Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer and punctuation errors have been corrected, but dialect, unconventional and inconsistent spellings (haint/hain’t, their/thier, etc) are left untouched.

Cover image created by the transcriber, and placed in the public domain.

MR. BOBBET TELLS NEWS.

MY OPINIONS
AND
BETSEY BOBBET’S.

DESIGNED AS
A BEACON LIGHT,
TO GUIDE WOMEN TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS,
BUT WHICH MAY BE READ BY
MEMBERS OF THE STERNER SECT,
WITHOUT INJURY TO THEMSELVES
OR THE BOOK.

BY
JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE.

“Who will read the Book, Samantha, when it is rote?”

PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY,

HARTFORD, CONN.:
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1884.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by the
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

This Book is Dedicated
To my own Lawful Pardner,
JOSIAH.
Whom (although I have been his Consort
for a little upwards of 14 years)
I still Love with a
CAST-IRON DEVOTEDNESS.

PREFACE.

Which is to be read, if it haint askin’ too much of the kind hearted reader.

In the first days of our married life, I strained nearly every nerve to help my companion Josiah along and take care of his children by his former consort, the subject of black African slavery also wearin’ on me, and a mortgage of 200 and 50 dollars on the farm. But as we prospered and the mortgage was cleared, and the children were off to school, the black African also bein’ liberated about the same time of the mortgage, then my mind bein’ free from these cares—the great subject of Wimmen’s Rites kept a goarin’ me, and a voice kept a sayin’ inside of me,

“Josiah Allen’s wife, write a book givin’ your views on the great subject of Wimmen’s Rites.” But I hung back in spirit from the idea and says I, to myself, “I never went to school much and don’t know nothin’ about grammer, and I never could spell worth a cent.”

But still that deep voice kept a ’swaiden me—“Josiah Allen’s wife, write a book.”

Says I, “I can’t write a book, I don’t know no underground dungeons, I haint acquainted with no haunted houses, I never see a hero suspended over a abyss by his gallusses, I never beheld a heroine swoon away, I never see a Injun tommy hawked, nor a ghost; I never had any of these advantages; I can’t write a book.”

But still it kept a sayin’ inside of my mind, “Josiah Allen’s wife write a book about your life, as it passes in front of you and Josiah, daily, and your views on Wimmen’s Rites. The great publick wheel is a rollin’ on slowly, drawin’ the Femail Race into liberty; Josiah Allen’s wife, put your shoulder blades to the wheel.”

And so that almost hauntin’ voice inside of me kept a ’swaidin me, and finally I spoke out in a loud clear voice and answered it—

“I will put my shoulder blades to the wheel.”

I well remember the time I said it, for it skairt Josiah almost to death. It was night and we was both settin’ by the fire relapsted into silence and he—not knowin’ the conversation goin’ on inside of my mind, thought I was crazy, and jumped up as if he was shot, and says he, in tremblin’ tones,

“What is the matter Samantha?”

Says I, “Josiah I am goin’ to write a book.”

This skairt him worse than ever—I could see, by his ghastly countenance—and he started off on the run for the camfire bottle.

Says I, in firm but gentle axcents, “camfire can’t stop me Josiah, the book will be wrote.”

He see by my pale but calm countenance, that I was not delirious any, and (by experience) he knows that when my mind is made up, I have got a firm and almost cast iron resolution. He said no more, but he sot down and sithed hevily; finally he spoke out in a despairin’ tone, he is pretty close (but honest),

“Who will read the book Samantha? Remember if you write it you have got to stand the brunt of it yourself—I haint no money to hire folks with to read it.” And again he sithed two or three times. And he hadn’t much more than got through sithein’ when he asked me again in a tone of almost agony—

“Who will read the book Samantha after you write it?”

The same question was fillin’ me with agonizin’ apprehension, but I concealed it and answered with almost marble calm,

“I don’t know Josiah, but I am determined to put my shoulder blades to the wheel and write it.”

Josiah didn’t say no more then, but it wore on him—for that night in the ded of night he spoke out in his sleep in a kind of a wild way,

“Who will read the book?”

I hunched him with my elbo’ to wake him up, and he muttered—“I won’t pay out one cent of my money to hire any body to read it.”

I pitied him, for I was afraid it would end in the Night Mair, and I waked him up, and promised him then and there, that I never would ask him to pay out one cent to hire any body to read it. He has perfect confidence in me and he brightened up and haint never said a word sense against the idea, and that is the way this book come to be wrote.

WHAT IS IN THE BOOK.

PICTURES IN THE BOOK.

MARRIED TO JOSIAH ALLEN.

If anybody had told me when I was first born that I would marry to a widower, I should have been mad at ’em. I lived up to this idee quite a number of years, how many, is nobody’s business, that I will contend for. I laughed at the idee of love in my blindness of eye. But the first minute I sot my grey eye onto Josiah Allen I knew my fate. My heart was a pray to feelin’s it had heretofore been a stranger to.

Sez I to myself “Is this love?” I couldn’t answer, I was too agitated.

Josiah told me afterwards that he felt jest exactly the same, only, when his heart wildly put the question to him, “Is it love you feel for Samantha Smith?” he havin’ experience in the same, answered, “Yes, it is love.”

I married Josiah Allen (in mother’s parlor, on the fourteenth day of June, in a bran new silk dress with a long boddis waist) from pure love. Though why I loved him, I know not. I looked at his mild face beamin’ on me from above his black silk stock, which kep’ his head kinder stiff, and asked myself this question, “Why do you love him?” I reckolected then, and I have recalled it to his mind several times sense in our little differences of opinion, which occur in the happiest families—that I had had offers from men, handsomer than him, with more intelect than him, with more riches than him, with less children than him. Why didn’t I love these various men? I knew not. I can only repeat in the immortal and almost deathless lines of the poet, “Love will go where it is sent.”

Yes, Josiah Allen was my fate, and when I laid my light silk glove in his’en (they was almost of a color, a kind of cinnemen broun) before the alter, or that is before Elder Wesley Minkley, I did it with the purest and tenderest emotions of love.

And that love has been like a Becon in our pathway ever sense. Its pure light, though it has sputtered some, and in tryin’ times such as washin’ days and cleanin’ house times has burnt down pretty low,—has never gone out.

When I married him the bald spot on his head wuzn’t much bigger than a new silver dollar. Now the top of his head is as smooth and clean as one of my stun china dinner plates, and if any horse jocky was to try to judge of his age by lookin’ at his teeth, they would be baffled, not but what he has got some teeth, but they are pretty scatterin’. But still that Becon shines, that pure love triumphs over lost teeth and vanished sandy hair. There haint a man on the face of the earth that looks so good to me as Josiah Allen. I don’t tell him this, mind you, 14 years experience of married life has taught me caution. Josiah is as good as they’ll average generally, but no man can’t stand too much flattery, men are naturally vain.

I AND JOSIAH.

As I said in the commencement of this plain and unvarnished history, I had almost a deadly objection to widowers owin’ to their habit of comparin’ their second wives to their first relict, to the disadvantage of the first-named pardner. Josiah tride it with me when we was first married. But I didn’t encourage him in it. He began on several various times, “It seems to me Samantha that Polly Ann used to fry up her meat a little cripsier,” or “It seems as if Polly Ann used to make my collers a little stiffer.” He stopped it before we had been married a year, for I didn’t encourage it in him.

As I mean that this book shall be a Becon light, guidin’ female wimmen, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of true happiness, I would insert right here this word of solem’ warnin’ to my sect situated in the tryin’ place of second consorts, if the relict goes to comparin’ you to his foregone consort, don’t encourage him in it. On this short rule hangs the hope of domestick harmony.

ABOUT JOSIAH AND THE CHILDREN.

But step-mothers have a pretty hard row to hoe, though I don’t complain. I like children, clean children first rate, and I have tried to do my duty by his’en. I have done as well by ’em as I knew how to, and I think a sight of Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah Ann. Tirzah Ann is dreadful sentimental, that is what spiles her mostly. And Thomas Jefferson thinks he knows more than his father, that is his greatest failin’. But take ’em all through, they are full as good as other folks’es children, and I know it. Thomas Jefferson is dreadful big feelin’, he is 17 years old, he wears a stove pipe hat, and is tryin’ to raise a moustache, it is now jest about as long as the fuzz on cotton flannel and most as white. They both go to Jonesville to high school, (we hire a room for ’em to Mother Allen’s, and they board themselves,) but they are to home every Saturday, and then they kinder quarell all day jest as brothers and sisters will. What agravates Thomas J. the worst is to call him “bub,” and Tirzah Ann don’t call him anything else unless she forgets herself.

He seems to think it is manly to have doubts about religeon. I put him through the catechism, and thought he was sound. But he seems to think it is manly to argue about free moral agency, foreordination, and predestination, and his father is jest fool enough to argue with him. Sez he last Saturday,

“Father, if it was settled beyond question six or seven thousand years ago that I was goin’ to be lost what good does it do for me to squirm? and if it was settled that I was goin’ to be saved, how be I goin’ to help myself?” sez he, “I believe we can’t help ourselves, what was meant to happen, will happen.”

Before his father had time to speak—Josiah is a slow spoken man, Tirzah Ann spoke up—

“Bub, if it was settled six or seven thousand years ago that I should take your new jockey club and hair oil, and use ’em all myself, why then I shall.”

“Tirzah Ann,” says he “If you should touch ’em it was foreordained from creation that you would get dreadfully hurt.” But I spoke up then for the first time, says I,

“You see Thomas J. that come to fighting you have moral agency enough—or immoral agency. Now,” says I, “I won’t hear another word from you, you Thomas J. are a young fool, and you Josiah Allen are a old one, now,” says I “go to the barn, for I want to mop.”

Tirzah Ann as I said is dreadful sentimental, I don’t know which side she took it from, though I mistrust that Josiah if he had any encouragement would act spoony. I am not the woman to encourage any kind of foolishness. I remember when we was first engaged, he called me “a little angel.” I jest looked at him calmly and says I,

“I weigh two hundred and 4 pounds,” and he didn’t call me so again.

TIRZAH ANN.

No! sentiment aint my style, and I abhor all kinds of shams and deceitfulness. Now to the table you don’t ketch me makin’ excuses. I should feel as mean as pusley if I did. Though once in a while when I have particuler company, and my cookin’ turns out bad, I kinder turn the conversation on to the sufferin’s of our four fathers in the Revolution, how they eat their katridge boxes and shoe leather. It don’t do us no hurt to remember their sufferin’s, and after talkin’ about eatin’ shoe leather most any kind of cake seems tender.

I spose that life runs along with Josiah and the children and me about as easy as it does with most men and female wimmen. We have got a farm of 75 acres of land all paid for. A comfortable story and a half yeller house—good barns, and a bran new horse barn, and health. Our door yard is large and shady with apple, and pear, and cherry trees; and Tirzah Ann has got posy beds under the winders that look first rate. And where there haint no posy beds nor shade trees, the grass grows smooth and green, and it is a splendid place to dry clothes. On the north side of the house is our orchard, the trees grow clear up to our kitchen winder, and when the north door is open in the spring of the year, and I stand there ironin’, the trees all covered with pink blows it is a pleasant sight. But a still pleasanter sight is it in the fall of the year to stand in the door and see Josiah and Thomas Jefferson pickin’ up barells of the great red and yeller grafts at a dollar a bushel. Beyond the orchard down a little bit of a side hill runs the clear water of the canal. In front of the house towards the south—but divided from it by a good sized door yard and a picket fence, runs the highway, and back of the house, if I do say it that ortn’t to, there is as good a garden as there is in these parts. For I set my foot down in the first ont, that I would have garden sass of all kinds, and strawberrys, and gooseberrys, and currant, and berry bushes, and glad enough is Josiah now to think that he heard to me. It took a little work of course, but I believe in havin’ things good to eat, and so does Josiah. That man has told me more’n a hundred times sense that “of all the sass that ever was made, garden sass was the best sass.” To the south of the house is our big meadow—the smell of the clover in the summer is as sweet as anything, our bees get the biggest part of their honey there, the grass looks beautiful wavin’ in the sunshine, and Josiah cut from it last summer 4 tons of hay to the acre.

AN UNMARRIED FEMALE.

I suppose we are about as happy as the most of folks, but as I was sayin’, a few days ago to Betsy Bobbet a neighborin’ female of ours—“Every Station house in life has its various skeletons. But we ort to try to be contented with that spear of life we are called on to handle.” Betsey haint married and she don’t seem to be contented. She is awful opposed to wimmen’s rights, she thinks it is wimmen’s only spear to marry, but as yet she can’t find any man willin’ to lay holt of that spear with her. But you can read in her daily life and on her eager willin’ countenance that she fully realizes the sweet words of the poet, “while there is life there is hope.”

Betsey haint handsome. Her cheek bones are high, and she bein’ not much more than skin and bone they show plainer than they would if she was in good order. Her complexion (not that I blame her for it) haint good, and her eyes are little and sot way back in her head. Time has seen fit to deprive her of her hair and teeth, but her large nose he has kindly suffered her to keep, but she has got the best white ivory teeth money will buy; and two long curls fastened behind each ear, besides frizzles on the top of her head, and if she wasn’t naturally bald, and if the curls was the color of her hair they would look well. She is awful sentimental, I have seen a good many that had it bad, but of all the sentimental creeters I ever did see Betsey Bobbet is the sentimentalest, you couldn’t squeeze a laugh out of her with a cheeze press.

BETSEY BOBBET.

As I said she is awful opposed to wimmin’s havein’ any right only the right to get married. She holds on to that right as tight as any single woman I ever see which makes it hard and wearin’ on the single men round here. For take the men that are the most opposed to wimmin’s havin’ a right, and talk the most about its bein’ her duty to cling to man like a vine to a tree, they don’t want Betsey to cling to them, they won’t let her cling to ’em. For when they would be a goin’ on about how wicked it was for wimmin to vote—and it was her only spear to marry, says I to ’em “Which had you ruther do, let Betsey Bobbet cling to you or let her vote?” and they would every one of ’em quail before that question. They would drop their heads before my keen grey eyes—and move off the subject.

But Betsey don’t get discourajed. Every time I see her she says in a hopeful wishful tone, “That the deepest men of minds in the country agree with her in thinkin’ that it is wimmin’s duty to marry, and not to vote.” And then she talks a sight about the retirin’ modesty and dignity of the fair sect, and how shameful and revoltin’ it would be to see wimmen throwin’ ’em away, and boldly and unblushin’ly talkin’ about law and justice.

Why to hear Betsey Bobbet talk about wimmin’s throwin’ their modesty away you would think if they ever went to the political pole, they would have to take their dignity and modesty and throw ’em against the pole, and go without any all the rest of their lives.

Now I don’t believe in no such stuff as that, I think a woman can be bold and unwomanly in other things besides goin’ with a thick veil over her face, and a brass mounted parasol, once a year, and gently and quietly dropping a vote for a christian president, or a religeous and noble minded pathmaster.

She thinks she talks dreadful polite and proper, she says “I was cameing” instead of “I was coming,” and “I have saw” instead of “I have seen,” and “papah” for paper, and “deah” for dear. I don’t know much about grammer, but common sense goes a good ways. She writes the poetry for the Jonesville Augur, or “Augah,” as she calls it. She used to write for the opposition paper, the Jonesville Gimlet, but the editer of the Augur, a long haired chap, who moved into Jonesville a few months ago, lost his wife soon after he come there, and sense that she has turned Dimocrat, and writes for his paper stiddy. They say that he is a dreadful big feelin’ man, and I have heard—it came right straight to me—his cousin’s wife’s sister told it to the mother in law of one of my neighbor’s brother’s wife, that he didn’t like Betsey’s poetry at all, and all he printed it for was to plague the editer of the Gimlet, because she used to write for him. I myself wouldn’t give a cent a bushel for all the poetry she can write. And it seems to me, that if I was Betsey, I wouldn’t try to write so much, howsumever, I don’t know what turn I should take if I was Betsey Bobbet, that is a solemn subject and one I don’t love to think on.

I never shall forget the first piece of her poetry I ever see. Josiah Allen and I had both on us been married goin’ on a year, and I had occasion to go to his trunk one day where he kept a lot of old papers, and the first thing I laid my hand on was these verses. Josiah went with her a few times after his wife died, a 4th of July or so and two or three camp meetin’s, and the poetry seemed to be wrote about the time we was married. It was directed over the top of it “Owed to Josiah,” just as if she were in debt to him. This was the way it read.

“OWED TO JOSIAH.

Josiah I the tale have hurn,

With rigid ear, and streaming eye,

I saw from me that you did turn,

I never knew the reason why.

Oh Josiah,

It seemed as if I must expiah.

Why did you, Oh why did you blow

Upon my life of snowy sleet,

The fiah of love to fiercest glow,

Then turn a damphar on the heat?

Oh Josiah,

It seemed as if I must expiah.

I saw thee coming down the street,

She by your side in bonnet bloo;

The stuns that grated ’neath thy feet

Seemed crunching on my vitals too.

Oh Josiah,

It seemed as if I must expiah.

I saw thee washing sheep last night,

On the bridge I stood with marble brow,

The waters raged, thou clasped it tight,

I sighed, ‘should both be drownded now—’

I thought Josiah,

Oh happy sheep to thus expiah.”

I showed the poetry to Josiah that night after he came home, and told him I had read it. He looked awful ashamed to think I had seen it, and says he with a dreadful sheepish look,

“The persecution I underwent from that female can never be told, she fairly hunted me down, I hadn’t no rest for the soles of my feet. I thought one spell she would marry me in spite of all I could do, without givin’ me the benefit of law or gospel.” He see I looked stern, and he added with a sick lookin’ smile, “I thought one spell, to use Betsey’s language, ‘I was a gonah.’”

I didn’t smile—oh no, for the deep principle of my sect was reared up—I says to him in a tone cold enough to almost freeze his ears, “Josiah Allen, shet up, of all the cowardly things a man ever done, it is goin’ round braggin’ about wimmen’ likin’ em, and follerin’ em up. Enny man that’ll do that is little enough to crawl through a knot hole without rubbing his clothes.” Says I, “I suppose you made her think the moon rose in your head, and set in your heels, I dare say you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you make fun of her now to please me I let you know you have got holt of the wrong individual.” Now, says I, “go to bed,” and I added in still more freezing accents, “for I want to mend your pantaloons.” He gathered up his shoes and stockin’s and started off to bed, and we haint never passed a word on the subject sence. I believe when you disagree with your pardner, in freein’ your mind in the first on’t, and then not be a twittin’ about it afterwards. And as for bein’ jealous, I should jest as soon think of bein’ jealous of a meetin’-house as I should of Josiah. He is a well principled man. And I guess he wasn’t fur out o’ the way about Betsey Bobbet, though I wouldn’t encourage him by lettin’ him say a word on the subject, for I always make it a rule to stand up for my own sect; but when I hear her go on about the editor of the Augur, I can believe anything about Betsey Bobbet. She came in here one day last week, it was about ten o’clock in the mornin’. I had got my house slick as a pin, and my dinner under way, (I was goin’ to have a biled dinner, and a cherry puddin’ biled, with sweet sass to eat on it,) and I sot down to finish sewin’ up the breadth of my new rag carpet. I thought I would get it done while I hadn’t so much to do, for it bein’ the first of March, I knew sugarin’ would be comin’ on, and then cleanin’ house time, and I wanted it to put down jest as soon as the stove was carried out in the summer kitchen. The fire was sparklin’ away, and the painted floor a shinin’ and the dinner a bilin’, and I sot there sewin’ jest as calm as a clock, not dreamin’ of no trouble, when in came Betsey Bobbet.

I met her with outward calm, and asked her to set down and lay off her things. She sot down, but she said she couldn’t lay off her things. Says she, “I was comin’ down past, and I thought I would call and let you see the last numbah of the Augah, there is a piece in it concernin’ the tariff that stirs men’s souls, I like it evah so much.”

READING POETRY.

She handed me the paper, folded so I couldn’t see nothin’ but a piece of poetry by Betsey Bobbet. I see what she wanted of me and so I dropped my breadths of carpetin’ and took hold of it and began to read it.

“Read it audible if you please,” says she, “Especially the precious remahks ovah it, it is such a feast for me to be a sitting, and heah it reheahsed by a musical vorce.”

Says I, “I spose I can rehearse it if it will do you any good,” so I began as follers:

“It is seldem that we present to the readers of the Augur (the best paper for the fireside in Jonesville or the world) with a poem like the following. It may be by the assistance of the Augur (only twelve shillings a year in advance, wood and potatoes taken in exchange) the name of Betsey Bobbet will yet be carved on the lofty pinnacle of fame’s towering pillow. We think however that she could study such writers as Sylvanus Cobb, and Tupper with profit both to herself and to them.

Editor of the Augur.”

Here Betsey interrupted me, “The deah editah of the Augah had no need to advise me to read Tuppah, for he is indeed my most favorite authar, you have devorhed him havn’t you Josiah Allen’s wife?”

“Devoured who?” says I, in a tone pretty near as cold as a cold icicle.

“Mahten, Fahyueah, Tuppah, that sweet authar,” says she.

“No mom,” says I shortly, “I hain’t devoured Martin Farquhar Tupper, nor no other man, I hain’t a cannibal.”

“Oh! you understand me not, I meant, devorhed his sweet, tender lines.”

“I hain’t devoured his tenderlines, nor nothin’ relatin’ to him,” and I made a motion to lay the paper down, but Betsey urged me to go on, and so I read.

GUSHINGS OF A TENDAH SOUL.

Oh let who will,

Oh let who can,

Be tied onto

A horrid male man.

Thus said I ’ere,

My tendah heart was touched,

Thus said I ’ere

My tendah feelings gushed.

But oh a change

Hath swept ore me,

As billows sweep

The “deep blue sea.”

A voice, a noble form,

One day I saw;

An arrow flew,

My heart is nearly raw.

His first pardner lies

Beneath the turf,

He is wandering now,

In sorrows briny surf.

Two twins, the little

Deah cherub creechahs,

Now wipe the teahs,

From off his classic feachahs.

Oh sweet lot, worthy

Angel arisen,

To wipe the teahs,

From eyes like his’en.

“What think you of it?” says she as I finished readin’.

I looked right at her most a minute with a majestic look. In spite of her false curls, and her new white ivory teeth, she is a humbly critter. I looked at her silently while she sot and twisted her long yeller bunnet strings, and then I spoke out,

“Hain’t the Editor of the Augur a widower with a pair of twins?”

“Yes,” says she with a happy look.

Then says I, “If the man hain’t a fool, he’ll think you are one.”

“Oh!” says she, and she dropped her bunnet strings, and clasped her long bony hands together in her brown cotton gloves, “oh, we ahdent soles of genious, have feelin’s, you cold, practical natures know nuthing of, and if they did not gush out in poetry we should expiah. You may as well try to tie up the gushing catarack of Niagarah with a piece of welting cord, as to tie up the feelings of an ahdent sole.”

“Ardent sole!” says I coldly. “Which makes the most noise, Betsey Bobbet, a three inch brook or a ten footer? which is the tearer? which is the roarer? deep waters run stillest. I have no faith in feelin’s that stalk round in public in mournin’ weeds. I have no faith in such mourners,” says I.

“Oh Josiah’s wife, cold, practical female being, you know me not; we are sundered as fah apart as if you was sitting on the North pole, and I was sitting on the South pole. Uncongenial being, you know me not.”

“I may not know you, Betsey Bobbet, but I do know decency, and I know that no munny would tempt me to write such stuff as that poetry and send it to a widower, with twins.”

“Oh!” says she, “what appeals to the tendah feeling heart of a single female woman more, than to see a lonely man who has lost his relict? And pity never seems so much like pity as when it is given to the deah little children of widowehs. And,” says she, “I think moah than as likely as not, this soaring soul of genious did not wed his affinity, but was united to a weak women of clay.”

“Mere women of clay!” says I, fixin’ my spektacles upon her in a most searchin’ manner, “where will you find a woman, Betsey Bobbet, that hain’t more or less clay? and affinity, that is the meanest word I ever heard; no married woman has any right to hear it. I’ll excuse you, bein’ a female, but if a man had said it to me, I’d holler to Josiah. There is a time for everything, and the time to hunt affinity is before you are married; married folks hain’t no right to hunt it,” says I sternly.

“We kindred souls soah above such petty feelings, we soah fah above them.”

“I hain’t much of a soarer,” says I, “and I don’t pretend to be, and to tell you the truth,” says I, “I am glad I hain’t.”

“The Editah of the Augah,” says she, and she grasped the paper off’en the stand and folded it up, and presented it at me like a spear, “the Editah of this paper is a kindred soul, he appreciates me, he undahstands me, and will not our names in the pages of this very papah go down to posterety togathah?”

Then says I, drove out of all patience with her, “I wish you was there now, both of you, I wish,” says I, lookin’ fixedly on her, “I wish you was both of you in posterity now.”

HAVING MY PICTURE TOOK.

The very next Saturday after I had this conversation with Betsey, I went down to Jonesville to have my picture took, Tirzah Ann bein’ to home so she could get dinner for the menfolks. As for me I don’t set a great deal of store by pictures, but Josiah insisted and the children insisted, and I went. Tirzah Ann wanted me to have my hair curled, but there I was firm, I give in on the handkerchief pin, but on the curl business, there I was rock.

Mr. Gansey the man that takes pictures was in another room takin’ some, so I walked round the aunty room, as they call it, lookin’ at the pictures that hang up on the wall, and at the people that come in to have theirs took. Some of ’em was fixed up dreadful; it seemed to me as if they tried to look so that nobody wouldn’t know whose pictures they was, after they was took. Some of ’em would take off their bunnets and gaze in the lookin’-glass at themselves and try to look smilin’, and get an expression onto their faces that they never owned.

PREPARING FOR A PICTURE.

In one corner of the room was a bewrow, with a lookin’-glass and hair brushes onto it, and before it stood a little man dreadful dressed up, with long black hair streamin’ down over his coat coller, engaged in pouring a vial of oil onto his head, and brushing his hair with one of the brushes. I knew him in a minute, for I had seen him come into the meetin’ house. Afterwards when I was jest standin’ before the picture of a dreadful harmless lookin’ man—he looked meek enough to make excuses to his shadder for goin’ before it, and I was jest sayin’ to myself, “There is a man who would fry pancakes without complainin’,” I heard a voice behind me sayin’,

“So the navish villian stalks round yet in decent society.”

I turned round imegiately and see the little man, who had got through fixin’ his hair to have his pictur took, standin’ before me.

“Who do you mean?” says I calmly. “Who is stalkin’ round?”

“The Editor of the Gimlet,” says he, “whose vile image defiles the walls of this temple of art, the haunt of Aglia, Thalia, and Euphrosine.”

“Who?” says I glancin’ keenly at him over my specks, “the haunt of who?”

Says he “The daughters of Bachus and Venus.”

Says I “I don’t know anything about Miss Bachus, nor the Venus girls,” and says I with spirit, “if they are any low creeters I don’t thank you for speakin’ of ’em to me, nor Josiah won’t neether. This room belongs to Jeremiah Gansey, and he has got a wife, a likely woman, that belongs to the same meetin’ house and the same class that I do, and he haint no business to have other girls hauntin’ his rooms. If there is anything wrong goin’ on I shall tell Sister Gansey.”

Says he “Woman you mistake, I meant the Graces.”

“Graces!” says I scornfully, “what do I care for their graces. Sister Gansey had graces enough when he married her,” says I. “That is jest the way, a man will marry a woman jest as pretty as a new blown rose, and then when she fades herself out, till she looks more like a dead dandyline than a livin’ creeter, cookin’ his vittles, washin’ his dishes, and takin’ care of his children; then he’ll go to havin’ other girls hauntin’ him, there haint no gospel in it,” says I.

I looked him keenly in the face all the time I spoke, for I thought he was kinder’ upholdin’ Sister Gansey’s husband, and I wanted my words to apaul him, but I suppose he made a mistake, and thought I was admirin’ of him I looked so earnest at him, for he spoke up and says he,

“I see by your stiddy glance that you have discovered who I be. Yes Madam, you see before you the Editor of the Augur, but don’t be nervous, don’t let it affect you more than you can help, I am a mortal like yourself.”

I looked at him with my most majestic look, and he continued.

“The masses who devoured my great work ‘Logical Reveries on the Beauties of Slavery,’ are naturally anxious to see me. I don’t wonder at it, not at all.”

I was austerely silent and withdrawed to a winder and set down. But he followed me and continued on.

“That tract as you are doubtless aware, was written just before the war, and a weaker minded man might have been appalled by the bloodshed that followed its publication. But no! I said calmly, it was written on principle, and if it did bring ruin and bloodshed on the country, principle would in the end prevail. The war turned out different from what I hoped, chains broke that I could have wept to see break—but still I hung on to principle. Might I ask you Madam, exactly what your emotions were when you read ‘Logical Reveries’ for the first time? I suppose no President’s message was ever devoured as that was.”

“I never see nor heard of your ‘Logical Reveries,’” says I coldly. “And thank fortune nobody can accuse me of ever touchin’ a President’s message—unless they belie me.”

He rolled up his eyes toward the cielin’ and sithed hevily, and then says he, “Is it possible that in this enlightened community there is still such ignorance amongst the masses. I have got a copy in my pocket, I never go without one. And I will read it to you and it may be pleasant for you to tell your children and grandchildren in the future, that the author of “Logical Reveries on the Beauties of Slavery” told you with his own lips, how the great work came to be written. A poem was sent me intended as a satire on the beautiful and time hallowed system of slavery, it was a weak senseless mass of twaddle, but if the author could have foreseen the mighty consequences that flowed from it, he might well have trembled, for senseless as it was it roused the lion in me, and I replied. I divided my great work into two parts, first, that slavery was right, because the constitution didn’t say it was wrong, and then I viewed the subject in a Bible and moral light, but the last bein’ of less importance, of course I didn’t enlarge on it, but on the first I come out strong, there I shone. I will read you a little of the poem that was sent me, that you may understand the witherin’ allusions I make concernin’ it. I won’t read more than is necessary for that purpose, for you may get sleepy listenin’ to it, but you will wake up enough when I begin to read the “Logical Reveries,” I guess there couldn’t anybody sleep on them. The poem I speak of commenced in the following weak illogical way.

SLAVERY.

So held my eyes I could not see

The righteousness of slavery,

So blind was I, I could not see

The ripe fruit hang on wisdom’s tree;

But groping round its roots did range,

Murmuring ever, strange, oh strange

That one handful of dust should dare

Enslave another God had made,

From his own home and kindred tear,

And scourge, and fetter, steal and trade.

If ’twas because they were less wise

Than our wise race, why not arise,

And with pretext of buying teas,

Lay in full cargoes of Chinese.

Let Fee Fo Fum, and Eng, and Chen,

Grow wise by contact with wise men;

If weakness made the traffic right,

Why not arise in manhood’s might,

And bind old grandmothers with gyves,

And weakly children, and sick wives.

If ’twas the dark hue of their face,

Then why not free our noble race

Forever from all homely men?

With manly zeal, and outstretched hand,

Pass like a whirlwind o’er the land.

Let squint eyed, pug-nosed women be

Only a thing of memory.

Though some mistakes would happen then,

For many bond servants there are,

Fair faced, blue eyed, with silken hair.

How sweet, how pleasant to be sold

For notes in hand, or solid gold,

To benefit a brother

Both children of one father,

With each a different mother.

One mother fair and richly clothed,

One worn with toil and vain despair

Down sunken to a life she loathed;

Both children with proud saxon blood,

In one breast mixed with tropic flame,

One, heir to rank and broad estates

And one, without even a name.

Jest as he arrived to this crysis in the poem, Mr. Gansey came out into the aunty room, and told me he was ready to take my picture. The Editer seein’ he was obleeged to stop readin’ told me, he would come down to our house a visitin’ in sugarin’ time, and finish readin’ the poetry to me. I ketched holt of my principles to stiddy ’em, for I see they was a totterin’ and says to him with outward calmness,

“If you come fetch the twins.”

He said he would. I then told Mr. Gansey I was ready for the picture. I believe there haint nothin’ that will take the expression out of anybody’s eyes, like havin’ poetry read for a hour and a half, unless it is to have your head screwed back into a pair of tongs, and be told to look at nothin’ and wink at it as much as you are a mind to. Under both of these circumstances, it didn’t suprise me a mite that one of my eyes was took blind. But as Mr. Gansey said as he looked admirin’ly on it, with the exception of that one blind eye, it was a perfect and strikin’ picture. I paid him his dollar and started off home, and I hope now that Josiah and the children will be satisfied.

THE PICTURE.

OUR SURPRIZE PARTIES.

About one week after this picture eppysode, there was a surprise party appointed. They had been havin’ ’em all winter, and the children had been crazy to have me go to ’em—everybody went, old and young, but I held back. Says I: “I don’t approve of ’em, and I won’t go.”

But finally they got their father on their side; says he: “It won’t hurt you Samantha, to go for once.”

Says I: “Josiah, the place for old folks is to home; and I don’t believe in surprise parties anyway, I think they are perfect nuisances. It stands to reason if you want to see your friends, you can invite ’em, and if anybody is too poor to bake a cake or two, and a pan of cookies, they are too poor to go into company at all.” Says I: “I haint proud, nor never was called so, but I don’t want Tom, Dick and Harry, that I never spoke to in my life, feel as if they was free to break into my house at any time they please.” Says I: “it would make me feel perfectly wild, to think there was a whole drove of people, liable to rush in here at any minute, and I won’t rush into other people’s housen.”

“It would be fun, mother,” says Thomas J.; “I should love to see you and Deecon Gowdey or old Bobbet, playin’ wink ’em slyly.”

“Let ’em wink at me if they dare to,” says I sternly; “let me catch ’em at it. I don’t believe in surprise parties,” and I went on in about as cold a tone as they make. “Have you forgot how Mrs. Gowdey had her parlor lamp smashed to bits, and a set of stun china? Have you forgot how four or five stranger men got drunk to Peedicks’es, and had to be carried up stairs and laid out on her spare bed? Have you forgot how Celestine Wilkins fell with her baby in her arms, as she was catchin’ old Gowdey, and cracked the little innocent creeter’s nose? Have you forgot how Betsey Bobbet lost out her teeth a runnin’ after the editor of the Augur, and he stepped on ’em and smashed ’em all to bits? Have you forgot these coincidences?” Says I: “I don’t believe in surprise parties.”

“No more do I,” says Josiah; “but the children feel so about our goin’, sposen’ we go, for once! No livin’ woman could do better for children than you have by mine, Samantha, but I don’t suppose you feel exactly as I do about pleasin’ ’em, it haint natteral you should.”

Here he knew he had got me. If ever a woman wanted to do her duty by another woman’s children, it is Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith. Josiah knew jest how to start me; men are deep. I went to the very next party, which was to be held two miles beyond Jonesville; they had had ’em so fast, they had used up all the nearer places. They had heard of this family, who had a big house, and the women had been to the same meetin’ house with Betsey Bobbet two or three times, and she had met her in a store a year before, and had been introduced to her, so she said she felt perfectly free to go. And as she was the leader it was decided on. They went in two big loads, but Josiah and I went in a cutter alone.

We got started ahead of the loads, and when we got to the house we see it was lit up real pleasant, and a little single cutter stood by the gate. We went up to the door and knocked, and a motherly lookin’ woman with a bunch of catnip in her hand, came to the door.

“Good evenin’,” says I, but she seemed to be a little deaf, and didn’t answer, and I see, as we stepped in, through a door partly open, a room full of women.

“Good many have got here,” says I a little louder.

“Yes, a very good doctor,” says she.

“What in the world!”—I begun to say in wild amaze.

“No, it is a boy.”

I turned right round, and laid holt of Josiah; says I, “Start this minute, Josiah Allen, for the door.” I laid holt of him, and got him to the door, and we never spoke another word till we was in the sleigh, and turned round towards home; then says I,

“Mebby you’ll hear to me, another time, Josiah.

“I wish you wouldn’t be so agravatin’,” says he.

Jest then we met the first load, where Tirzah Ann and Thomas Jefferson was, and we told ’em to “turn round, for they couldn’t have us, they had other company.” So they turned round. We had got most back to Jonesville, when we met the other load; they had tipped over in the snow, and as we drove out most to the fence to get by ’em, Josiah told ’em the same we had the other load.

Says Betsey Bobbet, risin’ up out of the snow with a buffalo skin on her back, which made her look wild,

“Did they say we must not come?”

“No, they didn’t say jest that,” says Josiah. “But they don’t want you.”

“Wall then, my deah boys and girls,” says she, scramblin’ into the sleigh. “Let us proceed onwards, if they did not say we should not come.”

Her load went on, for her brother, Shakespeare Bobbet, was the driver. How they got along I haint never enquired, and they don’t seem over free to talk about it. But they kep’ on havin’ ’em, most every night. Betsey Bobbet as I said was the leader, and she led ’em once into a house where they had the small pox, and once where they was makin’ preparations for a funeral. Somehow Tirzah and Thomas Jefferson seemed to be sick of ’em, and as for Josiah, though he didn’t say much, I knew he felt the more.

This coinsidense took place on Tuesday night, and the next week a Monday I had had a awful day’s work a washin’, and we had been up all night the night before with Josiah, who had the new ralegy in his back. We hadn’t one of us slept a wink the night before, and Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah Ann had gone to bed early. It had been a lowery day, and I couldn’t hang out my calico clothes, and so many of ’em was hung round the kitchen on lines and clothes bars, and nails, that Josiah and I looked as if we was a settin’ in a wet calico tent. And what made it look still more melancholy and sad, I found when I went to light the lamp, that the kerosene was all gone, and bein’ out of candles, I made for the first time what they call a “slut,” which is a button tied up in a rag, and put in a saucer of lard; you set fire to the rag, and it makes a light that is better than no light at all, jest as a slut is better than no woman at all; I suppose in that way it derived its name. But it haint a dazzlin’ light, nothin’ like so gay and festive as gas.

I, beat out with work and watchin’, thought I would soak my feet before I went to bed, and so I put some water into the mop pail, and sot by the stove with my feet in it. The thought had come to me after I got my night-cap on. Josiah sot behind the stove, rubbin’ some linament onto his back; he had jest spoke to me, and says he,

“I believe this linament makes, my back feel easier, Samantha, I hope I shall get a little rest to-night.”

Says I, “I hope so too, Josiah.” And jest as I said the words, without any warning the door opened, and in come what seemed to me at the time to be a hundred and 50 men, wimmen, and children, headed by Betsey Bobbet.

Josiah, so wild with horror and amazement that he forgot for the time bein’ his lameness, leaped from his chair, and tore so wildly at his shirt that he tore two pieces right out of the red flannel, and they shone on each shoulder of his white shirt like red stars; he then backed up against the wall between the back door and the wood box. I rose up and stood in the mop pail, too wild with amaze to get out of it, for the same reason heedin’ not my night-cap.

“We have come to suprize you,” says Betsey Bobbet, sweetly.

I looked at ’em in speechless horror, and my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth; no word did I speak, but I glared at ’em with looks which I suppose filled ’em with awe and dread, for Betsey Bobbet spoke again in plaintive accents,

“Will you not let us suprize you?”

Then I found voice, and “No! no!” says I wildly. “I won’t be suprized! you sha’n’t suprize us to-night! We won’t be suprized! Speak, Josiah,” says I, appealin’ to him in my extremity. “Speak! tell her! will we be suprized to-night?”

“No! no!” says he in firm, decided, warlike tones, as he stood backed up against the wall, holdin’ his clothes on—with his red flannel epaulettes on his shoulders like a officer, “no, we won’t be suprized!”

“You see, deah friends,” says she to the crowd, “she will not let us suprize her, we will go.” But she turned at the door, and says she in reproachful accents, “May be it is right and propah to serve a old friend and neighbah in this way—I have known you a long time, Josiah Allen’s wife.”

“I have known you plenty long enough,” says I, steppin’ out of the pail, and shettin’ the door pretty hard after ’em.

Josiah came from behind the stove pushin’ a chair in front of him, and says he,

“Darn suprize parties, and darn—”

“Don’t swear, Josiah, I should think you was bad enough off without swearin’—”

“I will darn Betsey Bobbet, Samantha. Oh, my back!” he groaned, settin’ down slowly, “I can’t set down nor stand up.”

“You jumped up lively enough, when they come in,” says I.

THE SURPRISE PARTY.

“Throw that in my face, will you? What could I du? And there is a pin stickin’ into my shoulder, do get it out, Samantha, it has been there all the time, only I haint sensed it till now.”

“Wall,” says I in a kinder, soothin tone, drawin’ it out of his shoulder, where it must have hurt awfully, only he hadn’t felt it in his greater troubles—“Less be thankful that we are as well off as we be. Betsey might have insisted on stopin’. I will rub your shoulders with the linament, and I guess you will feel better; do you suppose they will be mad?”

“I don’t know, nor I don’t care, but I hope so,” says he.

And truly his wish come to pass, for Betsey was real mad; the rest didn’t seem to mind it. But she was real short to me for three days. Which shows it makes a difference with her who does the same thing, for they went that night right from here to the Editor of the Augur’s. And it come straight to me from Celestine Wilkins, who was there, that he turned ’em out doors, and shet the door in their faces.

The way it was, his hired girl had left him that very day, and one of the twins was took sick with wind colic. He had jest got the sick baby to sleep, and laid it in the cradle, and had gin the little well one some playthings, and set her down on the carpet, and he was washin’ the supper dishes, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, and a pink bib-apron on that belonged to his late wife. They said he had jest finished, and was wringin’ out his dishcloth, when he heard a awful screamin’ from the well twin, and he rushed out with his dishcloth hangin’ over his arm, and found that she had swallowed a side-thimble; he ketched her up, and spatted her back, and the thimble flew out half way across the floor. She screamed, and held her breath, and the sick one waked up, and sot up in the cradle and screamed fearfully, and jest then the door bust open, and in come the suprize party headed by Betsey Bobbet. They said that he, half crazy as he was, told Betsey that “if she didn’t head ’em off that minute, he would prosecute the whole of ’em.” Some of ’em was mad about it, he acted so threat’nin’, but Betsey wasn’t, for in the next week’s Augur these verses came out:

IT IS SWEET TO FORGIVE.

It is sweet to be—it is sweet to live,

But sweeteh the sweet word “forgive;”

If harsh, loud words should spoken be,

Say “Soul be calm they come from he—

When he was wild with toil and grief,

When colic could not find relief;

Such woe and cares should have sufficed,

Then, he should not have been surprized.”

When twins are well, and the world looks bright,

To be surprized, is sweet and right,

But when twins are sick, and the world looks sad,

To be surprized is hard and bad,

And when side thimbles swallowed be,

How can the world look sweet to he—

Who owns the twin—faih babe, heaven bless it,

Who hath no own motheh to caress it.

Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above,

Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love.

My own heart runs o’er with tenderness,

But its deah father tries to do his best,

But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand,

Oh! how he needs a helping hand.

Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown,

It is sad for a deah man to be alone.

A DAY OF TROUBLE.

Sugerin’ time come pretty late this year, and I told Josiah, that I didn’t believe I should have a better time through the whole year, to visit his folks, and mother Smith, than I should now before we begun to make sugar, for I knew no sooner had I got that out of the way, than it would be time to clean house, and make soap. And then when the dairy work come on, I knew I never should get off. So I went. But never shall I forget the day I got back. I had been gone a week, and the childern bein’ both off to school, Josiah got along alone. I have always said, and I say still, that I had jest as lives have a roarin’ lion do my house-work, as a man. Every thing that could be bottom side up in the house, was.

I had a fortnight’s washin’ to do, the house to clean up, churnin’ to do, and bakin’; for Josiah had eat up everything slick and clean, the buttery shelves looked like the dessert of Sarah. Then I had a batch of maple sugar to do off, for the trees begun to run after I went away and Josiah had syruped off—and some preserves to make, for his folks had gin me some pound sweets, and they was a spilein’. So it seemed as if everything come that day, besides my common house-work—and well doth the poet say—“That a woman never gets her work done up,” for she don’t.

Now when a man ploughs a field, or runs up a line of figgers, or writes a serming, or kills a beef critter, there it is done—no more to be done over. But sposen’ a woman washes up her dishes clean as a fiddle, no sooner does she wash ’em up once, than she has to, right over and over agin, three times three hundred and 65 times every year. And the same with the rest of her work, blackin’ stoves, and fillin’ lamps, and washin’ and moppin’ floors, and the same with cookin’. Why jest the idee of paradin’ out the table and tea-kettle 3 times 3 hundred and 65 times every year is enough to make a woman sweat. And then to think of all the cookin’ utensils and ingredients—why if it wuzzn’t for principle, no woman could stand the idee, let alone the labor, for it haint so much the mussle she has to lay out, as the strain on her mind.

Now last Monday, no sooner did I get my hands into the suds holt of one of Josiah’s dirty shirts, than the sugar would mount up in the kettle and sozzle over on the top of the furnace in the summer kitchen—or else the preserves would swell up and drizzle over the side of the pan on to the stove—or else the puddin’ I was a bakin’ for dinner would show signs of scorchin’, and jest as I was in the heat of the warfare, as you may say, who should drive up but the Editor of the Agur. He was a goin’ on further, to engage a hired girl he had hearn of, and on his way back, he was goin’ to stop and read that poetry, and eat some maple sugar; and he wanted to leave the twins till he come back.

Says he, “They won’t be any trouble to you, will they?” I thought of the martyrs, and with a appearance of outward composure, I answered him in a sort of blind way; but I won’t deny that I had to keep a sayin’, ‘John Rogers! John Rogers’ over to myself all the time I was ondoin’ of ’em, or I should have said somethin’ I was sorry for afterwards. The poetry woried me the most, I won’t deny.

After the father drove off, the first dive the biggest twin made was at the clock, he crep’ up to that, and broke off the pendulum, so it haint been since, while I was a hangin’ thier cloaks in the bedroom. And while I was a puttin’ thier little oversocks under the stove to dry, the littlest one clim’ up and sot down in a pail of maple syrup, and while I was a wringin’ him out, the biggest one dove under the bed, at Josiah’s tin trunk where he keeps a lot of old papers, and come a creepin’ out, drawin’ it after him like a hand-sled. There was a gography in it, and a Fox’es book of martyrs, and a lot of other such light reading, and I let the twins have ’em to recreate themselves on, and it kep’ ’em still most a minute.

I hadn’t much more’n got my eye off’en that Fox’es book of Martyrs—when there appeared before ’em a still more mournful sight, it was Betsey Bobbet come to spend the day.

I murmured dreamily to myself “John Rogers”—But that didn’t do, I had to say to myself with firmness—“Josiah Allen’s wife, haint you ashamed of yourself, what are your sufferin’s to John Rogers’es? Think of the agony of that man—think of his 9 children follerin’ him, and the one at the breast, what are your sufferin’s compared to his’en?” Then with a brow of calm I advanced to meet her. I see she had got over bein’ mad about the surprise party, for she smiled on me once or twice, and as she looked at the twins, she smiled 2 times on each of ’em, which made 4 and says she in tender tones,

“You deah little motherless things.” Then she tried to kiss ’em. But the biggest one gripped her by her false hair, which was flax, and I should think by a careless estimate, that he pulled out about enough to make half a knot of thread. The little one didn’t do much harm, only I think he loosened her teeth a little, he hit her pretty near the mouth, and I thought as she arose she slipped ’em back in thier place. But she only said,

“Sweet! sweet little things, how ardent and impulsive they are, so like thier deah Pa.”

She took out her work, and says she, “I have come to spend the day. I saw thier deah Pa bringin’ the deah little twins in heah, and I thought maybe I could comfort the precious little motherless things some, if I should come over heah. If there is any object upon the earth, Josiah Allen’s wife, that appeals to a feelin’ heart, it is the sweet little children of widowers. I cannot remember the time when I did not want to comfort them, and thier deah Pa’s. I have always felt that it was woman’s highest speah, her only mission to soothe, to cling, to smile, to coo. I have always felt it, and for yeahs back it has been a growin’ on me. I feel that you do not feel as I do in this matter, you do not feel that it is woman’s greatest privilege, her crowning blessing, to soothe lacerations, to be a sort of a poultice to the noble, manly breast when it is torn with the cares of life.”

This was too much, in the agitated frame of mind I then was.

“Am I a poultice Betsey Bobbet, do I look like one?—am I in the condition to be one?” I cried turnin’ my face, red and drippin’ with prespiration towards her, and then attacked one of Josiah’s shirt sleeves agin. “What has my sect done,” says I, as I wildly rubbed his shirt sleeves, “That they have got to be lacerator soothers, when they have got everything else under the sun to do?” Here I stirred down the preserves that was a runnin’ over, and turned a pail full of syrup into the sugar kettle. “Everybody says that men are stronger than women, and why should they be treated as if they was glass china, liable to break all to pieces if they haint handled careful. And if they have got to be soothed,” says I in an agitated tone, caused by my emotions (and by pumpin’ 6 pails of water to fill up the biler), “Why don’t they get men to sooth’em? They have as much agin time as wimmen have; evenin’s they don’t have anything else to do, they might jest as well be a soothin’ each other as to be a hangin’ round grocery stores, or settin’ by the fire whittlin’.”

I see I was frightenin’ her by my delerious tone and I continued more mildly, as I stirred down the strugglin’ sugar with one hand—removed a cake from the oven with the other—watched my apple preserves with a eagle vision, and listened intently to the voice of the twins, who was playin’ in the woodhouse.

“I had jest as soon soothe lacerations as not, Betsey, if I hadn’t everything else to do. I had jest as lives set down and smile at Josiah by the hour, but who would fry him nut-cakes? I could smoothe down his bald head affectionately, but who would do off this batch of sugar? I could coo at him day in and day out, but who would skim milk—wash pans—get vittles—wash and iron—and patch and scour—and darn and fry—and make and mend—and bake and bile while I was a cooin’, tell me?” says I.

Betsey spoke not, but quailed, and I continued—

“Women haint any stronger than men, naturally; thier backs and thier nerves haint made of any stouter timber; their hearts are jest as liable to ache as men’s are; so with thier heads; and after doin’ a hard day’s work when she is jest ready to drop down, a little smilin’ and cooin’ would do a woman jest as much good as a man. Not what,” I repeated in the firm tone of principle “Not but what I am willin’ to coo, if I only had time.”

A pause enshued durin’ which I bent over the wash-tub and rubbed with all my might on Josiah’s shirt sleeve. I had got one sleeve so I could see streaks of white in it, (Josiah is awful hard on his shirt sleeves), and I lifted up my face and continued in still more reesonable tones, as I took out my rice puddin’ and cleaned out the bottom of the oven, (the pudden had run over and was a scorchin’ on), and scraped the oven bottom with a knife,

“Now Josiah Allen will go out into that lot,” says I, glancein’ out of the north window “and plough right straight along, furrow after furrow, no sweat of mind about it at all; his mind is in that free calm state that he could write poetry.”

“Speaking of poetry, reminds me,” said Betsey, and I see her hand go into her pocket; I knew what was a comin’, and I went on hurriedly, wavin’ off what I knew must be, as long as I could. “Now, I, a workin’ jest as hard as he accordin’ to my strength, and havin’ to look 40 ways to once, and 40 different strains on my mind, now tell me candidly, Betsey Bobbet, which is in the best condition for cooin’, Josiah Allen or me? but it haint expected of him,” says I in agitated tones, “I am expected to do all the smilin’ and cooin’ there is done, though you know,” says I sternly, “that I haint no time for it.”

“In this poem, Josiah Allen’s wife, is embodied my views, which are widely different from yours.”

I see it was vain to struggle against fate, she had the poetry in her hand. I rescued the twins from beneath a half a bushel of beans they had pulled over onto themselves—took off my preserves which had burnt to the pan while I was a rescuin’, and calmly listened to her, while I picked up the beans with one hand, and held off the twins with the other.

“There is one thing I want to ask your advice about, Josiah Allen’s wife. This poem is for the Jonesville Augah. You know I used always to write for the opposition papah, the Jonesville Gimlet, but as I said the othah day, since the Editah of the Augah lost his wife I feel that duty is a drawing of me that way. Now do you think that it would be any more pleasing and comforting to that deah Editah to have me sign my name Bettie Bobbet—or Betsey, as I always have?” And loosin’ herself in thought she murmured dreamily to the twins, who was a pullin’ each other’s hair on the floor at her feet—

“Sweet little mothahless things, you couldn’t tell me, could you, deahs, how your deah Pa would feel about it?”

Here the twins laid holt of each other so I had to part ’em, and as I did so I said to Betsey, “If you haint a fool you will hang on to the Betsey. You can’t find a woman nowadays that answers to her true name. I expect,” says I in a tone of cold and almost witherin’ sarcasm, “that these old ears will yet hear some young minister preach about Johnnie the Baptist, and Minnie Magdalen. Hang on to the Betsey; as for the Bobbet,” says I, lookin’ pityingly on her, “that will hang on for itself.”

I was too well bread to interrupt her further, and I pared my potatoes, pounded my beefsteak, and ground my coffee for dinner, and listened. This commenced also as if she had been havin’ a account with Love, and had come out in his debt.

OWED TO LOVE.

Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife,

With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life,

Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be,

Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?

And if he have any companions lost—if they from earth have risen,

Ah, I could weep tears of joy—for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en;

Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties,

Ah, how willingly on the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would sacrifice.

I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling,

And live for love—and live to cling.

Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,

His smile on me—my sweet smile on he.

There was pretty near twenty verses of ’em, and as she finished she said to me—

“What think you of my poem, Josiah Allen’s wife?”

Says I, fixin’ my sharp grey eyes upon her keenly, “I have had more experience with men than you have, Betsey;” I see a dark shadow settlin’ on her eye-brow, and I hastened to apologise—“you haint to blame for it, Betsey—we all know you haint to blame.”

She grew calm, and I proceeded, “How long do you suppose you could board a man on clear smiles, Betsey—you jest try it for a few meals and you’d find out. I have lived with Josiah Allen 14 years, and I ought to know somethin’ of the natur of man, which is about alike in all of ’em, and I say, and I contend for it, that you might jest as well try to cling to a bear as to a hungry man. After dinner, sentiment would have a chance, and you might smile on him. But then,” says I thoughtfully, “there is the dishes to wash.”

Jest at that minute the Editor of the Augur stopped at the gate, and Betsey, catchin’ up a twin on each arm, stood up to the winder, smilin’.

He jumped out, and took a great roll of poetry out from under the buggy seat—I sithed as I see it. But fate was better to me than I deserved. For Josiah was jest leadin’ the horse into the horse barn, when the Editor happened to look up and see Betsey. Josiah says he swore—says he “the d——!” I won’t say what it was, for I belong to the meetin’ house, but it wasn’t the Deity though it begun with a D. He jumped into the buggy agin, and says Josiah,

“You had better stay to dinner, my wife is gettin’ a awful good one—and the sugar is most done.”

Josiah says he groaned, but he only said—

“Fetch out the twins.”

Says Josiah, “You had better stay to dinner—you haint got no women folks to your house—and I know what it is to live on pancakes,” and wantin’ to have a little fun with him, says he, “Betsey Bobbet is here.”

Josiah says he swore agin, and agin says he, “fetch out the twins.” And he looked so kind o’ wild and fearful towards the door, that Josiah started off on the run.

Betsey was determined to carry one of the twins out, but jest at the door he tore every mite of hair off’en her head, and she, bein’ bald naturally, dropped him. And Josiah carried ’em out, one on each arm, and he drove off with ’em fast. Betsey wouldn’t stay to dinner all I could do and say, she acted mad. But one sweet thought filled me with such joyful emotion that I smiled as I thought of it—I shouldn’t have to listen to any more poetry that day.

THE MINISTER’S BEDQUILT.

The Baptists in our neighborhood have been piecen’ up a bedquilt for their minister. He has preached considerable, and held a Sunday school to our school-house, and I wasn’t goin’ to have any bedquilts done for him without havin’ my hand in it to help it along. I despise the idee of folks bein’ so sot on their own meetin’ housen. Thier is enough worldly things for neighbors to fight about, such as hens, and the school-marm, without takin’ what little religion they have got and go to peltin’ each other with it.

Sposen’ Baptists do love water better’n they do dry land? What of it? If my Baptist brethren feel any better to baptise thierselves in the Atlantic ocian, it haint none of my business. Somehow Josiah seems to be more sot onto his own meetin’ house than I do. Thomas Jefferson said when we was a arguin’ about it the mornin’ of the quiltin’, says he, “The more water the better,” says he, “it would do some of the brethren good to put ’em asoak and let ’em lay over night.”

I shet him up pretty quick, for I will not countenance such light talk—but Josiah laughed, he encourages that boy in it, all I can do and say.

I always make a pint of goin’ to quiltin’s any way, whether I go on Methodist principle (as in this case) or not, for you can’t be backbited to your face, that is a moral certainty. I know women jest like a book, for I have been one quite a spell. I always stand up for my own sect, still I know sartin effects foller sartin causes. Such as two bricks bein’ sot up side by side, if one tumbles over on to the other, the other can’t stand up, it haint natur. If a toper holds a glass of liquor to his mouth he can’t help swallowin’ it, it haint nater. If a young man goes out slay-ridin’ with a pretty girl, and the buffalo robe slips off, he can’t help holdin’ it round her, it haint nater. And quiltin’ jest sets women to slanderin’ as easy and beautiful as any thing you ever see. I was the first one there, for reasons I have named; I always go early.

I hadn’t been there long before Mrs. Deacon Dobbins came, and then the Widder Tubbs, and then Squire Edwards’es wife and Maggie Snow, and then the Dagget girls. (We call ’em girls, though it would be jest as proper to call mutton, lamb.)

Miss Wilkins’ baby had the mumps, and the Peedicks and Gowdey’s had unexpected company. But with Miss Jones where the quiltin’ was held, and her girls Mary Ann and Alzina, we made as many as could get round the quilt handy.

The quilt was made of different kinds of calico; all the women round had pieced up a block or two, and we took up a collection to get the battin’ and linin’ and the cloth to set it together with, which was turkey red, and come to quilt it, it looked well. We quilted it herrin’ bone, with a runnin’ vine round the border.

After the pathmaster was demorilized, the school-teacher tore to pieces, the party to Peedicks scandalized, Sophronia Gowdey’s charicter broke doun—and her mother’s new bunnet pronounced a perfect fright, and twenty years too young for her—and Miss Wilkins’ baby voted a unquestionable idiot, and the rest of the unrepresented neighborhood dealt with, Lucinda Dagget spoke up and says she—

“I hope the minister will like the bedquilt.” (Lucinda is the one that studies mathematics to harden her mind, and has the Roman nose.)

“It haint no ways likely he will,” says her sister Ophelia; (she is the one that frizzles her hair on top and wears spectacles.) “It haint no ways likely he will—for he is a cold man, a stun statute.”

Now you see I set my eyes by that minister, if he is of another persuasion. He is always doin’ good to somebody, besides preachin’ more like a angel than a human bein’. I can’t never forget—and I don’t want to—how he took holt of my hand, and how his voice trembled and the tears stood in his eyes, when we thought our Tirzah Ann was a dyin’—she was in his Sunday School class. There is some lines in your life you can’t rub out, if you try to ever so hard. And I wasn’t goin’ to set still and hear him run down. It riled up the old Smith blood, and when that is riled, Josiah says he always feels that it is best to take his hat and leave, till it settles. I spoke right up and says I—

“Lucky for him he was made of stun before he was married, for common flesh and blood would have gin’ out a hundred times, chaste round by the girls as he was.” You see it was the town talk, how Ophelia Dagget acted before he was married, and she almost went into a decline, and took heaps of motherwort and fetty.

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Allen,” says she, turnin’ red as a red brick, “I never heard of his bein’ chaste, I knew I never could bear the sight of him.”

“The distant sight,” says Alzina Jones.

Ophelia looked so mad at that, that I don’t know but she would have pricked her with her quiltin’ needle, if old Miss Dobbins hadn’t spoke up. She is a fat old lady, with a double chin, mild and lovely as Mount Vernon’s sister. She always agrees with everybody. Thomas Jefferson calls her “Woolen Apron” for he says he heard her one day say to Miss Gowdy—“I don’t like woolen aprons, do you Miss Gowdy?”

“Why yes, Miss Dobbin, I do.”

“Well so do I,” says she. But good old soul, if we was all such peace makers as she is, we should be pretty sure of Heaven. Though Thomas Jefferson says, “if Satan should ask her to go to his house, she would go, rather than hurt his feelin’s.” That boy worrys me, I don’t know what he is a comin’ to.

As I said, she looked up mildly over her spectacles, and nodded her purple cap ribbons two or three times, and said “yes,” “jest so,” to both of us. And then to change the subject says she;

“Has the minister’s wife got home yet?”

“I think not,” says Maggie Snow. “I was to the village yesterday, and she hadn’t come then.”

“I suppose her mother is well off,” says the Widder Tubbs, “and as long as she stays there, she saves the minister five dollars a week, I should think she would stay all summer.” The widder is about as equinomical a woman as belongs to his meetin’ house.

“It don’t look well for her to be gone so long,” says Lucinda Dagget, “I am very much afraid it will make talk.”

“Mebby it will save the minister five dollars a week,” says Ophelia, “as extravagant as she is in dress, as many as four silk dresses she has got, and there’s Baptist folks as good as she is that hain’t got but one—and one certain Baptist person full as good as she is that hain’t got any.” (Ophelia’s best dress is poplin.) “It won’t take her long to run out the minister’s salary.”

“She had her silk dresses before she was married, and her folks were wealthy,” says Mrs. Squire Edwards.

“As much as we have done for them, and are still doing,” says Lucinda, “it seems ungrateful in her to wear such a bunnet as she wore last summer, a plain white straw, with a little bit of ribbon onto it, not a flower nor a feather, it looked so scrimped and stingy, I have thought she wore it on purpose to mortify us before the Methodists. Jest as if we couldn’t afford to dress our minister’s wife as well as they did theirs.”

Maggie Snow’s cheeks was a getting as red as fire, and her eyes began to shine, jest as they did that day she found some boys stonein’ her kitten. She and the minister’s wife are the greatest friends that ever was. And I see she couldn’t hold in much longer. She was jest openin’ her mouth to speak, when the door opened and in walked Betsey Bobbet.

“My! it seems to me you are late, Betsey, but walk right into the spare bedroom, and take off your things.”

“Things!” says Betsey, in a reckless tone, “who cares for things!” And she dropped into the nearest rocking chair and commenced to rock herself violently and says she “would that I had died when I was a infant babe.”

“Amen!” whispered Alzina Jones, to Maggie Snow.

Betsey didn’t hear her, and again she groaned out, “Would that I had been laid in yondeh church yard, before my eyes had got open to depravity and wickedness.”

“Do tell us what is the matter Betsey,” says Miss Jones.

“Yes do,” says Miss Deacon Dobbins.

“Matter enuff,” says she, “No wondeh there is earthquakes and jars. I heard the news jest as I came out of our gate, and it made me weak as a cat, I had to stop to every house on the way doun heah, to rest, and not a soul had heard of it, till I told ’em. Such a shock as it gave me, I shant get over it for a week, but it is just as I always told you, I always said the minister’s wife wasn’t any too good. It didn’t surprise me not a bit.”

“You can’t tell me one word against Mary Morton that I’ll believe,” says Maggie Snow.

“You will admit that the minister went North last Tuesday, won’t you.”

Seven wimmin spoke up at once and said: “Yes, his mother was took sick, and telegraphed for him.”

“So he said,” said Betsey Bobbet, “so he said, but I believe it is for good.”

“Oh dear,” shrieked Ophelia Dagget, “I shall faint away, ketch hold of me, somebody.”

“Ketch hold of yourself,” says I coolly, and then says I to Betsey, “I don’t believe he has run away no more than I believe that I am the next President of the United States.”

“Well, if he is not, he will wish he had, his wife come home this morning on the cars.”

Four wimmens said “Did she,” two said, “Do tell,” and three opened their mouths and looked at her speechless. Amongst these last was Miss Deacon Dobbins. But I spoke out in a collected manner, “What of it?”

Says she, “I believe the poor, deah man mistrusted it all out and run away from trouble and disgrace brought upon him by that female, his wife.”

“How dare you speak the word disgrace in connection with Mary Morton?” says Maggie Snow.

“How dare I?” says Betsey. “Ask Thomas Jefferson Allen, as it happened, I got it from his own mouth, it did not come through two or three.”

“Got what?” says I, and I continued in pretty cold tones, “If you can speak the English language, Betsey Bobbet, and have got sense enough to tell a straight story, tell it and be done with it,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson has been to Jonesville ever sense mornin’.”

THE QUILTIN’ PARTY

“Yes,” says she, “and he was coming home, jest as I started for heah, and he stopped by our gate, and says he, ‘Betsey, I have got something to tell you. I want to tell it to somebody that can keep it, it ought to be kept,’ says he; and then he went on and told; says he,—‘The minister’s wife has got home, and she didn’t come alone neither.’

“Says I, what do you mean? He looked as mysterious as a white ghost, and says he, ‘I mean what I say.’ Says he, ‘I was in the men’s room at the depot this morning, and I heard the minister’s wife in the next room talking to some body she called Hugh, you know her husband’s name is Charles. I heard her tell this Hugh that she loved him, loved him better than the whole world;’ and then he made me promise not to tell, but he said he heerd not only one kiss, but fourteen or fifteen.

“Now,” says Betsey, “what do you think of that female?”

“Good Heavens!” cried Ophelia Dagget, “am I deceived? is this a phantagory of the brain? have I got ears? have I got ears?” says she wildly, glaring at me.

“You can feel and see,” says I pretty short.

“Will he live with the wretched creature?” continued Ophelia, “no he will get a divorcement from her, such a tender hearted man too, as he is, if ever a man wanted a comforter in a tryin’ time, he is the man, and to-morrow I will go and comfort him.”

“Methinks you will find him first,” says Betsey Bobbet. “And after he is found, methinks there is a certain person he would be as glad to see as he would another certain person.”

“There is some mistake,” says Maggie Snow. “Thomas Jefferson is always joking,” and her face blushed up kinder red as she spoke about Thomas J.

I don’t make no matches, nor break none, but I watch things pretty keen, if I don’t say much.

“It was a male man,” says Lucinda Dagget, “else why did she call him Hugh? You have all heerd Elder Morton say that his wife hadn’t a relative on earth, except a mother and a maiden aunt. It couldn’t have been her mother, and it couldn’t have been the maiden aunt, for her name was Martha instead of Hugh; besides,” she continued, (she had so hardened her mind with mathematics that she could grapple the hardest fact, and floor it, so to speak,) “besides, the maiden aunt died six months ago, that settles the matter conclusively, it was not the maiden aunt.”

“I have thought something was on the Elders’ mind, for quite a spell, I have spoke to sister Gowdy about it a number of times,” then she kinder rolled up her eyes just as she does in conference meetin’s, and says she, “it is an awful dispensation, but I hope he’ll turn it into a means of grace, I hope his spiritual strength will be renewed, but I have borryed a good deal of trouble about his bein’ so handsome, I have noticed handsome ministers don’t turn out well, they most always have somethin’ happen to ’em, sooner or later, but I hope he’ll be led.”

“I never thought that Miss Morton was any too good.”

“Neither did I,” said Lucinda Dagget.

“She has turned out jest as I always thought she would,” says Ophelia, “and I think jest as much of her, as I do of them that stand up for her.” Maggie Snow spoke up then, jest as clear as a bell her voice sounded. She hain’t afraid of anybody, for she is Lawyer Snow’s only child, and has been to Boston to school. Says she “Aunt Allen,” she is a little related to me on her mother’s side. “Aunt Allen, why is it as a general rule, the worst folks are the ones to suspect other people of bein’ bad.”

Says I, “Maggy, they draw their pictures from memery, they think, ‘now if I had that opportunity to do wrong, I should certainly improve it—and so of course they did.’ And they want to pull down other folks’es reputations, for they feel as if their own goodness is in a totterin’ condition, and if it falls, they want somethin’ for it to fall on, so as to come down easier like.”

Maggy Snow laughed, and so did Squire Edwards’ wife, and the Jones’es—but Betsey Bobbet, and the Dagget girls looked black as Erobius. And says Betsey Bobbet to me, “I shouldn’t think, Josiah Allen’s wife, that you would countenance such conduct.”

“I will first know that there is wrong conduct,” says I—“Miss Morton’s face is just as innocent as a baby’s, and I hain’t a goin’ to mistrust any evil out of them pretty brown eyes, till I am obleeged to.”

“Well, you will have to believe it,” says Ophelia Dagget—“and there shall be somethin’ done about it as sure as my name is Ophelia Dagget.”

“Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone,” says Miss Squire Edwards—a better Baptist women never lived than she is.

“Yes,” says I in almost piercen’ tones, “which of us is good enough to go into the stun business? Even supposin’ it was true, which I never will believe on earth, which of us could stun her on gospel grounds?—who will you find that is free from all kind of sin?” and as I spoke, remorseful thoughts almost knocked against my heart, how I had scolded Josiah the night before for goin’ in his stockin feet.

“I never see a female women yet that I thought was perfect, and yet how willin’ they are to go to handlin’ these stuns—why wimmen fling enough stuns at each other every day, to make a stun wall that would reach from pole to pole.”

Just at this minute the hired girl come in, and said supper was on the table, and we all went out to eat it. Miss Jones said there wasn’t anything on the table fit to eat, and she was afraid we couldn’t make out—but it was a splendid supper, fit for the Zaar of Rushy.

We hadn’t more’n got up from the supper table, and got back into the parlor, when we heard a knock onto the front door, and Miss Jones went and opened it, and who of all the live world should walk in but the minister! The faces of the wimmen as he entered would have been a study for Michael Angelico, or any of them old painters. Miss Jones was that flustrated that she asked him the first thing to take his bunnet off, and then she bethought herself, and says she, ‘How’s your Ma?’ before she had sat him a chair or anything. But he looked as pleasant and composed as ever, though his eyes kinder laughed. And he thanked her and told her he left his mother the day before a good deal better, and then he turned to Maggy Snow, and says he,

“I have come after you Miss Maggy, my wife come home this mornin’ and was so anxious to see you that I told her as I had business past your house this afternoon, I would call for you as I went home, and your mother told me you were here. I think I know why she wants to see you so very much now. She is so proud of our boy, she can’t wait till——”

“Your boy,” gasped nine wimmen to once.

“Yes,” says he smilin’ more pleasant than I ever seen him. “I know you will wish me joy, we have a nice little boy, little Hugh, for my wife has named him already for her father, he is a fine healthy little fellow almost two months old.”

It wouldn’t have done no good for Michael Angelico or Mr. Ruben, to have been there then, nor none of the rest of them we read about, for if they had their palates’es and easels’es all ready, they never could have done justice to the faces of the Dagget girls, and Betsey Bobbet. And as for Miss Deacon Dobbins, her spectacles fell off unnoticed and she opened her mouth so wide, it was very doubtful to me if she could ever shut it again. Maggy Snow’s face shone like a Cherubim, and as for me, I can truly say I was happy enough to sing the Te Deus.

A ALLEGORY ON WIMMEN’S RIGHTS.

About a couple of weeks after the quiltin’, Thomas Jefferson said to Josiah, one Saturday mornin’,

“Father, can I have the old mare to go to Jonesville to-night?”

“What do you want to go to Jonesville for?” said his father, “you come from there last night.”

“There is goin’ to be a lecture on wimmin’s rights; can I have her, father?”

“I s’pose so,” says Josiah, kinder short, and after Thomas J. went out, Josiah went on—

“Wimmin’s rights, wimmin’s rights, I wonder how many more fools are goin’ a caperin’ round the country preachin’ ’em up—I am sick of wimmin’s rights, I don’t believe in ’em.”

This riled up the old Smith blood, and says I to him with a glance that went clear through to the back side of his head—

“I know you don’t, Josiah Allen—I can tell a man that is for wimmin’s rights as fur as I can see ’em. There is a free, easy swing to thier walk—a noble look to thier faces—thier big hearts and soles love liberty and justice, and bein’ free themselves they want everybody else to be free. These men haint jealous of a woman’s influence—haint afraid that she won’t pay him proper respect if she haint obleeged to—and they needn’t be afraid, for these are the very men that wimmin look up to, and worship,—and always will. A good, noble, true man is the best job old natur ever turned off her hands, or ever will—a man, that would wipe off a baby’s tears as soft as a woman could, or ‘die with his face to the foe.’

“They are most always big, noble-sized men, too,” says I, with another look at Josiah that pierced him like a arrow; (Josiah don’t weigh quite one hundred by the steelyards.)

“I don’t know as I am to blame, Samantha, for not bein’ a very hefty man.”

“You can let your sole grow, Josiah Allen, by thinkin’ big, noble-sized thoughts, and I believe if you did, you would weigh more by the steelyards.”

“Wall, I don’t care, Samantha, I stick to it, that I am sick of wimmin’s rights; if wimmin would take care of the rights they have got now, they would do better than they do do.”

Now I love to see folks use reason if they have got any—and I won’t stand no importations cast on to my sect—and so I says to him in a tone of cold and almost freezin’ dignity—

“What do you mean, Josiah?”

“I mean that women hain’t no business a votin’; they had better let the laws alone, and tend to thier house-work. The law loves wimmin and protects ’em.”

“If the law loves wimmin so well, why don’t he give her as much wages as men get for doin’ the same work? Why don’t he give her half as much, Josiah Allen?”

Josiah waved off my question, seemin’ly not noticin’ of it—and continued with the doggy obstinacy of his sect—

“Wimmin haint no business with the laws of the country.”

“If they haint no business with the law, the law haint no business with them,” says I warmly. “Of the three classes that haint no business with the law—lunatics, idiots, and wimmin—the lunatics and idiots have the best time of it,” says I, with a great rush of ideas into my brain that almost lifted up the border of my head-dress. “Let a idiot kill a man; ‘What of it?’ says the law; let a luny steal a sheep; again the law murmurs in a calm and gentle tone, ‘What of it? they haint no business with the law and the law haint no business with them.’ But let one of the third class, let a woman steal a sheep, does the law soothe her in these comfortin’ tones? No, it thunders to her, in awful accents, ‘You haint no business with the law, but the law has a good deal of business with you, vile female, start for State’s prisen; you haint nothin’ at all to do with the law, only to pay all the taxes it tells you to—embrace a license bill that is ruinin’ your husband—give up your innocent little children to a wicked father if it tells you to—and a few other little things, such as bein’ dragged off to prison by it—chained up for life, and hung, and et cetery.’”

Josiah sot motionless—and in a rapped eloquence I went on in the allegory way.

“‘Methought I once heard the words,’ sighs the female, ‘True government consists in the consent of the governed;’ did I dream them, or did the voice of a luny pour them into my ear?’

“‘Haint I told you,’ frouns the law on her, ‘that that don’t mean wimmin—have I got to explain to your weakened female comprehension again, the great fundymental truth, that wimmin haint included and mingled in the law books and statutes of the country only in a condemnin’ and punishin’ sense, as it were. Though I feel it to be bendin’ down my powerful manly dignity to elucidate the subject further, I will consent to remind you of the consolin’ fact, that though you wimmin are, from the tender softness of your natures, and the illogical weakness of your minds, unfit from ever havin’ any voice in makin’ the laws that govern you; you have the right, and nobody can ever deprive you of it, to be punished in a future world jest as hard as a man of the strongest intellect, and to be hung in this world jest as dead as a dead man; and what more can you ask for, you unreasonable female woman you?’

“Then groans the woman as the great fundymental truth rushes upon her—

“‘I can be hung by the political rope, but I can’t help twist it.’

“‘Jest so,’ says the law, ‘that rope takes noble and manly fingers, and fingers of principle to twist it, and not the weak unprincipled grasp of lunatics, idiots, and wimmin.’

“‘Alas!’ sithes the woman to herself, ‘would that I had the sweet rights of my wild and foolish companions, the idiots and lunys. But,’ says she, venturing with a beating heart, the timid and bashful inquiry, ‘are the laws always just, that I should obey them thus implicitly? There is old Creshus, he stole two millions, and the law cleared him triumphantly. Several men have killed various other men, and the law insistin’ they was out of their heads, (had got out of ’em for the occasion, and got into ’em agin the minute they was cleared,) let ’em off with sound necks. And I, a poor woman, have only stole a sheep, a small-sized sheep too, that my offspring might not perish with hunger—is it right to liberate in a triumphin’ way the two million stealer and the man murderer, and inkarcerate the poor sheep stealer? and my children was so hungry, and it was such a small sheep,’ says the woman in pleadin’ accents.

“‘Idiots! lunatics! and wimmin! are they goin’ to speak?’ thunders the law. ‘Can I believe my noble right ear? can I bein’ blindfolded trust my seventeen senses? I’ll have you understand that it haint no woman’s business whether the laws are just or unjust, all you have got to do is jest to obey ’em, so start off for prison, my young woman.’

“‘But my house-work,’ pleads the woman; ‘woman’s place is home: it is her duty to remain at all hazards within its holy and protectin’ precincts; how can I leave its sacred retirement to moulder in State’s prison?’

“‘House-work!’ and the law fairly yells the words, he is so filled with contempt at the idee. ‘House-work! jest as if house-work is goin’ to stand in the way of the noble administration of the law. I admit the recklessness and immorality of her leavin’ that holy haven, long enough to vote—but I guess she can leave her house-work long enough to be condemned, and hung, and so forth.’

“‘But I have got a infant,’ says the woman, ‘of tender days, how can I go?’

“‘That is nothing to the case,’ says the law in stern tones. ‘The peculiar conditions of motherhood only unfits a female woman from ridin’ to town with her husband, in a covered carriage, once a year, and layin’ her vote on a pole. I’ll have you understand it is no hindrance to her at all in a cold and naked cell, or in a public court room crowded with men.’

“‘But the indelikacy, the outrage to my womanly nature?’ says the woman.

“‘Not another word out of your head, young woman,’ says the law, ‘or I’ll fine you for contempt. I guess the law knows what is indelikacy, and what haint; where modesty comes in, and where it don’t; now start for prison bareheaded, for I levy on your bunnet for contempt of me.’

“As the young woman totters along to prison, is it any wonder that she sithes to herself, but in a low tone, that the law might not hear her, and deprive her also of her shoes for her contemptas thoughts—

“‘Would that I were a idiot; alas! is it not possible that I may become even now a luny?—then I should be respected.’”

As I finished my allegory and looked down from the side of the house, where my eyes had been fastened in the rapped eloquence of thought, I see Josiah with a contented countenance, readin’ the almanac, and I said to him in a voice before which he quailed—

“Josiah Allen, you haint heard a word I’ve said, you know you haint.”

“Yes I have,” says he, shettin’ up the almanac; “I heard you say wimmin ought to vote, and I say she hadn’t. I shall always say that she is too fraguile, too delikate, it would be too hard for her to go to the pole.”

“There is one pole you are willin’ enough I should go to, Josiah Allen,” and I stopped allegorin’, and spoke with witherin’ dignity and self respect—“and that is the hop pole.” (Josiah has sot out a new hop yard, and he proudly brags to the neighbors that I am the fastest picker in the yard.) “You are willin’ enough I should handle them poles!” He looked smit and conscience struck, but still true to the inherient principles of his sect, and thier doggy obstinacy, he murmured—

“If wimmin know when they are well off, they will let poles and ’lection boxes alone, it is too wearin for the fair sect.”

“Josiah Allen,” says I, “you think that for a woman to stand up straight on her feet, under a blazin’ sun, and lift both her arms above her head, and pick seven bushels of hops, mingled with worms and spiders, into a gigantic box, day in, and day out, is awful healthy, so strengthenin’ and stimulatin’ to wimmin, but when it comes to droppin’ a little slip of clean paper into a small seven by nine box, once a year in a shady room, you are afraid it is goin’ to break down a woman’s constitution to once.”

He was speechless, and clung to Ayer’s almanac mechanically (as it were) and I continued—

“There is another pole you are willin’ enough for me to handle, and that is our cistern pole. If you should spend some of the breath you waste—in pityin’ the poor wimmin that have got to vote—in byin’ a pump, you would raise 25 cents in my estimation, Josiah Allen. You have let me pull on that old cistern pole thirteen years, and get a ten quart pail of water on to the end of it, and I guess the political pole wouldn’t draw much harder than that does.”

“I guess I will get one, Samantha, when I sell the old critter. I have been a calculatin’ to every year, but things will kinder run along.”

“I am aware of that,” says I in a tone of dignity cold as a lump of cold ice. “I am aware of that. You may go into any neighborhood you please, and if there is a family in it, where the wife has to set up leeches, make soap, cut her own kindlin’ wood, build fires in winter, set up stove-pipes, dround kittens, hang out clothes lines, cord beds, cut up pork, skin calves, and hatchel flax with a baby lashed to her side—I haint afraid to bet you a ten cent bill, that that woman’s husband thinks that wimmin are too feeble and delicate to go the pole.”

Josiah was speechless for pretty near half a minute, and when he did speak it was words calculated to draw my attention from contemplatin’ that side of the subject. It was for reasons, I have too much respect for my husband to even hint at—odious to him, as odious could be—he wanted me to forget it, and in the gentle and sheepish manner men can so readily assume when they are talkin’ to females he said, as he gently fingered Ayer’s almanac, and looked pensively at the dyin’ female revivin’ at a view of the bottle—

“We men think too much of you wimmin to want you to lose your sweet, dignified, retirin’ modesty that is your chieftest charm. How long would dignity and modesty stand firm before the wild Urena of public life? You are made to be happy wives, to be guarded by the stronger sect, from the cold blast and the torrid zone. To have a fence built around you by manly strength, to keep out the cares and troubles of life. Why, if I was one of the fair sect, I would have a husband to fence me in, if I had to hire one.”

He meant this last, about hirin’ a husband, as a joke, for he smiled feebly as he said it, and in other and happier times stern duty would have compelled me to laugh at it—but not now, oh no, my breast was heavin’ with too many different sized emotions.

“You would hire one, would you? a woman don’t lose her dignity and modesty a racin’ round tryin’ to get married, does she? Oh no,” says I, as sarcastic as sarcastic could be, and then I added sternly, “If it ever does come in fashion to hire husbands by the year, I know of one that could be rented cheap, if his wife had the proceeds and avails in a pecuniary sense.”

He looked almost mortified, but still he murmur’d as if mechanically. “It is wimmen’s place to marry and not to vote.”

“Josiah Allen,” says I, “Anybody would think to hear you talk that a woman couldn’t do but just one of the two things any way—marry or vote, and had got to take her choice of the two at the pint of the bayonet. And anybody would think to hear you go on, that if a women could live in any other way, she wouldn’t be married, and you couldn’t get her to.” Says I, looking at him shrewdly, “if marryin’ is such a dreadful nice thing for wimmen I don’t see what you are afraid of. You men act kinder guilty about it, and I don’t wonder at it, for take a bad husband, and thier haint no kind of slavery to be compared to wife slavery. It is jest as natural for a mean, cowardly man to want to abuse and tyranize over them that they can, them that are dependent on ’em, as for a noble and generous man to want to protect them that are weak and in their power. Figurin’ accordin’ to the closest rule of arithmetic, there are at least one-third mean, dissopated, drunken men in the world, and they most all have wives, and let them tread on these wives ever so hard, if they only tread accordin’ to law, she can’t escape. And suppose she tries to escape, blood-hounds haint half so bitter as public opinion on a women that parts with her husband, chains and handcuffs haint to be compared to her pride, and her love for her children, and so she keeps still, and suffers agony enough to make four first class martyrs. Field slaves have a few hours for rest at night, and a hope, to kinder boy them up, of gettin’ a better master. But the wife slave has no hope of a change of masters, and let him be ever so degraded and brutal is at his mercy day and night. Men seem to be awful afraid that wimmen won’t be so fierce for marryin’ anybody, for a home and a support, if they can support themselves independent, and be jest as respectable in the eyes of the world. But,” says I,

“In them days when men and wimmen are both independent—free and equal, they will marry in the only true way—from love and not from necessity. They will marry because God will join their two hearts and hands so you can’t get ’em apart no how. But to hear you talk Josiah Allen, anybody would think that there wouldn’t another woman marry on earth, if they could get rid of it, and support themselves without it.” And then I added, fixin’ my keen grey eyes upon his’en. “You act guilty about it Josiah Allen. But,” says I, “just so long as the sun shines down upon the earth and the earth answers back to it, blowin’ all out full of beauty—Jest so long as the moon looks down lovin’ly upon old ocien makin’ her heart beat the faster, jest so long will the hearts and souls God made for each other, answer to each other’s call. God’s laws can’t be repealed, Josiah Allen, they wasn’t made in Washington, D. C.”

I hardly ever see a man quail more than he did, and to tell the truth, I guess I never had been quite so eloquent in all the 14 years we had lived together—I felt so eloquent that I couldn’t stop myself and I went on.

“When did you ever see a couple that hated each other, or didn’t care for each other, but what their children, was either jest as mean as pusley—or else wilted and unhappy lookin’ like a potato sprout in a dark suller? What that potato sprout wants is sunshine, Josiah Allen. What them children wants is love. The fact is love is what makes a home—I don’t care whether its walls are white, stone, marble or bass wood. If there haint a face to the winder a waitin’ for you, when you have been off to the store, what good does all your things do you, though you have traded off ten pounds of butter? A lot of folks may get together in a big splendid house, and be called by the same name, and eat and sleep under the same roof till they die, and call it home, but if love don’t board with ’em, give me an umbrella and a stump. But the children of these marriages that I speak of, when they see such perfect harmony of mind and heart in their father and mother, when they have been brought up in such a warm, bright, happy home—they can’t no more help growin’ up sweet, and noble, and happy, than your wheat can help growin’ up straight and green when the warm rain and the sunshine falls on it. These children, Josiah Allen, are the future men and wimmens who are goin’ to put their shoulder blades to the wheel and roll this world straight into millenium.” Says Josiah,

“Wimmen are too good to vote with us men, wimmen haint much more nor less than angels any way.”

When you have been soarin’ in eloquence, it is always hard to be brought down sudden—it hurts you to light—and this speech sickened me, and says I, in a tone so cold that he shivered imperceptibly.

“Josiah Allen, there is one angel that would be glad to have a little wood got for her to get dinner with, there is one angel that cut every stick of wood she burnt yesterday, that same angel doin’ a big washin’ at the same time,” and says I, repeatin’ the words, as I glanced at the beef over the cold and chilly stove, “I should like a handful of wood Josiah Allen.”

“I would get you some this minute Samantha,” says he gettin’ up and takin’ down his plantin’ bag, “but you know jest how hurried I be with my spring’s work, can’t you pick up a little for this forenoon? you haint got much to do have you?”

“Oh no!” says I in a lofty tone of irony, “Nothin’ at all, only a big ironin’, ten pies and six loves of bread to bake, a cheese curd to run up, 3 hens to scald, churnin’ and moppin’ and dinner to get. Jest a easy mornin’s work for a angel.”

“Wall then, I guess you’ll get along, and to-morrow I’ll try to get you some.”

I said no more, but with lofty emotions surgin’ in my breast, I took my axe and started for the wood-pile.

A AXIDENT.

I have been sick enough with a axident. Josiah had got his plantin’ all done, and the garden seeds was comin’ up nice as a pin, I will have a good garden. But the hens bothered me most to death, and kep’ me a chasin’ out after ’em all the time. No sooner would I get ’em off the peas, then they would be on the mush mellons, and then the cowcumbers would take it and then the string beans, and there I was rushin’ out doors bareheaded all times of day. It was worse for me than all my house work, and so I told Josiah.

One day I went out full sail after ’em, and I fell kerslap over a rail that lay in the grass, and turned my ancle jint, and I was laid up bed sick for two weeks. It makes me out of patience to think of it, for we might have a dog that is worth somethin’ if it wasn’t for Josiah, but as it is, if he haint to the house I have to do all the chasin’ there is done, for I might as well get the door step started on to the cattle, or hens, as to get our dog off of it, to go on to any thing.

And he is big as a young eliphant too, eats as much as a cow, and of all the lazy critters I ever did see, he is the cap sheaf. Why, when Josiah sets him on to the hens, he has to take him by the collar and kinder draws him along, all the way. And as for cows and calves, he seems to be afraid of ’em, somethin’ kinder constitutionel Josiah says. I tell him he might better bark ’em off himself, especially as he is a first rate hand at it, you can’t tell him from a dog when he sets out.

One mornin’ I says to him, “Josiah Allen, what’s the use of your keepin’ that pup?”

Says he “Samantha, he is a good feller, if I will kinder run ahead of him, and keep between him and the cows, he will go on to them first rate, he seems to want encouragement.”

“Encouragement!” says I, “I should think as much.”

I didn’t say no more, and that very day the axident happened. Josiah heard me holler, and he come runnin’ from the barn—and a scairter man I never see. He took me right up, and was carryin’ of me in. I was in awful agony—and the first words I remember sayin’ was these, in a faint voice.

“I wonder if you’ll keep that pup now?”

Says he firmly, yet with pity, and with pale and anxious face.

“Mebby you didn’t encourage him enough.”

Says I deliriously, “Did you expect I was goin’ to carry him in my arms and throw him at the hens? I tried every other way.”

THE AXIDENT.

“Wall, wall!” says he, kinder soothin’ly, “Do keep still, how do you expect I’m goin’ to carry you if you touse round so.”

He laid me down on the lounge in the settin’ room, and I never got off of it, for two weeks. Fever set in—I had been kinder unwell for quite a spell, but I wouldn’t give up. I would keep ’round to work. But this axident seemed to be the last hump on the camel’s back, I had to give in, and Tirzah Ann had to come home from school to do the work.

When the news got out that I was sick, lots of folks came to see me. And every one wanted me to take some different kinds of patented medicine, or herb drink—why my stomach would have been drounded out, a perfect wreck—if I had took half. And then every one would name my desease some new name. Why I told Josiah at the end of the week, that accordin’ to their tell, I had got every desease under the sun, unless it was the horse distemper.

One mornin’ Miss Gowdey came in, and asked me in a melancholy way, if I had ever had the kind pox. I told her I had.

“Well,” says she, “I mistrust you have got the very oh Lord.”

It was a Saturday mornin’ and Thomas Jefferson was to home, and he spoke up and said “that was a good desease, and he hoped it would prevail; he knew quite a number that he thought it would do ’em good to have it.”

She looked real shocked, but knew it was some of Thomas J.’s fun. There was one woman that would come in, in a calm, quiet way about 2 times a week, and say in a mild, collected tone,

“You have got the tizick.”

Says I, “the pain is in my foot mostly.”

“I can’t help that,” says she gently, but firmly, “There is tizick with it. And I think that is what ailed Josiah when he was sick.”

“Why,” says I, “that was the newraligy, the doctors said.”

“Doctors are liable to mistakes,” says she in the same firm but modest accents, “I have always thought it was the tizick. There are more folks that are tiziky than you think for, in this world. I am a master hand for knowin’ it when I see it.” She would then in an affectionate manner advise me to doctor for the tizick, and then she would gently depart.

There are 2 kinds of wimmen that go to see the sick. There’s them low voiced, still footed wimmen, that walks right in, and lays their hands on your hot foreheads so soothin’ like, that the pain gets ashamed of itself and sneaks off. I call ’em God’s angels. Spozen they haint got wings, I don’t care, I contend for it they are servin’ the Lord jest as much as if they was a standin’ up in a row, all feathered out, with a palm tree in one hand and a harp in the other.

So I told old Gowdey one cold winter day—(he is awful stingy, he has got a big wood lot—yet lets lots of poor families most freeze round him, in the winter time. He will pray for ’em by the hour, but it don’t seem to warm ’em up much)—he says to me,

“Oh! if I was only a angel! if I only had holt of the palm tree up yonder that is waitin’ for me.”

Says I, coolly, “if it is used right, I think good body maple goes a good ways toward makin’ a angel.”

As I say, I have had these angels in my room—some kinder slimmish ones, some, that would go nigh on to 2 hundred by the stellyards, I don’t care if they went 3 hundred quick, I should call ’em angels jest the same.

Then there is them wimmen that go to have a good time of it, they get kinder sick of stayin’ to home, and nothin’ happenin’. And so they take thier work, and flock in to visit the afflicted. I should think I had pretty near 25 a day of ’em, and each one started 25 different subjects. Wild, crazy subjects, most of ’em, such as fires, runaway matches, and whirlwinds; earthquakes, neighberhood fightin’, and butter that wouldn’t come; great tidal waves, railroad axidents, balky horses, and overskirts; man slaughter, politix, schism, and frizzled hair.

I believe it would have drawed more sweat from a able bodied man to have laid still and heard it, than to mow a five acre lot in dog days. And there my head was takin’ on, and achin’ as if it would come off all the time.

If I could have had one thing at a time, I could have stood it better. I shouldn’t have minded a earthquake so much, if I could have give my full attention to it, but I must have conflegrations at the same time on my mind, and hens that wouldn’t set, and drunken men, and crazy wimmin, and jumpin’ sheep, and female suffragin’ and calico cut biasin’, and the Rushen war, and politix. It did seem some of the time, that my head must split open, and I guess the doctor got scairt about me, for one mornin’ after he went away, Josiah came into the room, and I see that he looked awful sober and gloomy, but the minute he ketched my eye, he began to snicker and laugh. I didn’t say nothin’ at first, and shet my eyes, but when I opened ’em agin, there he was a standin’ lookin’ down on me with the same mournful, agonized expression onto his features; not a word did he speak, but when he see me a lookin’ at him, he bust out laughin’ agin, and then says I—

“What is the matter, Josiah Allen?”

Says he, “I’m a bein’ cheerful, Samantha!”

BEIN’ CHEERFUL.

Says I in the faint accents of weakness, “You are bein’ a natural born idiot, and do you stop it.”

Says he, “I won’t stop it, Samantha, I will be cheerful;” and he giggled.

Says I, “Won’t you go out, and let me rest a little, Josiah Allen?”

“No!” says he firmly, “I will stand by you, and I will be cheerful,” and he snickered the loudest he had yet, but at the same time his countenance was so awfully gloomy and anxious lookin’ that it filled me with a strange awe as he continued—

“The doctor told me that you must be kep’ perfectly quiet, and I must be cheerful before you, and while I have the spirit of a man I will be cheerful,” and with a despairin’ countenance, he giggled and snickered.

I knew what a case he was to do his duty, and I groaned out, “There haint no use a tryin’ to stop him.”

“No,” says he, “there haint no use a arguin’ with me—I shall do my duty.” And he bust out into a awful laugh that almost choked him.

I knew there wouldn’t be no rest for me, while he stood there performin’ like a circus, and so says I in a strategim way—

“It seems to me as if I should like a little lemonade, Josiah, but the lemons are all gone.”

Says he, “I will harness up the old mare and start for Jonesville this minute, and get you some.”

But after he got out in the kitchen, and his hat on, he stuck his head into the door, and with a mournful countenance, snickered.

After he fairly sot sail for Jonesville, now, thinks I to myself, I will have a good nap, and rest my head while he is gone, and I had jest got settled down, and was thinkin’ sweetly how slow the old mare was, when I heerd a noise in the kitchen. And Tirzah Ann come in, and says she—

“Betsey Bobbet has come; I told her I guessed you was a goin’ to sleep, and she hadn’t better come in, but she acted so mad about it, that I don’t know what to do.”

Before I could find time to tell her to lock the door, and put a chair against it, Betsey come right in, and says she—

“Josiah Allen’s wife, how do you feel this mornin’?” and she added sweetly, “You see I have come.”

“I feel dreadful bad and feverish, this mornin’,” says I, groanin’ in spite of myself. For my head felt the worst it had, everything looked big, and sick to the stomach to me, kinder waverin’ and floatin’ round like.

“Yes, I know jest how you feel, Josiah Allen’s wife, for I have felt jest so, only a great deal worse—why, talkin’ about fevahs, Josiah Allen’s wife, I have had such a fevah that the sweat stood in great drops all ovah me.”

She took her things off, and laid ’em on the table, and she had a bag hangin’ on her arm pretty near as big as a flour sack, and she laid that down in one chair and took another one herself, and then she continued,

“I have come down to spend the entiah day with you, Josiah Allen’s wife. We heerd that you was sick, and we thought we would all come doun and spend the day with you. We have got relations from a distance visitin’ us,—relations on fathah’s side—and they are all a comin’. Mothah is comin’ and Aunt Betsey, and cousin Annah Mariah and her two children. But we don’t want you to make any fuss for us at all—only cousin Annah Mariah was sayin’ yesterday that she did want an old-fashioned boiled dinnah, before she went back to New York. Mothah was goin’ to boil one yesterday, but you know jest how it scents up a house, and in my situation, not knowin’ when I shall receive interestin’ calls, I do want to keep up a agreeable atmospheah. I told Annah Mariah you had all kinds of garden sauce. We don’t want you to make any difference for us—not in the least—but boiled dinnahs, with a boiled puddin’ and sugar sauce, are perfectly beautiful.”

I groaned in a low tone, but Betsey was so engaged a talkin’, that she didn’t heed it, but went on in a high, excited tone—

“I come on a little ahead, for I wanted to get a pattern for a bedquilt, if you have got one to suit me. I am goin’ to piece up a bedquilt out of small pieces of calico I have been savin’ for yeahs. And I brought the whole bag of calicoes along, for Mothah and cousin Annah Mariah said they would assist me in piecin’ up to-day, aftah I get them cut out. You know I may want bedquilts suddenly. A great many young girls are bein’ snatched away this spring. I think it becomes us all to be prepared. Aunt Betsey would help me too, but she is in a dreadful hurry with a rag carpet. She is goin’ to bring down a basket full of red and yellow rags that mothah gave her, to tear up to-day. She said that it was not very pretty work to carry visatin’, but I told her you was sick and would not mind it. I guess,” she continued, takin’ up her bag, “I will pour these calicoes all out upon the table, and then I will look at your bedquilts and patterns.” And she poured out about half a bushel of crazy lookin’ pieces of calico on the table, no two pieces of a size or color.

KEEPIN’ THE SICK QUIET.

I groaned loudly, in spite of myself, and shut my eyes. She heard the groan, and see the agony on to my eye brow, and says she,

“The doctor said to our house this morning, that you must be kept perfectly quiet—and I tell you Josiah Allen’s wife, that you must not get excited. We talked it over this morning, we said we were all going to put in together, that you should keep perfectly quiet, and not get excited in your mind. And now what would you advise me to do? Would you have a sunflower bedquilt, or a blazing stah? Take it right to yourself Josiah Allen’s wife, what would you do about it? But do not excite yourself any. Blazing stahs look more showy, but then sun-flowehs are easier to quilt. Quilt once around every piece, and it is enough, and looks well on the other side, I am going to line it with otteh coloh—white looks betteh, but if two little children jest of an age, should happen to be a playing on it, it would keep clean longeh.”

Agin I groaned, and says Betsey, “I do wish you would take my advice Josiah Allen’s wife, and keep perfectly quiet in your mind. I should think you would,” says she reproachfully. “When I have told you, how much betteh it would be for you. I guess,” says she, “that you need chirking up a little. I must enliven you, and make you look happier before I go on with my bedquilt, and before we begin to look at your patterns and bedquilts, I will read a little to you, I calculated too, if you was low spirited; I came prepared.” And takin’ a paper out of her pocket she says,

“I will now proceed to read to you one of the longest, most noble and eloquent editorials that has eveh come out in the pages of the Augah, written by its noble and eloquent Editah. It is six columns in length, and is concerning our relations with Spain.”

This was too much—too much—and I sprung up on my couch, and cried wildly,

“Let the Editor of the Augur and his relations go to Spain! And do you go to Spain with your relations!” says I, “and do you start this minute!”

Betsey was appalled, and turned to flee, and I cried out agin,

“Do you take your bedquilt with you.”

She gathered up her calicoes, and fled. And I sunk back, shed one or two briny tears of relief, and then sunk into a sweet and refreshin’ sleep. And from that hour I gained on it. But in the next week’s Augur, these and 10 more verses like ’em come out.

BLASTED HOPES.

I do not mind my cold rebuffs

To be turned out with bedquilt stuffs;

Philosophy would ease my smart,

Would say, “Oh peace, sad female heart.”

But Oh, this is the woe to me,

She would not listen unto he.

If it had been my soaring muse,

That she in wild scorn did refuse,

I could like marble statute rise,

And face her wrath with tearless eyes;

’Twould not have been such a blow to me,

But, she would not listen unto he.

THE JONESVILLE SINGIN’ QUIRE.

Thomas Jefferson is a good boy. His teacher to the Jonesville Academy told me the other day, says he,

“Thomas J. is full of fun, but I don’t believe he has a single bad habit; and I don’t believe he knows any more about bad things, than Tirzah Ann, and she is a girl of a thousand.”

This made my heart beat with pure and fervent emotions of joy, for I knew it was true, but I tell you I have had to work for it. I was determined from the first, that Thomas Jefferson needn’t think because he was a boy he could do anything that would be considered disgraceful if he was a girl. Now some mothers will worry themselves to death about thier girls, so afraid they will get into bad company and bring disgrace onto ’em. I have said to ’em sometimes,

“Why don’t you worry about your boys?”

“Oh things are winked at in a man that haint in a woman.”

Says I, “There is one woman that no man can get to wink at ’em, and that is Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith.” Says I, “It is enough to make anybody’s blood bile in thier vains to think how different sin is looked upon in a man and woman. I say sin is sin, and you can’t make goodness out of it by parsin’ it in the masculine gender, no more’n you can by parsin’ it in the feminine or neutral.

“And wimmin are the most to blame in this respect. I believe in givin’ the D——I won’t speak the gentleman’s name right out, because I belong to the Methodist Meetin’ house, but you know who I mean, and I believe in givin’ him his due, if you owe him anything, and I say men haint half so bad as wimmen about holdin’ up male sinners and stompin’ down female ones.

“Wimmen are meaner than pusley about some things, and this is one of ’em. Now wimmen will go out and kill the fatted calf with thier own hands to feast the male prodigal that has been livin’ on husks. But let the woman that he has been boardin’ with on the same bundle of husks, ask meekly for a little mite of this veal critter, will she get it? No! She won’t get so much as one of the huffs. She will be told to keep on eatin’ her husks, and after she has got through with ’em to die, for after a woman has once eat husks, she can’t never eat any other vittles. And if she asks meekly, why is her stomach so different from the male husk eater, he went right off from husks to fatted calves, they’ll say to her ‘what is sin in a woman haint sin in a man. Men are such noble creatures that they will be a little wild, it is expected of ’em, but after they have sowed all thier wild oats, they always settle down and make the very best of men.’

“‘Can’t I settle down too?’ cries the poor woman. ‘I am sick of wild oats too, I am sick of husks—I want to live a good life, in the sight of God and man—can’t I settle down too?’

“‘Yes you can settle down in the grave,’ they say to her—‘When a woman has sinned once, that is all the place there is for her—a woman cannot be forgiven.’ There is an old sayin’ ‘Go and sin no more.’ But that is eighteen hundred years old—awful old fashioned.”

And then after they have feasted the male husk eater, on this gospel veal, and fell on his neck and embraced him a few times, they will take him into thier houses and marry him to their purest and prettiest daughter, while at the same time they won’t have the female husker in thier kitchen to wash for ’em at 4 cents an article.

I say it is a shame and a disgrace, for the woman to bear all the burden of sufferin’ and all the burden of shame too; it is a mean, cowardly piece of business, and I should think the very stuns would go to yellin’ at each other to see such injustice.

But Josiah Allen’s children haint been brought up in any such kind of a way. They have been brought up to think that sin of any kind is jest as bad in a man as it is in a woman. And any place of amusement that was bad for a woman to go to, was bad for a man.

Now when Thomas Jefferson was a little feller, he was bewitched to go to circuses, and Josiah said,

“Better let him go, Samantha, it haint no place for wimmin or girls, but it won’t hurt a boy.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, the Lord made Thomas Jefferson with jest as pure a heart as Tirzah Ann, and no bigger eyes and ears, and if Thomas J. goes to the circus, Tirzah Ann goes too.”

That stopped that. And then he was bewitched to get with other boys that smoked and chewed tobacco, and Josiah was jest that easy turn, that he would have let him go with ’em. But says I—

“Josiah Allen, if Thomas Jefferson goes with those boys, and gets to chewin’ and smokin’ tobacco, I shall buy Tirzah Ann a pipe.”

And that stopped that.

“And about drinkin’,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson, if it should ever be the will of Providence to change you into a wild bear, I will chain you up, and do the best I can by you. But if you ever do it yourself, turn yourself into a wild beast by drinkin’, I will run away, for I never could stand it, never. And,” I continued, “if I ever see you hangin’ round bar-rooms and tavern doors, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.”

Josiah argued with me, says he, “It don’t look so bad for a boy as it does for a girl.”

Says I, “Custom makes the difference; we are more used to seein’ men. But,” says I, “when liquor goes to work to make a fool and a brute of anybody it don’t stop to ask about sect, it makes a wild beast and a idiot of a man or a woman, and to look down from Heaven, I guess a man looks as bad layin’ dead drunk in a gutter as a woman does,” says I; “things look different from up there, than what they do to us—it is a more sightly place. And you talk about looks, Josiah Allen. I don’t go on clear looks, I go onto principle. Will the Lord say to me in the last day, ‘Josiah Allen’s wife, how is it with the sole of Tirzah Ann—as for Thomas Jefferson’s sole, he bein’ a boy it haint of no account?’ No! I shall have to give an account to Him for my dealin’s with both of these soles, male and female. And I should feel guilty if I brought him up to think that what was impure for a woman, was pure for a man. If man has a greater desire to do wrong—which I won’t dispute,” says I lookin’ keenly on to Josiah, “he has greater strength to resist temptation. And so,” says I in mild accents, but firm as old Plymouth Rock, “if Thomas Jefferson hangs, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.”

I have brought Thomas Jefferson up to think that it was jest as bad for him to listen to a bad story or song, as for a girl, or worse, for he had more strength to run away, and that it was a disgrace for him to talk or listen to any stuff that he would be ashamed to have Tirzah Ann or me hear. I have brought him up to think that manliness didn’t consist in havin’ a cigar in his mouth, and his hat on one side, and swearin’ and slang phrases, and a knowledge of questionable amusements, but in layin’ holt of every duty that come to him, with a brave heart and a cheerful face; in helpin’ to right the wrong, and protect the weak, and makin’ the most and the best of the mind and the soul God had given him. In short, I have brought him up to think that purity and virtue are both masculine and femanine gender, and that God’s angels are not necessarily all she ones.

Tirzah Ann too has come up well, though I say it, that shouldn’t, her head haint all full, runnin’ over, and frizzlin’ out on top of it, with thoughts of beaux and flirtin’. I have brought her up to think that marriage wasn’t the chief end of life, but savin’ her soul. Tirzah Ann’s own grandmother on her mother’s side, used to come visatin’ us and stay weeks at a time, kinder spyin’ out I spose how I done by the children,—thank fortune, I wasn’t afraid to have her spy, all she was a mind too, I wouldn’t have been afraid to had Benedict Arnold, and Major Andre come as spys. I did well by ’em, and she owned it, though she did think I made Tirzah Ann’s night gowns a little too full round the neck, and Thomas Jefferson’s roundabouts a little too long behind. But as I was a sayin’, the old lady begun to kinder train Tirzah Ann up to the prevailin’ idee of its bein’ her only aim in life to catch a husband, and if she would only grow up and be a real good girl she should marry.

I didn’t say nothin’ to the old lady, for I respect old age, but I took Josiah out one side, and says I,

“Josiah Allen, if Tirzah Ann is to be brought up to think that marriage is the chief aim of her life, Thomas J. shall be brought up to think that marriage is his chief aim.” Says I, “it looks just as flat in a woman, as it does in a man.”

Josiah didn’t make much of any answer to me, he is an easy man. But as that was the old lady’s last visit (she was took bed rid the next week, and haint walked a step sense), I haint had no more trouble on them grounds.

When Tirzah Ann gets old enough, if a good true man, a man for instance, such as I think Whitfield Minkley, our minister’s oldest boy is a goin’ to make, if such a man offers Tirzah Ann his love which is the greatest honor a man can do a woman, why Tirzah will, I presume, if she loves him well enough, marry him. I should give my consent, and so would Josiah. But to have all her mind sot onto that hope and expectatin’ till she begins to look wild, I have discouraged it in her.

I have told her that goodness, truth, honor, vertue and nobility come first as aims in life. Says I,

“Tirzah Ann, seek these things first, and then if a husband is added unto you, you may know it is the Lord’s will, and accept him like any other dispensation of Providence, and—” I continued as dreamy thoughts of Josiah floated through my mind, “make the best of him.”

I feel thankful to think they have both come up as well as they have. Tirzah Ann is more of a quiet turn, but Thomas J., though his morals are sound, is dreadful full of fun, I worry some about him for he haint made no professions, I never could get him forred onto the anxious seat. He told Elder Minkley last winter that “the seats were all made of the same kind of basswood, and he could be jest as anxious out by the door, as he could on one of the front seats.”

Says Elder Minkley, “My dear boy, I want you to find the Lord.”

“I haint never lost him,” says Thomas Jefferson.

It shocked Elder Minkley dreadfully—but it sot me to thinkin’. He was always an odd child, always askin’ the curiousest questions, and I brought him up to think that the Lord was with him all the time, and see what he was doin’, and mebby he was in the right of it, mebby he felt as if he hadn’t never lost Him. He was always the greatest case to be out in the woods and lots, findin’ everything—and sometimes I have almost thought the trash he thinks so much of, such as shells and pieces of rock and stun, and flowers and moss, are a kind of means of grace to him, and then agin I don’t know. If I really thought they was I don’t suppose I should have pitched ’em out of the winder so many times as I have, clutterin’ up the house so.

I worry about him awfully sometimes, and then agin I lay holt of the promises. Now last Saturday night to have heard him go on, about the Jonesville quire, you’d a thought he never had a sober, solemn thought in his head. They meet to practice Saturday nights, and he had been to hear ’em. I stood his light talk as long as I could, and finally I told him to stop it, for I would not hear him go on so.

“Wall,” says he, “you go yourself mother sometime, and see thier carryin’s on. Why,” says he, “if fightin’ entitles anybody to a pension, they ought to draw 96 dollars a year, every one of ’em—you go yourself, and hear ’em rehearse if you don’t believe me—” and then he begun to sing,

‘Just before the battle, mother,

I am thinkin’ now of you.’

“I’ll be hanged if I would rehearse,” says Josiah, “what makes ’em?”

“Let ’em rehearse,” says I sternly, “I should think there was need enough of it.”

It happened that very next night, Elder Merton preached to the red school house, and Josiah hitched up the old mare, and we went over. It was the first time I had been out sense the axident. Thomas J. and Tirzah Ann walked.

Josiah and I sot right behind the quire, and we could hear every word they said, and while Elder Merton was readin’ the hymn, “How sweet for brethren to agree,” old Gowdey whispered to Mr. Peedick in wrathful accents,

“I wonder if you will put us all to open shame to-night by screechin’ two or three notes above us all?”

He caught my keen grey eye fixed sternly upon him, and his tone changed in a minute to a mild, sheepish one, and he added smilin’ “as it were, deah brother Peedick.”

Mr. Peedick designed not to reply to him, for he was shakin’ his fist at one of the younger brethrin’ in the quire, and says he,

“Let me catch you pressin’ the key agin to-night, you young villain, if you think it is best.”

“I shall press as many keys as I am a minter for all you. You’re always findin’ fault with sunthin’ or other,” muttered he.

Betsey Bobbet and Sophronia Gowdey was lookin’ at each other all this time with looks that made one’s blood run cold in thier vains.

Mr. Peedick commenced the tune, but unfortunately struck into short metre. They all commenced loud and strong, but couldn’t get any further than “How sweet for bretherin.” As they all come to a sudden halt there in front of that word—Mr. Gowdey—lookin’ daggers at Mr. Peedick—took out his pitch fork, as if it was a pistol, and he was goin’ to shoot him with it, but applyin’ it to his own ear, he started off on the longest metre that had ever been in our neighborhood. After addin’ the tune to the words, there was so much tune to carry, that the best calculator in tunes couldn’t do it.

At that very minute when it looked dark, and gloomy indeed for the quire, an old lady, the best behaved in the quire, who had minded her own business, and chawed caraway peacefully, come out and started it to the tune of “Oh that will be joyful.”

They all joined in at the top of their voice, and though they each one put in flats and sharps to suit thier own taste, they kinder hung together till they got to the chorus, and then Mr. Gowdey looked round and frowned fiercely at Shakespeare Bobbet who seemed to be flattin’ most of any of ’em, and Betsey Bobbet punched Sophronia Gowdey in the side with her parasol, and told her she was “disgracin’ the quire—and to sing slower,” and then they all yelled

How sweet is unitee—e

How sweet is unitee,

How sweet for bretheren to agree,

How sweet is unitee.

THE SINGING QUIRE.

It seemed as if the very feather on my bunnet stood up straight, to hear ’em, it was so awful. Then they collected their strength, and drawin’ long breaths, they yelled out the next verses like wild Indians round sufferin’ whites they was murderin’. If any one had iron ears, it would have went off well, all but for one thing—there was an old man who insisted on bein’ in the quire, who was too blind to see the words, and always sung by ear, and bein’ a little deaf he got the words wrong, but he sung out loud and clear like a trembone,

How sweet is onion tee—e,

How sweet is onion tea.

Elder Merton made a awful good prayer, about trials purifyin’ folks and makin’ ’em better, and the same heroic patient look was on his face, when he give out the next him.

This piece begun with a long duett between the tenor and the alto, and Betsey Bobbet by open war and strategim had carried the day, and was to sing this part alone with the tenor. She knew the Editer of the Augur was the only tenor singer in the quire. She was so proud and happy thinkin’ she was goin’ to sing alone with him, that not rightly sensin’ where she was, and what she was about, she pitched her part too low, and here was where I had my trial with Josiah.

There is no more sing to Josiah Allen than there is to a one horse wagon, and I have tried to convince him of it, but I can’t, and he will probably go down to the grave thinkin’ he can sing base. But thier is no sing to it, that, I will contend for with my last breath, it is nothin’ more nor less than a roar. But one thing I will give him the praise of, he is a dreadful willin’ man in the time of trouble, and if he takes it into his head that it is his duty to sing, you can’t stop him no more than you can stop a clap of thunder, and when he does let his voice out, he lets it out strong, I can tell you. As Betsey finished the first line, I heard him say to himself.

“It is a shame for one woman to sing base alone, in a room full of men.” And before I could stop him, he struck in with his awful energy, you couldn’t hear Betsey’s voice, nor the Editer’s, no more than you could hear two flies buzzin’ in a car whistle. It was dreadful. And as he finished the first verse, I ketched hold of his vest, I didn’t stand up, by reason of bein’ lame yet from the axident—and says I,

“If you sing another verse in that way, I’ll part with you,” says I, “what do you mean Josiah Allen?”

Says he, lookin’ doun on me with the persperation a pourin’ down his face,

“I am a singin’ base.”

Says I, “Do you set down and behave yourself, she has pitched it too low, it hain’t base, Josiah.”

Says he, “I know better Samantha, it is base, I guess I know base when I hear it.”

But I still held him by the vest, determined that he shouldn’t start off again, if I could hender it, and jest at that minute the duett begun agin, and Sophronia Gowdey took advantage of Betsey’s indignation and suprise, and took the part right out of her mouth, and struck in with the Editer of the Augur—she is kinder after him too, and she broke out with the curiousest variations you ever heard. The warblin’s and quaverin’s and shakin’s, she put in was the curiousest of any thing I ever heard. And thankful was I that it took up Josiah’s attention so, that he sunk down on his seat, and listened to ’em with breathless awe, and never offered to put in his note at all.

I waited till they got through singin’ and then I whispered to him, and says I,

“Now do you keep still for the rest of this meetin’ Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “As long as I call myself a man, I will have the privilege of singin’ base.”

“Sing,” says I in a tone almost cold enough to make his whiskers frosty, “I’d call it singin’ if I was you.” It worried me all through meetin’ time, and thankful was I when he dropped off into a sweet sleep jest before meetin’ was out. He never heard ’em sing the last time, and I had to hunch him for the benediction.

In the next week’s Augur came out a lot of verses, among which were the following: they were headed

SORROWS OF THE HEART.

Written on bein’ broken into, while singin’ a duett with a deah friend.

BY BETSY BOBBET.

And sweetness neveh seems so sweet,

As when his voice and mine doth meet,

I rise, I soah, earth’s sorrows leaving,

I almost seem to be in heaveng.

But when we are sweetly going on,

’Tis hard to be broke in upon;

To drounded be, oh foul disgrace,

In awful roars of dreadful base.

And when another female in her vain endeavors,

To fascinate a certain noble man, puts in such quavers,

And trills and warbles with such sickish variation,

It don’t raise her at all in that man’s estimation.

There was 13 verses and Josiah read them all, but I wouldn’t read but 7 of ’em. I don’t like poetry.

MISS SHAKESPEARE’S EARRINGS.

Them verses of Betsey’s kinder worked Josiah up, I know, though he didn’t say much. That line “dreadful roars of awful base” mortified him, I know, because he actually did think that he sung pretty enough for a orkusstry. I didn’t say much to him about it. I don’t believe in twittin’ all the time, about anything, for it makes anybody feel as unpleasant as it does to set down on a paper of carpet tacks. I only said to him—

“I tried to convince you, Josiah, that you couldn’t sing, for 14 years, and now that it has come out in poetry mebby you’ll believe it. I guess you’ll listen to me another time, Josiah Allen.”

He says, “I wish you wouldn’t be so aggravatin’, Samantha.”

That was all that was said on either side. But I noticed that he didn’t sing any more. We went to several conference meetin’s that week, and not one roar did he give. It was an awful relief to me, for I never felt safe for a minute, not knowin’ when he would break out.

The next week Saturday after the poetry come out, Tirzah took it into her head that she wanted to go to Elder Morton’s a visitin’; Maggie Snow was a goin’ to meet her there, and I told her to go—I’d get along with the work somehow.

I had to work pretty hard, but then I got it all out of the way early, and my head combed and my dress changed, and I was jest pinnin’ my linen coller over my clean gingham dress (broun and black plaid) to the lookin’ glass, when lookin’ up, who should I see but Betsey Bobbet comin’ through the gate. She stopped a minute to Tirzah Ann’s posy bed, and then she come along kinder gradually, and stopped and looked at my new tufted bedspread that I have got out a whitenin’ on the grass, and then she come up the steps and come in.

Somehow I was kinder glad to see her that day. I had had first rate luck with all my bakin’, every thing had turned out well, and I felt real reconciled to havin’ a visit from her.

But I see she looket ruther gloomy, and after she sot down and took out her tattin’ and begun to tat, she spoke up and says she—

“Josiah Allen’s wife, I feel awful deprested to-day.”

“What is the matter?” says I in a cheerful tone.

“I feel lonely,” says she, “more lonely than I have felt for yeahs.”

Again says I kindly but firmly—

“What is the matter, Betsey?”

“I had a dream last night, Josiah Allen’s wife.”

“What was it?” says I in a sympathizin’ accent, for she did look meloncholly and sad indeed.

“I dreamed I was married, Josiah Allen’s wife,” says she in a heart-broken tone, and she laid her hand on my arm in her deep emotion. “I tell you it was hard after dreamin’ that, to wake up again to the cold realities and cares of this life; it was hard,” she repeated, and a tear gently flowed down her Roman nose and dropped off onto her overskirt. She knew salt water would spot otter color awfully, and so she drew her handkerchief out of her pocket, and spread it in her lap, (it was white trimmed with narrow edgein’) and continued—

“Life seemed so hard and lonesome to me, that I sot up in the end of the bed and wept. I tried to get to sleep again, hopin’ I would dream it ovah, but I could not.”

And again two salt tears fell in about the middle of the handkerchief. I see she needed consolation, and my gratitude made me feel soft to her, and so says I in a reasurin’ tone—

“To be sure husbands are handy on 4th of July’s, and funeral prosessions, it looks kinder lonesome to see a woman streamin’ along alone, but they are contrary creeters, Betsey, when they are a mind to be.”

And then to turn the conversation and get her mind off’en her trouble, says I,

“How did you like my bed spread, Betsey?”

“It is beautiful,” says she sorrowfully.

“Yes,” says I, “it looks well enough now its done, but it most wore my fingers out a tuftin’ it—it’s a sight of work.”

But I saw how hard it was to draw her mind off from broodin’ over her troubles, for she spoke in a mournful tone,

“How sweet it must be to weah the fingers out for a deah companion. I would be willing to weah mine clear down to the bone. I made a vow some yeahs ago,” says she, kinder chirkin’ up a little, and beginnin’ to tat agin. “I made a vow yeahs ago that I would make my deah future companion happy, for I would neveh, neveh fail to meet him with a sweet smile as he came home to me at twilight. I felt that that was all he would requireh to make him happy. Do you think it was a rash vow, Josiah Allen’s wife?”

“Oh,” says I in a sort of blind way, “I guess it won’t do any hurt. But, if a man couldn’t have but one of the two, a smile or a supper, as he come home at night, I believe he would take the supper.”

“Oh deah,” says Betsey, “such cold, practical ideahs are painful to me.”

“Wall,” says I cheerfully but firmly, “if you ever have the opportunity, you try both ways. You jest let your fire go out, and your house and you look like fury, and nothin’ to eat, and you stand on the door smilin’ like a first class idiot—and then agin you have a first rate supper on the table, stewed oysters, and warm biscuit and honey, or somethin’ else first rate, and a bright fire shinin’ on a clean hearth, and the tea-kettle a singin’, and the tea-table all set out neat as a pink, and you goin’ round in a cheerful, sensible way gettin’ the supper onto the table, and you jest watch, and see which of the two ways is the most agreable to him.”

Betsey still looked unconvinced, and I proceeded onwards.

“Now I never was any hand to stand and smile at Josiah for two or three hours on a stretch, it would make me feel like a natural born idiot; but I always have a bright fire, and a warm supper a waitin’ for him when he comes home at night.”

“Oh food! food! what is food to the deathless emotions of the soul. What does the aching young heart care for what food it eats—let my deah future companion smile on me, and that is enough.”

Says I in reasonable tones, “A man can’t smile on an empty stomach Betsey, not for any length of time. And no man can’t eat soggy bread, with little chunks of salaratus in it, and clammy potatoes, and beefsteak burnt and raw in spots, and drink dishwatery tea, and muddy coffee, and smile—or they might give one or 2 sickly, deathly smiles, but they wouldn’t keep it up, you depend upon it they wouldn’t, and it haint in the natur’ of a man to, and I say they hadn’t ought to. I have seen bread Betsey Bobbet, that was enough to break down any man’s affection for a woman, unless he had firm principle to back it up—and love’s young dream has been drounded in thick, muddy coffee more’n once. If there haint anything pleasant in a man’s home how can he keep attached to it? Nobody, man nor woman can’t respect what haint respectable, or love what haint lovable. I believe in bein’ cheerful Betsey; a complainin’, fretful woman in the house, is worse than a cold, drizzlin’ rain comin’ right down all the time onto the cook stove. Of course men have to be corrected, I correct Josiah frequently, but I believe in doin’ it all up at one time and then have it over with, jest like a smart dash of a thunder shower that clears up the air.”

“Oh, how a female woman that is blest with a deah companion, can even speak of correcting him, is a mystery to me.”

But again I spoke, and my tone was as firm and lofty as Bunker Hill monument—

“Men have to be corrected, Betsey, there wouldn’t be no livin’ with ’em unless you did.”

“Well,” says she, “you can entertain such views as you will, but for me, I will be clingin’ in my nature, I will be respected by men, they do so love to have wimmin clingin’, that I will, until I die, carry out this belief that is so sweet to them—until I die I will nevah let go of this speah.”

I didn’t say nothin’, for gratitude tied up my tongue, but as I rose and went up stairs to wind me a little more yarn—I thought I wouldn’t bring down the swifts for so little as I wanted to wind—I thought sadly to myself, what a hard, hard time she had had, sense I had known her, a handlin’ that spear. We got to talkin’ about it the other day, how long she had been a handlin’ of it. Says Thomas Jefferson, “She has been brandishin’ it for fifty years.”

Says I, “Shet up, Thomas J., she haint been born longer ago than that.”

Says he—“She was born with that spear in her hand.”

But as I said she has had a hard and mournful time a tryin’ to make a runnin’ vine of herself sense I knew her. And Josiah says she was at it, for years before I ever see her. She has tried to make a vine of herself to all kinds of trees, straight and crooked, sound and rotten, young and old. Her mind is sot the most now, on the Editer of the Augur, but she pays attention to any and every single man that comes in her way. And it seems strange to me that them that preach up this doctrine of woman’s only spear, don’t admire one who carrys it out to its full extent. It seems kinder ungrateful in ’em, to think that when Betsey is so willin’ to be a vine, they will not be a tree; but they won’t, they seem sot against it.

I say if men insist on makin’ runnin’ vines of wimmin, they ought to provide trees for ’em to run up on, it haint nothin’ more’n justice that they should, but they won’t and don’t. Now ten years ago the Methodist minister before Elder Wesley Minkley came, was a widower of some twenty odd years, and he was sorely stricken with years and rheumatiz. But Betsey showed plainly her willin’ness and desire to be a vine, if he would be a tree. But he would not be a tree—he acted real obstinate about it, considerin’ his belief. For he was awful opposed to wimmin’s havin’ any rights only the right to marry. He preached a beautiful sermon about woman’s holy mission, and how awful it was in her, to have any ambition outside of her own home. And how sweet it was to see her in her confidin’ weakness and gentleness clingin’ to man’s manly strength. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house only mine. Betsey wept aloud, she was so affected by it. And it was beautiful, I don’t deny it; I always respected clingers. But I love to see folks use reason. And I say again, how can a woman cling when she haint got nothin’ to cling to? That day I put it fair and square to our old minister, he went home with us to supper, and he begun on me about wimmin’s rights, for he knew I believe in wimmin’s havin a right. Says he, “It is flyin’ in the face of the Bible for a woman not to marry.”

Says I, “Elder how can any lady make brick without straw or sand—how can a woman marry without a man is forthcomin’?” says I, “wimmen’s will may be good, but there is some things she can not do, and this is one of ’em.” Says I, “as our laws are at present no women can marry unless she has a man to marry to. And if the man is obstinate and hangs back what is she to do?”

He begun to look a little sheepish and tried to kinder turn off the subject on to religion.

But no steamboat ever sailed onward under the power of biled water steam, more grandly than did Samantha Allen’s words under the steam of bilein’ principle. I fixed my eyes upon him with seemin’ly an arrow in each one of ’em, and says I—

“Which had you rather do Elder, let Betsey Bobbet vote, or cling to you? She is fairly achin’ to make a runnin’ vine of herself,” and says I, in slow, deep, awful tones, “are you willin’ to be a tree?”

Again he weakly murmured somethin’ on the subject of religion, but I asked him again in slower, awfuler tones.

“Are you willin’ to be a tree?”

He turned to Josiah, and says he, “I guess I will go out to the barn and bring in my saddle bags.” He had come to stay all night. And that man went to the barn smit and conscience struck, and haint opened his head to me sense about wimmin’s not havin’ a right.

I had jest arrived at this crysis in my thoughts, and had also got my yarn wound up—my yarn and my revery endin’ up at jest the same time, when Betsey came to the foot of the stairs and called out—

“Josiah Allen’s wife, a gentleman is below, and craves an audience with you.”

I sot back my swifts, and went down, expectin’ from the reverential tone of her voice to see a United States Governor, or a Deacon at the very least. But it wasn’t either of ’em, it was a peddler. He wanted to know if I could get some dinner for him, and I thinkin’ one more trial wouldn’t kill me said I would. He was a loose jinted sort of a chap, with his hat sot onto one side of his head, but his eyes had a twinkle to ’em, that give the idee that he knew what he was about.

After dinner he kep’ a bringin’ on his goods from his cart, and praisin’ ’em up, the lies that man told was enough to apaul the ablest bodied man, but Betsey swallowed every word. After I had coldly rejected all his other overtures for tradin’, he brought on a strip of stair carpetin’, a thin striped yarn carpet, and says he—

“Can’t I sell you this beautiful carpet? it is the pure Ingrain.”

“Ingrain,” says I, “so be you Ingrain as much.”

“I guess I know,” says he, “for I bought it of old Ingrain himself, I give the old man 12 shillin’s a yard for it, but seein’ it is you, and I like your looks so much, and it seems so much like home to me here, I will let you have it for 75 cents, cheaper than dirt to walk on, or boards.”

“I don’t want it,” says I, “I have got carpets enough.”

“Do you want it for 50 cents?” says he follerin’ me to the wood-box.

“No!” says I pretty sharp, for I don’t want to say no two times, to anybody.

“Would 25 cents be any indoosement to you?” says he, follerin’ me to the buttery door.

“No!” says I in my most energetic voice, and started for the suller with a plate of nut-cakes.

“Would 18 pence tempt you?” says he, hollerin’ down the suller way.

Then says I, comin’ up out of the suller with the old Smith blood bilin’ up in my veins, “Say another word to me about your old stair carpet if you dare; jest let me ketch you at it,” says I; “be I goin’ to have you traipse all over the house after me? be I goin’ to be made crazy as a loon by you?”

“Oh, Josiah Allen’s wife,” says Betsey, “do not be so hasty; of course the gentleman wishes to dispose of his goods, else why should he be in the mercanteel business?”

I didn’t say nothin’—gratitude still had holt of me—but I inwardly determined that not one word would I say if he cheated her out of her eye teeth.

Addressin’ his attention to Betsey, he took a pair of old fashioned ear rings out of his jacket pocket, and says he—

“I carry these in my pocket for fear I will be robbed of ’em. I hadn’t ought to carry ’em at all, a single man goin’ alone round the country as I do, but I have got a pistol, and let anybody tackle me for these ear rings if they dare to,” says he, lookin’ savage.

“Is thier intrinsick worth so large?” says Betsey,

“It haint so much thier neat value,” says he, “although that is enormous, as who owned ’em informally. Whose ears do you suppose these have had hold of?”

“How can I judge,” says Betsey with a winnin’ smile, “nevah havin’ seen them before.”

“Jest so,” says he, “you never was acquainted with ’em, but these very identical creeters used to belong to Miss Shakespeare. Yes, these belonged to Hamlet’s mother,” says he, lookin’ pensively upon them. “Bill bought ’em at old Stratford.”

“Bill?” says Betsey inquirin’ly.

“Yes,” says he, “old Shakespeare. I have been reared with his folks so much, that I have got into the habit of callin’ him Bill, jest as they do.”

“Then you have been there?” says Betsey with a admirin’ look.

“Oh yes, wintered there and partly summered. But as I was sayin’ William bought ’em and give ’em to his wife, when he first begun to pay attention to her. Bill bought ’em at a auction of a one-eyed man with a wooden leg, by the name of Brown. Miss Shakespeare wore ’em as long as she lived, and they was kept in the family till I bought ’em. A sister of one of his brother-in-laws was obleeged to part with ’em to get morpheen.”

“I suppose you ask a large price for them?” says Betsey, examanin’ ’em with a reverential look onto her countenance.

“How much! how much you remind me of a favorite sister of mine, who died when she was fifteen. She was considered by good judges to be the handsomest girl in North America. But business before pleasure. I ought to have upwards of 30 dollars a head for ’em, but seein’ it is you, and it haint no ways likely I shall ever meet with another wo—young girl that I feel under bonds to sell ’em to, you may have ’em for 13 dollars and a ½.”

“That is more money than I thought of expendin’ to-day,” says Betsey in a thoughtful tone.

“Let me tell you what I will do; I don’t care seein’ it is you, if I do get cheated, I am willin’ to be cheated by one that looks so much like that angel sister. Give me 13 dollars and a ½, and I will throw in the pin that goes with ’em. I did want to keep that to remind me of them happy days at old Stratford,” and he took the breastpin out of his pocket, and put it in her hand in a quick kind of a way. “Take ’em,” says he, turnin’ his eyes away, “take ’em and put ’em out of my sight, quick! or I shall repent.”

“I do not want to rob you of them,” says Betsey tenderly.

“Take ’em,” says he in a wild kind of a way, “take ’em, and give me the money quick, before I am completely unmanned.”

She handed him the money, and says he in agitated tones, “Take care of the ear rings, and heaven bless you.” And he ketched up his things, and started off in a awful hurry. Betsey gazed pensively out of the winder, till he disapeared in the distance, and then she begun to brag about her ear rings, as Miss Shakespeare’s relicks. Thomas Jefferson praised ’em awfully to Betsey’s face, when he came home, but when I was in the buttery cuttin’ cake for supper, he come and leaned over me and whispered—

“Who bought for gold the purest brass?

Mother, who brought this grief to pass?

What is this maiden’s name? Alas!

Betsey Bobbet.”

And when I went down suller for the butter, he come and stood in the outside suller door, and says he,

“How was she fooled, this lovely dame?

How was her reason overcame?

What was this lovely creature’s name?

Betsey Bobbet.”

THE EAR RING PEDLER.

That is jest the way he kep’ at it, he would kinder happen round where I was, and every chance he would get he would have over a string of them verses, till it did seem as if I should go crazy. Finally I said to him in tones before which he quailed,

“If I hear one word more of poetry from you to-night I will complain to your father,” says I wildly, “I don’t believe there is another woman in the United States that suffers so much from poetry as I do! What have I done,” says I still more wildly, “that I should be so tormented by it?” says I, “I won’t hear another word of poetry to-night,” says I, “I will stand for my rights—I will not be drove into insanity with poetry.”

Betsey started for home in good season, and I told her I would go as fur as Squire Edwards’es with her. Miss Edwards was out by the gate, and of course Betsey had to stop and show the ear rings. She was jest lookin’ at ’em when the minister and Maggie Snow and Tirzah Ann drove up to the gate, and wanted to know what we was lookin’ at so close, and Betsey, castin’ a proud and haughty look onto the girls, told him that—

“It was a paih of ear rings that had belonged to the immortal Mr. Shakespeah’s wife informally.”

The minute Elder Merton set his eyes on ’em, “Why,” says he, “my wife sold these to a peddler to-day.”

“Yes,” says Tirzah Ann, “these are the very ones; she sold them for a dozen shirt buttons and a paper of pins.”

“I do not believe it,” says Betsey wildly.

“It is so,” said the minister. “My wife’s father got them for her, they proved to be brass, and so she never wore them; to-day the peddler wanted to buy old jewelry, and she brought out some broken rings, and these were in the box, and she told him he might have them in welcome, but he threw out the buttons and a paper of pins.”

“I do not believe it—I cannot believe it,” says Betsey gaspin’ for breath.

“Well, it is the truth,” says Maggie Snow (she can’t bear Betsey), “and I heard him say he would get ’em off onto some fool, and make her think—”

“I am in such a hurry I must go,” said Betsey, and she left without sayin’ another word.

A NIGHT OF TROUBLES.

Truly last night was a night of troubles to us. We was kept awake all the forepart of the night with cats fightin’. It does beat all how they went on, how many there was of ’em I don’t know; Josiah thought there was upwards of 50. I myself made a calm estimate of between 3 and 4. But I tell you they went in strong what there was of ’em. What under heavens they found to talk about so long, and in such unearthly voices, is a mystery to me. You couldn’t sleep no more than if you was in Pandemonium. And about 11, I guess it was, I heard Thomas Jefferson holler out of his chamber winder, (it was Friday night and the children was both to home,) says he—

“You have preached long enough brothers on that text, I’ll put in a seventhly for you.” And then I heard a brick fall. “You’ve protracted your meetin’ here plenty long enough. You may adjourn now to somebody else’s window and exhort them a spell.” And then I heard another brick fall. “Now I wonder if you’ll come round on this circuit right away.”

Thomas Jefferson’s room is right over ourn, and I raised up in the end of the bed and hollered to him to “stop his noise.” But Josiah said, “do let him be, do let him kill the old creeters, I am wore out.”

Says I “Josiah I don’t mind his killin’ the cats, but I won’t have him talkin about thier holdin’ a protracted meetin’ and preachin’, I won’t have it,” says I.

“Wall,” says he “do lay down, the most I care for is to get rid of the cats.”

Says I, “you do have wicked streaks Josiah, and the way you let that boy go on is awful,” says I, “where do you think you will go to Josiah Allen?”

Says he, “I shall go into another bed if you can’t stop talkin’. I have been kept awake till midnight by them creeters, and now you want to finish the night.”

Josiah is a real even tempered man, but nothin’ makes him so kinder fretful as to be kept awake by cats. And it is awful, awfully mysterious too. For sometimes as you listen, you say mildly to yourself, how can a animal so small give utterance to a noise so large, large enough for a eliphant? Then sometimes agin as you listen, you will get encouraged, thinkin’ that last yawl has really finished ’em and you think they are at rest, and better off than they can be here in this world, utterin’ such deathly and terrific shrieks, and you know you are happier. So you will be real encouraged, and begin to be sleepy, when they break out agin all of a sudden, seemin’ to say up in a small fine voice, “We won’t go home till mornin’” drawin’ out the “mornin’” in the most threatenin’ and insultin’ manner. And then a great hoarse grum voice will take it up “We won’t Go Home till Mornin’” and then they will spit fiercely, and shriek out the appaulin’ words both together. It is discouragin’, and I couldn’t deny it, so I lay down, and we both went to sleep.

I hadn’t more’n got into a nap, when Josiah waked me up groanin’, and says he, “them darned cats are at it agin.”

“Well,” says I coolly, “you needn’t swear so, if they be.” I listened a minute, and says I, “it haint cats.”

Says he, “it is.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, I know better, it haint cats.”

“Wall what is it,” says he “if it haint?”

I sot up in the end of bed, and pushed back my night cap from my left ear and listened, and says I,

“It is a akordeun.”

“How come a akordeun under our winder?” says he.

Says I, “It is Shakespeare Bobbet seranadin’ Tirzah Ann, and he has got under the wrong winder.”

He leaped out of bed, and started for the door.

Says I, “Josiah Allen come back here this minute,” says I, “do you realize your condition? you haint dressed.”

He siezed his hat from the bureau, and put it on his head, and went on. Says I, “Josiah Allen if you go to the door in that condition, I’ll prosicute you; what do you mean actin’ so to-night?” says I, “you was young once yourself.”

“I wuzzn’t a confounded fool if I was young,” says he.

Says I, “come back to bed Josiah Allen, do you want to get the Bobbets’es and the Dobbs’es mad at you?”

“Yes I do,” he snapped out.

“I should think you would be ashamed Josiah swearin’ and actin’ as you have to-night,” and says I, “you will get your death cold standin’ there without any clothes on, come back to bed this minute Josiah Allen.”

THOMAS J. ADDRESSES THE SERENADER.

JOSIAH’S PROPOSED RAID.

It haint often I set up, but when I do, I will be minded; so finally he took off his hat and come to bed, and there we had to lay and listen. Not one word could Tirzah Ann hear, for her room was clear to the other end of the house, and such a time as I had to keep Josiah in the bed. The first he played was what they call an involuntary, and I confess it did sound like a cat, before they get to spittin’, and tearin’ out fur, you know they will go on kinder meloncholy. He went on in that way for a length of time which I can’t set down with any kind of accuracy, Josiah thinks it was about 2 hours and a half, I myself don’t believe it was more than a quarter of an hour. Finally he broke out singin’ a tune the chorus of which was,

“Oh think of me—oh think of me.”

“No danger of our not thinkin’ on you,” says Josiah, “no danger on it.”

It was a long piece and he played and sung it in a slow, and affectin’ manner. He then played and sung the follerin’:

“Come! oh come with me Miss Allen,

The moon is beaming;

Oh Tirzah; come with me,

The stars are gleaming;

All around is bright, with beauty teeming,

Moonlight hours—in my opinion—

Is the time for love.

My skiff is by the shore,

She’s light, she’s free,

To ply the feathered oar Miss Allen,

Would be joy to me.

And as we glide along,

My song shall be,

(If you’ll excuse the liberty Tirzah)

I love but thee, I love but thee.

Chorus—Tra la la Miss Tirzah,

Tra la la Miss Allen,

Tra la la, tra la la,

My dear young maid.”

He then broke out into another piece, the chorus of which was,

“Curb oh curb thy bosom’s pain

I’ll come again, I’ll come again.”

“No you won’t,” says Josiah, “you won’t never get away, I will get up Samantha.”

Says I, in low but awful accents, “Josiah Allen, if you make another move, I’ll part with you,” says I, “it does beat all, how you keep actin’ to-night; haint it as hard for me as it is for you? do you think it is any comfort for me to lay here and hear it?” says I, “that is jest the way with you men, you haint no more patience than nothin’ in the world, you was young once yourself.”

“Throw that in my face agin will you? what if I wuz! Oh do hear him go on,” says he shakin’ his fist. “‘Curb oh curb thy bosom’s pain,’ if I was out there my young feller, I would give you a pain you couldn’t curb so easy, though it might not be in your bosom.”

Says I “Josiah Allen, you have showed more wickedness to-night, than I thought you had in you;” says I “would you like to have your pastur, and Deacon Dobbs, and sister Graves hear your revengeful threats? if you was layin’ helpless on a sick bed would you be throwin’ your arms about, and shakin’ your fist in that way? it scares me to think a pardner of mine should keep actin’ as you have,” says I “you have fell 25 cents in my estimation to-night.”

“Wall,” says he, “what comfort is there in his prowlin’ round here, makin’ two old folks lay all night in perfect agony?”

“It haint much after midnight, and if it was,” says I, in a deep and majestic tone. “Do you calculate, Josiah Allen to go through life without any trouble? if you do you will find yourself mistaken,” says I. “Do be still.”

“I won’t be still Samantha.”

Just then he begun a new piece, durin’ which the akordeun sounded the most meloncholly and cast down it had yet, and his voice was solemn, and affectin’. I never thought much of Shakespeare Bobbet. He is about Thomas Jefferson’s age, his moustache is if possible thinner than his’en, should say whiter, only that is a impossibility. He is jest the age when he wants to be older, and when folks are willin’ he should, for you don’t want to call him Mr. Bobbet and to call him “bub” as you always have, he takes as a deadly insult. He thinks he is in love with Tirzah Ann, which is jest as bad as long as it lasts as if he was; jest as painful to him and to her. As I said he sung these words in a slow and affectin’ manner.

When I think of thee, thou lovely dame,

I feel so weak and overcame,

That tears would burst from my eye-lid,

Did not my stern manhood forbid;

For Tirzah Ann,

I am a meloncholly man.

I scorn my looks, what are fur hats

To such a wretch; or silk cravats;

My feelin’s prey to such extents,

Victuals are of no consequence.

Oh Tirzah Ann,

I am a meloncholly man.

As he waited on you from spellin’ school,

My anguish spurned all curb and rule,

My manhood cried, “be calm! forbear!”

Else I should have tore out my hair;

For Tirzah Ann,

I was a meloncholly man.

As I walked behind, he little knew

What danger did his steps pursue;

I had no dagger to unsheath,

But fiercely did I grate my teeth;

For Tirzah Ann,

I was a meloncholly man.

I’m wastin’ slow, my last year’s vests

Hang loose on me; my nightly rests

Are thin as gauze, and thoughts of you,

Gashes ’em wildly through and through,

Oh Tirzah Ann,

I am a meloncholly man.

My heart is in such a burning state,

I feel it soon must conflagrate;

But ere I go to be a ghost,

What bliss—could’st thou tell me thou dost—

Sweet Tirzah Ann—

Think on this meloncholly man.

He didn’t sing but one more piece after this. I don’t remember the words for it was a long piece. Josiah insists that it was as long as Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Says I, “don’t be a fool Josiah, you never read it.”

“I have hefted the book,” says he, “and know the size of it, and I know it was as long if not longer.”

Says I agin, in a cool collected manner, “don’t be a fool Josiah, there wasn’t more than 25 or 30 verses at the outside.” That was when we was talkin’ it over to the breakfast table this mornin’, but I confess it did seem awful long there in the dead of the night; though I wouldn’t encourage Josiah by sayin’ so, he loves the last word now, and I don’t know what he would be if I encouraged him in it. I can’t remember the words, as I said, but the chorus of each verse was

Oh! I languish for thee, Oh! I languish for thee, wherever that I be,

Oh! Oh! Oh! I am languishin’ for thee, I am languishin’ for thee.

As I said I never set much store by Shakespeare Bobbet, but truly everybody has their strong pints; there was quavers put in there into them “Oh’s” that never can be put in agin by anybody. Even Josiah lay motionless listenin’ to ’em in a kind of awe. Jest then we heard Thomas Jefferson speakin’ out of the winder overhead.

“My musical young friend, haven’t you languished enough for one night? Because if you have, father and mother and I, bein’ kept awake by other serenaders the forepart of the night, will love to excuse you, will thank you for your labers in our behalf, and love to bid you good evenin’, Tirzah Ann bein’ fast asleep in the other end of the house. But don’t let me hurry you Shakespeare, my dear young friend, if you haint languished enough, you keep right on languishin’. I hope I haint hard hearted enough to deny a young man and neighbor the privilege of languishin’.”

I heard a sound of footsteps under the winder, followed seemin’ly instantaneously by the rattlin’ of the board fence at the extremity of the garden. Judgin’ from the sound, he must have got over the ground at a rate seldom equaled and never outdone.

A button was found under the winder in the mornin’, lost off we suppose by the impassioned beats of a too ardent heart, and a too vehement pair of lungs, exercised too much by the boldness and variety of the quavers durin’ the last tune. That button and a few locks of Malta fur, is all we have left to remind us of our sufferin’s.

4th OF JULY IN JONESVILLE.

A few days before the 4th Betsey Bobbet come into oure house in the mornin’ and says she,

“Have you heard the news?”

“No,” says I pretty brief, for I was jest puttin’ in the ingrediences to a six quart pan loaf of fruit cake, and on them occasions I want my mind cool and unruffled.

“Aspire Todd is goin’ to deliver the oration,” says she.

“Aspire Todd! Who’s he?” says I cooly.

“Josiah Allen’s wife,” says she, “have you forgotten the sweet poem that thrilled us so in the Jonesville Gimlet a few weeks since?”

“I haint been thrilled by no poem,” says I with an almost icy face pourin’ in my melted butter.

“Then it must be that you have never seen it, I have it in my port-money and I will read it to you,” says she, not heedin’ the dark froun gatherin’ on my eye-brow, and she begun to read,

A questioning sail sent over the Mystic Sea.

BY PROF. ASPIRE TODD.

So the majestic thunder-bolt of feeling,

Out of our inner lives, our unseen beings flow,

Vague dreams revealing.

Oh, is it so? Alas! or no,

How be it, Ah! how so?

Is matter going to rule the deathless mind?

What is matter? Is it indeed so?

Oh, truths combined;

Do the Magaloi theoi still tower to and fro?

How do they move? How flow?

Monstrous, aeriform, phantoms sublime,

Come leer at me, and Cadmian teeth my soul gnaw,

Through chiliasms of time;

Transcendentaly and remorslessly gnaw;

By what agency? Is it a law?

Perish the vacueus in huge immensities;

Hurl the broad thunder-bolt of feeling free,

The vision dies;

So lulls the bellowing surf, upon the mystic sea,

Is it indeed so? Alas! Oh me.

“How this sweet poem appeals to tender hearts,” says Betsey as she concluded it.

“How it appeals to tender heads,” says I almost coldly, measurin’ out my cinnamon in a big spoon.

“Josiah Allen’s wife, has not your soul never sailed on that mystical sea he so sweetly depictures?”

“Not an inch,” says I firmly, “not an inch.”

“Have you not never been haunted by sorrowful phantoms you would fain bury in oblivion’s sea?”

“Not once,” says I “not a phantom,” and says I as I measured out my raisons and English currants, “if folks would work as I do, from mornin’ till night and earn thier honest bread by the sweat of thier eyebrows, they wouldn’t be tore so much by phantoms as they be; it is your shiftless creeters that are always bein’ gored by phantoms, and havin’ ’em leer at ’em,” says I with my spectacles bent keenly on her, “Why don’t they leer at me Betsey Bobbet?”

“Because you are intellectually blind, you cannot see.”

“I see enough,” says I, “I see more’n I want to a good deal of the time.” In a dignified silence, I then chopped my raisons impressively and Betsey started for home.

The celebration was held in Josiah’s sugar bush, and I meant to be on the ground in good season, for when I have jobs I dread, I am for takin’ ’em by the forelock and grapplin’ with ’em at once. But as I was bakin’ my last plum puddin’ and chicken pie, the folks begun to stream by, I hadn’t no idee thier could be so many folks scairt up in Jonesville. I thought to myself, I wonder if they’d flock out so to a prayer-meetin’. But they kep’ a comin’, all kind of folks, in all kinds of vehicles, from a 6 horse team, down to peacible lookin’ men and wimmen drawin’ baby wagons, with two babies in most of ’em.

There was a stagin’ built in most the middle of the grove for the leadin’ men of Jonesville, and some board seats all round it for the folks to set on. As Josiah owned the ground, he was invited to set upon the stagin’.

And as I glanced up at that man every little while through the day, I thought proudly to myself, there may be nobler lookin’ men there, and men that would weigh more by the steelyards, but there haint a whiter shirt bosom there than Josiah Allen’s.