Alminy, and never did he see any encouraging look, or hear any "Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?" or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village belles under stand as well as ever did the nymph who fled to the willows in the eclogue we all remember.
The answer to this question ought naturally to have been the end of the talk; but Alminy Cutterr lingered and looked as if she had something more on her mind. A young fellow does not require a great experience to read a simple country-girl's face as if it were a sign-board.
It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy Cutterr waiting while this piece of natural history was telling. As she spoke of little Jo, who had been "haaf eat up" by Tige, she could not contain her sympathies, and began to cry. "Why, my dear little soul," said Mr. Bernard, "what are you worried about?
The master took his breakfast with a good appetite that morning, but was perhaps rather more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went up-stairs and put, on a light loose frock, instead of that which he commonly wore, which was a close-fitting and rather stylish one. On his way to school he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be walking in the other direction.
And I own that I did say to myself, as I pulled out the gethers in front, "Wall, there may be full dresses there to-night, but there will be none fuller than mine." And I wuz glad that Alminy had made it jest as she had. She had made it a little fuller than even I had laid out to have it, for she mistrusted it would shrink in washin'. It wuz a very full dress.
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