Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Some of Mrs. Partingtons Opinions
By Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (18141890)“W
Mrs. Partington paused, looking over the top of the paper at the country member, as though she were resting her gaze there preparatory to making another shot, while Ike sat on the floor, lathering the cat with raw custard.
She carefully weighed the question, as though she were selling snuff, and answered—
“Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not.”
Her neighbor was perplexed, and repeated the question, varying it a little.
“Have you seen the ‘Mrs. Partington Twilight Soap?’” she asked.
“Yes,” was the reply; “everybody has seen that; but why?”
“Because,” said the dame, “it has two sides to it, and it is hard to choose between ’em. Now, here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on both sides—one goes for probation, t’other for licentiousness; and I think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance.”
She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired, and smiled, while Ike lay on the floor, with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. Partington’s fancy waiter on his toe.
“’Tain’t nothing else,” replied he, thrusting the cat’s head through the paper, which served as an elaborate choker.
“Et als!” mused she. “I never ate als in my life that I know of, though there is so many dishes with new names that one might forget ’em all, unless he is an epicac.”
She turned everything in her mind to remember what she had eaten,—her mind an oven full of turnovers.—but it refused to come to her; and she made a memorandum by tying a knot in her handkerchief, to call on the editor, and find out about it. Ike sat upon the leaf of the extension-table, swinging his feet beneath it, trying to make a tune out of the creak.