Part 35 (2/2)
To have her with me there alone,-- 'Twas love and fear and triumph blended.
At last we reached the foot-worn stone Where that delicious journey ended.
The old folks, too, were almost home; Her dimpled hand the latches fingered, We heard the voices nearer come, Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.
She took her ringlets from her hood, And with a ”Thank you, Ned,” dissembled; But yet I knew she understood With what a daring wish I trembled.
A cloud past kindly overhead, The moon was slyly peeping through it, Yet hid its face, as if it said, ”Come, now or never! do it! _do it_!”
My lips till then had only known The kiss of mother and of sister, But somehow full upon her own Sweet, rosy, darling mouth--I kissed her!
Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still, O, listless woman! weary lover!
To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill I'd give--but who can live youth over?
HOW ”OLD MOSE” COUNTED EGGS.
Old Mose, who sold eggs and chickens on the streets of Austin for a living, is as honest an old negro as ever lived, but he has got the habit of chatting familiarly with his customers, hence he frequently makes mistakes in counting out the eggs they buy. He carries his wares around in a small cart drawn by a diminutive donkey. He stopped in front of the residence of Mrs. Samuel Burton. The old lady herself came out to the gate to make the purchases.
”Have you any eggs this morning, Uncle Mose?” she asked.
”Yes, indeed I has. Jest got in ten dozen from the kentry.”
”Are they fresh?”
”I gua'ntee 'em. I knows dey am fresh jest the same as ef I had led 'em myself.”
”I'll take nine dozen. You can just count them into this basket.”
”All right, mum.” He counts, ”One, two, free, foah, five, six, seben, eight, nine, ten. You kin rely on dem bein fresh. How's your son coming on at de school? He mus' be mos' grown.”
”Yes, Uncle Mose, he is a clerk in a bank at Galveston.”
”Why, how ole am de boy?”
”He is eighteen.”
”You don't tole me so. Eighteen and getting a salary already, eighteen (counting), nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-free, twenty-foah, twenty-five, and how's yore gal comin' on? She was mos' growed up de las' time I seed her.”
”She is married and living in Dallas.”
”Wall, I declar'. How de time scoots away! An' yo' say she has childruns?
Why, how ole am de gal? She mus' be jess about--”
”Thirty-three.”
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