FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31  
32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>   >|  
urse, Robert did it to please me and from principle. I taught him early self-denial and the pleasures of martyrdom. Of course, I never expected he would carry my teachings to such an extent as he has in his business life. I did not mean it to extend to worldly matters; I meant it to be more what the Bible calls 'the workings of the spirit.' But he will doubtless feel different as he gets older. And, oh, he is such a help to me with Dorothy. Now, on this trip he knows my fears, and how sedulously I have guarded Dorothy from the tender passion, and it wuz just like him to put his own desires in the background and go with us to help protect her." "How did you git such dretful fears of marriage?" sez I. "Men are tryin' lots of times, and it takes considerable religion to git along with one without jawin' more or less. But, after all, I d'no what I should do without my pardner--I think the world on him, and have loved to think I could put out my hand any time and be stayed and comforted by his presence. I should feel dretful lost and wobblin' without him," sez I, with a deep sithe, "though I well know his sect's shortcomin's. But I never felt towards 'em as you do, even in my most maddest times, when Josiah had been the tryinest and most provokinest." "Well," sez she, "my father spent all my mother's money on horse-racin', save a few thousand which he had invested for her, and she felt wuz safe, but he took that to run away with a bally girl, and squandered it all on her and died on the town. My eldest sister's husband beat her with a poker, and throwed her out of a three-story front in San Francisco, and she landin' on a syringea tree wuz saved to git a divorce from him and also from her second and third husbands for cruelty, after which she gave up matrimony and opened a boarding-house, bitter in spirit, but a good calculator. I lived with her when a young girl, and imbibed her dislike for matrimony, which wuz helped further by sad experiences of my own, which is needless to particularize. (I hearn afterwards that she had three disappointments runnin', bein' humbly and poor in purse.) "And now," sez she, "I am as well grounded against matrimony as any woman can be, and my whole energies are aimed on teaching Dorothy the same belief I hold." "Well," sez I, "your folks have suffered dretful from men and I don't wonder you feel as you do. But what I am a goin' to do to be separated from my husband durin' this voyage
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31  
32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
matrimony
 

Dorothy

 

dretful

 
husband
 

spirit

 
divorce
 

landin

 

syringea

 

Francisco

 

thousand


invested

 
sister
 

throwed

 

eldest

 

squandered

 

calculator

 

energies

 

teaching

 

humbly

 
grounded

belief

 

separated

 
voyage
 

suffered

 

runnin

 

boarding

 

bitter

 
mother
 

opened

 
husbands

cruelty

 

particularize

 

needless

 

disappointments

 
experiences
 

imbibed

 

dislike

 
helped
 

workings

 

doubtless


extend

 
worldly
 

matters

 

guarded

 

tender

 

passion

 

sedulously

 

denial

 

pleasures

 

martyrdom