wanted to have some diamond lockets, and ought to have 'em but she
didn't know whether they could manage to get them or not, if they
did, they had got to scrimp along every way they could. And then
they wuz goin' to have company from a distance, and had got to get
another girl to wait on 'em. And though she wished the poor well,
she felt that she could not dare to promise a cent to 'em. She
wished the Smedley family well -- dretful well -- and hoped I
would get lots of things for 'em. But she didn't really feel as
if it would be safe for her to promise'em a pound of anything,
though mebby she might, by a great effort, raise a pound of flour
for 'em, or meal.

Says I dryly (dry as meal ever wuz in its dryest times), "I
wouldn't give too much. Though," says I, "A pound of flour would
go a good ways if it is used right." And I thought to myself that
she had better keep it to make a paste to smooth over things.

Wall, I went from that to Miss Jacob Hess'es, and Miss Jacob Hess
wouldn't give anything because the old lady wuz disagreeable, old
Grandma Smedley, and I said to Miss Jacob Hess that if the Lord
didn't send His rain and dew onto anybody only the perfectly
agreeable, I guessed there would be pretty dry times. It wuz my
opinion there would be considerable of a drouth.

There wuz a woman there a visitin' Miss Hess -- she wuz a stranger
to me and I didn't ask her for anything, but she spoke up of her
own accord and said she would give, and give liberal, only she wuz
hampered. She didn't say why, or who, or when, but she only sez
this that "she wuz hampered," and I don't know to this day what
her hamper wuz, or who hampered her.