ver in wimmen's rights that she got enemies that way.
Well, you know right when she started for the World's Fair, helpin'
herself along by sellin' the book, "The Wild, Wicked, and Warlike
Deeds of Men" (which she said she felt wuz her duty to promulgate to
wimmen to keep 'em from marryin' and makin' fools of themselves).
Well, right there, some like Paul on his way to Jerusalem breathin'
vengeance against his Lord, a great light struck him down in the road,
so with Arvilly, the great light of Love stopped her in her career,
she dropped her book, married the man she loved and who loved her, and
lived happy as a queen till the Cuban war broke out.

Her husband wuz a good man, not the smartest in the world, but a good,
honest God-fearin' man, who had had a hard time to get along, but
always tried to do jest right, and who hailed Arvilly's bright
intellect and practical good sense and household knowledge as a
welcome relief from incompetence in hired girl form in the kitchen.
His first wife died when his little girl wuz born, and she wuz about
seven when Arvilly married her pa. Well, he bein' jest what he
wuz--conscientious, God-fearin' and havin' hearn his minister preach
powerful sermons on this bein' a war of God aginst the Devil,
enlightenment and Christianity aginst ignorance and barbarism, America
aginst Spain--he got all fired up with the sense of what wuz his duty
to do, and when his mind wuz made up to that no man or woman could
turn him. Arvilly might have just as well spent her tears and
entreaties on her soapstun. No, go he must and go he would. But like
the good man he wuz, he made everything just as comfortable as he
could for her and his little daughter, a pretty creeter that Arvilly
too loved dearly. And then he bid 'em a sad adoo, for he loved 'em
well, and Arvilly had made his home a comfortable and happy one. But
he choked back his tears, tried to smile on 'em with his tremblin'
lips, held 'em both long in his strong arms, onclosed 'em, and they
wuz bereft. Well, Arvilly held the weeping little girl in her arms,
bent over her with white face and dry eyes, for his sake endured the
long days and longer nights alone with the child, for his sake taking
good care of her, wondering at the blow that had fell upon her,
wondering that if in the future she could be so blest agin as to have
a home, for love is the soul of the home, and she felt homeless.

Well, she watched and worked, takin' good care of the little