LETTER IX.

Pineville, June 19th, 1843. Dear Sir,

Everything’s went on pretty smooth sense I writ my last letter to you. Mary soon got over her skare, but the way she’s mad at Cousin Pete won’t wear off in a coon’s age. She ses he musent never put his foot in our house, if he don’t want to get his old red whiskers scalded off his fool face. She ses she always thought Pete had _some sense_, but now, she ses, she don’t know whether he’s a bigger rascal than he is a fool.

Wimmin’s monstrous curious critters, now ’tween you and me, and it takes more hed than I’ve got to manage ’em without some diffikilties now and then. It seems to me Mary’s gittin’ curiouser every day. I don’t know what upon yeath to make of her sometimes, she acts so quar. Lord knows, I does everything in my power to please her—I gits everything she wants—I always lets her have her own way in everything, and I stays home with her more’n half my time—but every now and then she takes a cryin’ spell, jest for nothin’. Now, I’ll jest tell you one little circumstance, jest to let you see how curious she does do me sometimes.

Two or three months ago little Sally Rogers gin her one of the leetlest dogs I reckon you ever did see. It’s a little white curly thing ’bout as big as my fist, with little red eyes and a little bushy tail screwed rite over its back so tite that it can’t hardly touch its hind legs to the floor, and when it barks it’s got a little sharp voice that goes rite through a body’s hed like a cotton gimblet. Well, Mary and the galls is all the time washin’ and comin’, and fixin’ it off with ribbons on its neck and tail, and nursin’ it in ther laps till they’ve got the dratted thing so sasy that ther ain’t no gittin’ along with it.

Whenever I go ’bout Mary it’s a snarlin’ and snappin’ at me, and when ennybody comes in the house, it flies at ’em like it was gwine to tare ’em all to pieces, and makes more racket than all the dogs on the place. It’s bit my fingers two or three times, and if I jest tetch it, it’ll squall out like its back was broke, and run rite to the wimmin and git under ther chairs, and then the very old harry’s to pay.

If ever I say anything about it, then they all say I’m “jealous of poor little Tip,” and that I ought to be ashamed of myself to be mad at “the dear little feller.” Well, I always laugh it off the best way I can, but I reckon I’ve wished some rat would catch “poor little Tip” more’n a thousand times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was to be tuck suddenly sick and die some of these days, ’thout enybody knowing the cause. But I jest want to tell a instance of the devilment he kicks up sometimes.

Last night we was all settin’ in the parlour—the galls was sowin’, and Mary and me was playin’ a game of drafts, and I was jest about to pen her with three kings, when one of the checks happened to drap off the board rite down by Mary’s foot. I stooped over to pick it up, when the fust thing I knowd, snap the little devil of a dog tuck me rite by the finger, and then set up a terrible barkin’ and run rite behind Mary’s foot.

I never wanted to hit nothin’ so bad in my life, and I leaned over to tap him on the head, but Mary put her little foot out before him, and I missed Tip’s nose about an inch, and he snapped agin. I leaned over further and further, and tried to hit him, but Mary’s foot was always in the way every time, and the last time when I was reachin’ jest as fur as I could, and her foot was in the way, and the little cus was squealin’ and snappin’ as hard as he could, I got sort o’ out of patience tryin’ to hit him, and ses I:

“_Don’t_ put your foot in the way!”

Jest then down went the “History of England” and all the checks on the floor, and Tip run under Mary’s chair, clear out of sight, squallin’ like he was killed, when ther wasn’t a hair of him tetched. When I ris up my face was a little red, and I would gin a five dollar bill jest to tramp that infernal dog out of his hide. Well, what do you think? the fust thing I knowed Mary was a cryin’ like her hart was gwine to brake.

“Why,” ses I, “Mary, what’s the matter with you? I didn’t touch Tip.”

She didn’t say nothing but jest went on cryin’ worse and worse, and told Miss Carline to hand her the colone water; and ther she sot and cried and snuffed the colone and sighed, and nobody didn’t know what the matter was.

“Why, Mary,” ses I, “what upon yeath ails you? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Y-e-s, you-oo-did. I-didn’t-think-you-oo-would-speak-so to-oo me, Joseph. I didn’t think you’d git mad at me-e-e, so I didn’t.”

“Why, lord bless your dear soul, I ain’t mad at you, Mary!” ses I, “what makes you think I could git mad at you?”

“’Cause I didn’t want you to hurt poor little Tip—poor little feller, he didn’t know no better.”

“But, Mary, I wasn’t mad at you at all,” ses I, “what makes you think so?”

“’Cause you never said _don’t_ so cross to me before—you said it jest as cross as you could.”

“But I wasn’t mad, honey—it was reachin’ over so fur made me speak sort o’ quick,” ses I, “I never was mad at you in my life.”

But in spite of all I could say or do I couldn’t git her in a good humour the whole evenin’, jest ’cause I said “don’t” to her when she kep’ puttin’ her foot in my way. It’s all over now, but I dasn’t look sideways at Tip for fear he’ll kick up another fuss. It’s monstrous curious. I know Mary loves me, and ther ain’t a sweeter tempered nor a better gall in Georgia, but they all have such curious ways sometimes. Old Miss Stallins say it’s always so at first, but she ses Mary’ll git over all them little childish notions one of these days. Ther’s one thing certain, I wish ther was no little dogs in our family.

I never was so supprised in my life as when I heard ’bout them oudacious bank robbers. I think they better alter the law about jurys, so that when they want to try criminal cases hereafter, they can jest send to the Penitentiary and git twelve fellers at once to come and be jurymen. They’d answer the purpose jest as well, and then honest men wouldn’t be put to no trouble to go to court jest to be objected to by the lawyers on account of ther good charaters. Besides it’s a insult to a decent man to be put on a jury now, in a criminal case.

Ther was a trial in our county not long ago of a feller what had killed a man and robbed him of a heap of money. Ther was lots of lawyers here in his favour, and when they come to pick out the jury ther was hardly twelve men in the county that the lawyers thought mean enough to set on the case. They was two days a gittin’ a jury, and every time they called up a decent lookin’ man, the prisoner’s lawyers would look at him and say, “give him the book,” and if he sed he hadn’t formed and expressed no opinion as to the gilt of the prisoner, (which most every man that cared anything about law or justice had done,) they’d look at him close, and then whisper to one another, and if they hadn’t never heard of his robin’ anybody’s hen-roost or stealin’ anything, they’d say, “object.”

Mose Sanders was called up, and Mose ain’t a very good-lookin’ feller, though he’s a honest man as ever lived. They looked at Mose awhile, and he felt sort o’ bashful I s’pose, and looked sort o’ mean, and they said “content.” Well, the case was tryed, and it was such a perfect open and shut bisness that they couldn’t help bringin’ the feller in guilty in spite of the lawyers. But ther ain’t a man in the county that is got any confidence in Mose Sanders after that—his character is completely ruined, cause everybody thinks the lawyers wouldn’t tuck him on that jury if they didn’t know he was a rascal. For my own part I would jest as leav be s’picioned of stealin’ a sheep, as to be put upon a criminal jury by the lawyers now-a-days. No more from

Your frend, ’til deth, Jos. Jones.