o you do, Josiah
Allen's Wife?"

I turned and met seven glad extended hands, and thirteen eyes lookin' at
mine, in joyous welcome, besides one glass eye (and you couldn't tell
the difference, it wuz so nateral--Oren bought the best one money could
git when his nigh eye wuz put out by a steer gorin' it). Yes, it wuz
Oren Rumble and Lateza, his wife, and the hull of the family--the five
girls, Barthena, Calfurna, Dalphina, Albiny, and Lateza.

But what a change had swep' over the family sence I had last looked on
'em!

I could hardly believe my two eyes when I looked at their costooms, for
the hull family had dressed in black for upwards of 'leven years, and
Jonesvillians had got jest as ust to seein' 'em as they wuz a-seein' a
flock of crows in the spring.

And I do declare it wuz jest as surprisin' to me to see the way they wuz
rigged out as it would be to see a lot of crows a-settlin' down on our
cornfield with red and yeller tail feathers.

To home they didn't go nowhere, only to meetin'--the mother bein' very
genteel, comin' down as she did from a very old and genteel family.
Dretful blue blood I spoze her folks had--blue as indigo, I spoze. And
she didn't think it wuz proper to go into society in mournin'
clothes--she thought it would make talk for mourners to git out and
enjoy themselves any in crape.

Oren wuz naterally of a lively disposition, and loved to visit round,
and it made it bad for him. But he felt quite proud of marryin' such a
aristocratic woman, and so he had to take the bitter with the sweet.

Besides their bein' so old, she had come from a mournin' family--her
folks always mourned for everybody and everything they could. (You know
some families are so, and I spoze they git some comfort out of it. And
black duz look real respectable, but considerable gloomy.)

Their house wuz always shet up, and Oren walked round (rebellin' inside)
under a mournin' weed.

And the six wimmen was all swathed in crape, and the hull house smelt of
crape and logwood.

As I sez more formally, Lateza was brung up to it. She wuz ready to
mourn on the slightest pretext, and mourn jest as long and stiddy as
possible.

Wall, black _wuz_ becomin' to her. Bein' tall and spindlin', black sot
her off, and crape draperies sort o' rounded off her figger and made her
look some impressive.

And she loved to stay at home--she wuz made that way.

But I always felt that if she wanted to make a raven of herself for
life,