Chapter 58 - Page 2

Washington's nurse, is the very thing I mean to put to you. Only you must please to take it well, according to my meaning. You see our Firm going to a shadow, don't you? Very well; the fault of that is all yourn. Why not up and speak to him?"

"I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam, and I spare no efforts to fatten him. I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook. But soon he will have Suan Isco."

"Old Injun be darned! It's not the stomach, it's the heart as wants nourishment with yon poor lad. He looketh that pitiful at you sometimes, my faith, I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his newings or cry at the lean face that does it."

"You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam. And he never does any thing of the kind. I am sure there is nothing to laugh at."

"No, no; to be sure not. I made a mistake. Heroic is the word, of course--every thing is heroic."

"It is heroic," I answered, with some vexation at his lightness. "If you can not see it, I am sorry for you. I like large things; and I know of nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on."

"You to stand up for him!" Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could scarcely look at me. "You to talk large of him, my Lady Castlewood, while you are doing of his heart into small wittles! Well, I did believe, if no one else, that you were a straightforward one."

"And what am I doing that is crooked now?"

"Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no. Only onconsistent, when squared up."

"Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day. What is inconsistent? What is there to square up?"

He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise. Then, as if his main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and said, "Soup's a-bilin now."

"Let it boil over, then. You must say what you mean. Oh, Uncle Sam, I only want to do the right!"

"I dessay. I dessay. But have you got the pluck, miss? Our little missy would 'a done more than that. But come to be great lady--why, they take another tune. With much mind, of course it might be otherwise. But none of 'em have any much of that to spare."

"Your view is a narrow one," I replied, knowing how that would astonish him. "You judge by your own experience only; and to do that shows a sad want of breadth, as the ladies in England express it."

The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all about for his spectacles. The idea of being regarded by a "female" from a larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in his system.

"Yes," I continued, with some enjoyment, "let us try to look largely at all things, Uncle Sam. And supposing me capable of that, what is the proper and the lofty course to take?"