As for the one with the blue trimmings, she said nothing, but stood
with her hands folded on her rake, and her chiselled features steeped
in a meek resignedness, though much too high colored, as though it had
just been borne in upon her that this world is all a fleeting show, for
man's illusion given, and such felicity as culling fragrant hay by the
side of that manly form must e'en be foregone by her, that I could
have taken a handle of a rake and given her such a punch among her blue
ribbons that her classic features would have frantically twined
themselves around one resounding howl - but I didn't. I simply remarked
to Jone, with a statuesque rigidity, that it was six o'clock and I was
going home; to which he said he was going too, and we went.
[Illustration: "THERE, WITH THE BAR LADY AND THE MARIE ANTOINETTE
CHAMBERMAID, WAS JONE"]
"I thought," said I, as we proceeded with rapid steps across the field,
"that you didn't come to England for the purpose of teaching the
inhabitants."
Jone laughed a little. "That young lady put it rather strong," he said.
"She and her friend was merely trying to rake as I did. I think they
got on very well."
"Indeed!" said I - I expect with flashing eye - "but the next time you go
into the disciple business I recommend that you take boys who really
need to know something about farming, and not fine-as-fiddle young
women that you might as well be ballet-dancing with as raking with, for
all the hankering after knowledge they have."
"Oh!" said Jone, and that was all he did say, which was very wise in
him, for, considering my state of feelings, his case was like a
fish-hook in your finger - the more you pull and worry at it the harder
it is to get out.
That evening, when I was quite cooled down, and we was talking to Mr.
Poplington about the hay-making and the free-and-easy way in which
everybody came together, he was a good deal surprised that we should
think that there was anything uncommon in that, coming from a country
where everybody was free and equal. Jone was smoking his pipe, and when
it draws well and he's had a good dinner and I haven't anything
particular to say, he often likes to talk slow and preach little
sermons.
"Yes, sir," said he, after considering the matter a little while,
"according to the Constitution of the United States we are all free and
equal, but there's a good many things the Constitution doesn't touch
on, and one of them is the sorting out and sizing up of the population.
Now, you people over here are like the metal types that the printers
use.
