But I felt dubersome about her comin’ very soon, for she took out her knittin’ work (we had to wait quite a good while for the cars), and I see that she hadn’t got the first one only to the instep.

It is slow knittin’—­shells are dretful slow anyway—­and she wuz too proud sperited to have ’em plain clam-shell pattern, which are bigger and coarser; she had to have ’em oyster-shell pattern, in ridges.

Wall, as I say, I felt dubersome, but I spoke up cheerful on the outside—­

“If you git your stockin’s done, Tirzah Ann, you must be sure and come.”

And she said she would.

The way she said it wuz:  “One, two, three, four, yes, mother; five, six, seven, I will.”

She had to count every shell from top to toe of ’em, which made it hard and wearin’ both for her and them she wuz conversin’ with.

Why, they do say—­it come to me straight, too—­that Whitfield got that wore out with them oyster-shell stockin’s that he won’t look at a oyster sence—­he used to be devoted to ’em, raw or cooked; but they say that you can’t git him to look at one sence the stockin’ episode, specially scolloped ones.

No, he sez “that he has had enough oysters for a lifetime.”

Poor fellow!  I pity him.  I know what them actions of hern is; hain’t I suffered from the one she took ’em from?

But to resoom, and continue on.

Miss Gowdey come to the depot to see me off, and so did Miss Bobbet and the Widder Pooler.

Miss Gowdey wuz a-comin’ to the World’s Fair as soon as she made her rag-carpet for her summer kitchen; she said “she wouldn’t go off and leave her work ondone, and she hadn’t got more’n half of the rags cut, and she hadn’t colored butnut yet, nor copperas; she would not leave her house a-sufferin’ and her rags oncut.”

I thought she looked sort o’ reprovin’ at me, for she knew that I had a carpet begun.

But I spoke up, and sez, “Truly rags will be always here with us, and most likely butnut and copperas; but the World’s Fair comes but once in a lifetime, and I believe in embracin’ it now, and makin’ the most of it.”  Sez I, “We can embrace rags at any time.”

“Wall,” she said, “she couldn’t take no comfort with the memory of things ondone a-weighin’ down on her.”  She said “some folks wuz different,” and she looked clost at me as she said it.  “Some folks could go off on towers and be happy with the thought of rags oncut and warp oncolored, or spooled, or anything.  But she wuzn’t one of ’em; she could not, and would not, take comfort with things ondone on her mind.”

And I sez, “If folks don’t take any comfort with the memories of things ondone on ’em, I guess that there wouldn’t be much comfort took, for, do the best we can in this world, we have to leave some things ondone.  We can’t do everything.”

“Wall,” she said, “she should, never should, go off on towers till everything wuz done.”