The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) 5 – Anonymous · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) 5Chapter 2
18
Literature · Humor
The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) 5
Chapter 2
AnonymousEnglish
They advanced together now, Seffy's father whistling some tune that was never heard before on earth, and, with his arm in that of his son, they watched Sally bounding away. Once more, as she leaped a fence, she looked laughingly back. The old man whistled wildly out of tune. Seffy waved a hand!
"Now you shouting, Seffy! Shout ag'in!"
"I didn't say a word!"
"Well--it ain't too late! Go on!"
Now Seffy understood and laughed with his father.
"Nice gal, Sef--Seffy!"
"Yes!" admitted Seffy with reserve.
"Healthy."
Seffy agreed to this, also.
"No doctor-bills!" his father amplified.
Seffy said nothing.
"Entire orphen."
"She's got a granny!"
"Yas," chuckled the old man at the way his son was drifting into the situation--thinking about granny!--"but Sally owns the farm!"
"Uhu!" said Seffy, whatever that might mean.
"And Sally's the boss!"
Silence.
"And granny won't object to any one Sally marries, anyhow--she dassent! She'd git licked!"
"Who said anything about marrying?"
Seffy was speciously savage now--as any successful wooer might be.
"Nobody but me, sank you!" said the old man with equally specious meekness. "Look how she ken jump a six-rail fence. Like a three-year filly! She's a nice gal, Seffy--and the farms j'ine together--her pasture-field and our corn-field. And she's kissing her hand backwards! At me or you, Seffy?"
Seffy said he didn't know. And he did not return the kiss--though he yearned to.
"Well, I bet a dollar that the first initial of his last name is Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, Junior."
"Well!" said Seffy with a great flourish, "I'm going to set up with her to-night."
"Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it.
"You'll see."
"No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!"
Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow.
"I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in the air.
"No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that, consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting.
"Yes!" declared Seffy again.
"Bring forth the stovepipe,
The stovepipe, the stovepipe--"
chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus.
"And my butterfly necktie with--"
"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father.
They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer, was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near, and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage.
"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to do?"
"Do?"
Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it. "Oh, of course! Hah? But what yit?"
I regret to say that Seffy did not understand.
"Seffy," he said impressively, "you haf' tol' me what you goin' to wear. It ain't much. The weather's yit pooty col' nights. But I ken stand it if you ken--God knows about Sally! Now, what you goin' to do--that's the conuntrum I ast you!"
Still it was not clear to Seffy.
"Why--what I'm a-going to do, hah? Why--whatever occurs."
"Gosh-a'mighty! And nefer say a word or do a sing to help the occurrences along? Goshens! What a setting-up! Why--say--Seffy, what you set up for?"
Seffy did not exactly know. He had never hoped to practise the thing--in that sublimely militant phase.
"What do you think?"
"Well, Sef--plow straight to her heart. I wisht I had your chance. I'd show you a other-guess kind a setting-up--yassir! Make your mouth warter and your head swim, begoshens! Why, that Sally's just like a young stubble-field; got to be worked constant, and plowed deep, and manured heafy, and mebby drained wiss blind ditches, and crops changed constant, and kep' a-going thataway--constant--constant--so's the weeds can't git in her. Then you ken put her in wheat after a while and git your money back."
This drastic metaphor had its effect. Seffy began to understand. He said so.
"Now, look here, Seffy," his father went on more softly, "when you git to this--and this--and this,"--he went through his pantomime again, and it included a progressive caressing to the kissing point--"well, chust when you bose comfortable--hah?--mebby on one cheer, what I know--it's so long sence I done it myself--when you bose comfortable, ast her--chust ast her--aham!--what she'll take for the pasture-field! She owns you bose and she can't use bose you and the pasture. A bird in the hand is worth seferal in another feller's--not so?"
But Seffy only stopped and stared at his father. This, again, he did not understand.
"You know well enough I got no money to buy no pasture-field," said he.
"Gosh-a'mighty!" said the old man joyfully, making as if he would strike Seffy with his huge fist--a thing he often did. "And ain't got nossing to trade?"
"Nothing except the mare!" said the boy.
"Say--ain't you got no feelings, you idjiot?"
"Oh--" said Seffy. And then: "But what's feelings got to do with cow-pasture?"
"Oach! No wonder he wants to be an anchel, and wiss the anchels stand--holding sings in his hands and on his head! He's too good for this wile world. He'd linger shifering on the brink and fear to launch away all his durn life--if some one didn't push him in. So here goes!"
This was spoken to the skies, apparently, but now he turned to his son again.
"Look a-yere, you young dummer-ux, feelings is the same to gals like Sally, as money is to you and me. You ken buy potatoes wiss 'em! Do you understand?"
Seffy said that he did, now.
"Well, then, I'fe tried to buy that pasture-field a sousand times--"
Seffy started.
"Yas, that's a little bit a lie--mebby a dozen times. And at last Sally's daddy said he'd lick me if I efer said pasture-field ag'in, and I said it ag'in and he licked me! He was a big man--and red-headed yit, like Sally. Now, look a-yere--you ken git that pasture-field wissout money and wissout price--except you' dam' feelings which ain't no other use. Sally won't lick you--if she is bigger--don't be a-skeered. You got tons of feelin's you ain't got no other use for--don't waste 'em--they're good green money, and we'll git efen wiss Sally's daddy for licking me yit--and somesing on the side! Huh?"
At last it was evident that Seffy fully understood, and his father broke into that discordant whistle once more.
"A gal that ken jump a six-rail fence--and wissout no running start--don't let her git apast you!"
"Well, I'm going to set up with her to-night," said Seffy again, with a huge ahem. And the tune his father whistled as he opened the door for him sounded something like "I want to be an angel."
"But not to buy no pasture-land!" warned Seffy.
"Oach, no, of course not!" agreed his wily old father. "That's just one of my durn jokes. But I expect I'll take the fence down to-morrow! Say, Sef, you chust marry the gal. I'll take keer the fence!"
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Literature · Humor
The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) 6
