"
O woman! When the heft of thy intellect is thrown against a
problem, something has got to give. Not long after, Uriah sits
down to dinner, and can hardly ask a blessing, he has to swallow
so. A pie is on the table!
"Gosh, Mary Ann, but this is good!" says he, holding out his hand
for the third piece. "This is lickinn good!" And he celebrates her
achievement far and wide.
"My Mary Ann med me a pie t' other day, was the all-firedest best
pie I ever et."
"Med you what?"
"Med me a pie."
"Pie? Whutch talkinn' baout? Can't git nummore pies naow. Frot 's
all gin aout."
"I golly, she med it just the same. Smartest woman y' ever see."
The man dribbled at the mouth.
"What sh' make it aout o'?"
"Vinegar an' worter, I think she said. I d' know 's I ever et
anythinn I relished julluk that. My Mary Ann, tell yew! She's
'baout's smart 's they make 'em."
I wish I knew who she really was whom I have called Mary Ann Kinney,
she that made the first vinegar-pie. I wish I knew where her grave
is that I might lay upon it a bunch of flowers, such as she knew
and liked - sweet-william, and phlox, and larkspur, and wild
columbine. It couldn't make it up to her for all the hardships she
underwent when she was bringing up a family in that wild, western
country, and especially that fall when they all had the "fever 'n'
ager" so bad, Uriah and the twins chilling one day, and Hiram and
Sophronia Jane the next, and she just as miserable as any of them,
but keeping up somehow, God only knows how.
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