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FRONTISPIECE.

MY WAYWARD PARDNER;
OR,
MY TRIALS
WITH
Josiah, America, The Widow Bump,
AND ETCETERY.

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE,

(Marietta Holley,)

Author of “My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet’s,” “Samantha at the

Centennial,” &c.

“Wimmen is my theme, and also Josiah.”

Illustrations by True W. Williams.

PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY.

HARTFORD, CONN.:

AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.

1882.

MARIETTA HOLLEY.

1880.

TO JOSIAH AND AMERICA.

WITH THE HOPE THAT HE AND SHE BOTH WILL PUT THEIR

BEST FOOT FORWARD AND WALK OFF NOBLY IN

THE PATH OF RIGHT THIS BOOK

IS DEDICATED BY

THEIR AFFECTIONATE FRIEND AND WELL WISHER,

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE

PREFACE.

I told Josiah that I guessed I would write a book about several things—and wimmen. Says I, “My mind has been dretful agitated lately about that certain lot of female wimmen that are sufferin’ more than tongue can tell. Why,” says I, “when I think of their agony and wrongs, it fairly makes the blood bile in my veins. I love the female sect,” says I firmly, “I am one of ’em myself.”

Says he (not wantin’ me to say a word about it), “Let ’em write about it themselves.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, do you remember when you fell down through the barn and broke your limb, and most broke your other leg?”

“Yes,” says he, “but what of it?”

Says I, “What if I had stood still in the buttery winder, and hollered at you to help yourself, and if you was in pain to get out of it?”

“Well,” says he, “let ’em get some of their own folks to do the writin’ then. They haint none of your folks, nobody won’t expect nothin’ of you.” (He had reasons for not wantin’ me to tell all I knew about certain things.)

But I says in solemn tones, “Do you remember that time you fell, Josiah Allen, and I, bein’ bound down by rheumatizm, couldn’t do nothin’ but blow the dinner-horn for help, and Sam Snyder come on the run, and fetched you in, and went after the doctor?”

“Throw that leg in my face, if you want to, but what of it?”

Says I, “Them sufferin’ female wimmen are bound down fur more painfully and gauling than you wuz. I haint the strength to lift ’em up myself, but I am a goin’ to toot the horn for help. I am a goin’ to blow through it powerful breaths of principle and warnin’; and mebby another Samuel, an uncle of mine, that I honor and admire, may hear it, and start off on the run, and lift the hull of them poor female wimmen up, out of their pain and humiliatin’ situation. He can do it if he is a mind to,” says I, “as easy as Sam Snyder lifted you, and easier, for he sweat powerful, and most dropped you once or twice. And,” says I firmly, “my mind is made up, Josiah Allen, I shall holler for Samuel.”

“Wall, wall, holler away, for all I care.” He had strong reasons for not wantin’ me to speak a word about certain things, and his tone was very snappish, snappisher than it had been for over seven weeks. But such trials do great spirits no harm; no, it only lifts ’em up above their own earthly peace and happiness, and sets ’em more firmly and stiddily on their loftier spears.

I sithed, but I didn’t contend another word with him, only jest that sithe, and then I commenced to write my book.

WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT.

JOSIAH ALLEN GOES ASTRAY.

A curious World and a curious Coincidence—Realms of Mystery—Josiah Acts queer and Sits on a Volcano—“Wait till Evenin’”—Widow Bump and Her Nutcakes are Discussed—How She Ruined the Tailors—A tedious Evening and a Night of Woe—Fearful Words from the sleeping Josiah—“The real Josiah, Where was He?”—A mysterious Sign—Firm Resolves—“Pardners Must Be Watched”—Duty Tackled—Josiah Stays at Home—Samantha’s powerful Weapons victorious, and the Widow Bump Forgotten	[19-51]

KITTY SMITH AND CALEB COBB.

A Visit from One of the Smiths Who is Poor and Proud—Kitty’s Secret, which Must Be Kept—Her Would-be Lover, and how She Encouraged Him—Sketch of Kellup the Hearse-driver and His Experiences with Hair dyes—Why He Didn’t Marry—Blamed by the Census-taker—How Nine Girls Lost Him—How He Killed Jane Sofier—The Death-Blow—His Warning to Women—Old Cobb and His Arguments—A Sermon by Samantha—The old, old Story Rehearsed—Kitty’s Kiss—Fun for Kitty	[52-89]

JOSIAH GOES INTO BUSINESS.

Josiah, Hankering for Speculation and Neighbors, Repairs the old House and Rents It to “a beautiful Family” from Zoar—Rumors that They were Smoked out—Josiah Feels neat, and Loves to Neighbor—So Do the Spinkses, Their Cow, and Their Hens—They Borrow Feather Beds, Pantaloons, and Pork—Their Twin “Takes to Him”—He Nurses the Twin, Sleeps with the Boys, Chases the Cow, and Takes “solid Comfort”; but “Gets mad” at last, and Meditates Murder—Summary Process—Adieu to the Spinkses	[90-118]

MORALIZIN’ AND EPISODIN’.

Josiah Longs for more Speculation and Comes Home “as cross as a Bear”—An Epoch of History—The new Head-dress and how It Was Bought—Caleb Cobb’s Opinions thereof, and of extravagant Members of the Meetin’-house—Samantha Rejoins, Holding up Nature Wreathed in Beauty as a Pattern, and Advocating Charity toward both the Rich and the Poor—Two Sides to Everything—Naming the Baby—Caleb Changes the Subject, and Starts off to Borrow the Stun-bolt	[119-151]

JOSIAH UNDERTAKES MORE BUSINESS.

How old Ben Mandagool Made Money—Josiah Wants to do likewise, but Knowing Samantha will Object, Feels cross, Looks mauger, and at last Says He Wants to take Summer Boarders—Affection vs. Principle—Samantha Yields—Josiah Engages Boarders, and Figures out the Profits—A Competency at last!—“Get a Girl”—The Tip-toe of Expectation—Arrival of the Dankses—Tremendous Appetites—Victuals and Profits Disappear—The Secret out—More Trouble—A heavy Bill, and how he Flatted the Colt and Squshed the Grin’-stun—How They Made Ghosts and Were hard on the Tom Turkey—Night-walking and Historicks—Arrival of old Danks—The Crisis—Josiah’s Wrath—How He Scared Danks, and how Danks Scared him—Samantha Speaks of Matrimony and its Responsibilities, and Consoles all Matrimourners—A Lawsuit and its Result	[152-188]

A VISIT FROM MISS RICKERSON.

A windy Day—The Simons of the Desert—Good Advice to Women—Preparing for an Emergency—“Likely Creeters”—Now and then—Vain Experiments—The miscarried Letter—“She is Coming to-day!”—Arrival of Miss Rickerson, she that Was an Allen—Her flattering Tongue—How She Scared Caleb Cobb, Extolled the Spring Corset, and made Josiah Think he was handsome—Our four old Fathers and their chilly Blue Laws—“Praise your Friends while they Are Living”—Samantha Holds firm, but Cooks good Victuals, and Does well by Alzina Ann	[189-204]

CASSANDRA’S TEA PARTY.

History of Cassandra and her Misfortune—History of her bashful Husband, Nathan Spooner—Some of his Adventures and Experiences—How he Went hungry to Please Himself, and Feasted to Please Others—How he Courted Cassandra[Cassandra]—Scenes at the Wedding—The Tea-party, and how Alzina Entertained Nathan—“The Image of his Pa”—At the Tea-table, and how Nathan Said Grace—Untimely Remarks—Samantha to the Rescue—After Supper—Alzina Walks with Cassandra in the Garden—She Slanders Josiah and Calls him a “humbly Creeter”—Samantha Appears on the Scene—A Tableau—Sarcastic Remarks about People who Take Liberties with their Friends—Alzina’s Confession—The Walk homeward	[205-229]

THE LORDS OF CREATION.

Josiah Is proud and tickled because he Is a Man—His Opinion of “Wimmen”—What old Error Would do if They Made the Laws, and where York State Would Be—Samantha Points out a Monument of Man’s Economy and Wisdom with Her new Tow-mop—A Reminiscence—Under the Meetin’-house Shed—Guilt Arrayed in festal Robes to Lure the Unwary	[230-240]

A EXERTION FOR PLEASURE.

Josiah’s new “Idee,” which Samantha Discourages—The Folly of Chasing Pleasure—Exertion to the Lake Resolved on—Caleb Sacrifices his own Pleasure for the Welfare of the Fair Sect—He Is not Their Natural Enemy, but Can’t Marry Them all—Preparations—Early to Bed—Visitors, and a Conference Meetin’—“Galluses and Night Caps”—A Wild Night—Dreams—Josiah Wears T. Jefferson’s Uniform—The Start—Arrival at the Lake—How Twenty Old Fools “Sot Sail”—Overboard—Sea-sick and weak as Cats—On the Sand-Beach—Demoralized Vittles—Wasps and Muskeeters—Histing an Umbrell—Josiah Meets with Two Accidents, and Retires to Meditate—A Search for Josiah—Josiah Wears a Shawl and Looks meachin’—The Return to the Main-land, and Ride Homeward in the Rain—The Rheumatiz Takes Hold—“Is this Pleasure, Josiah Allen?”	[241-269]

A VISIT TO THE CHILDREN.

“The Croup Is around”—A Slave to Conscience—Caleb Enquires about Kitty’s Health, and Decides that He May Marry Her—Why He Did not Write to Her, and why He Wore old Clothes—A Funeral at Log London—A Load of Company—The Start for Jonesville—Thomas J. and Maggie—Providence and the Weather—Arrival at Whitfield’s—A pretty Sight—Portraits of little Samantha Joe and Her Pa and Ma—The Sun and Sunflower—The Kiss of Welcome—A Talk with Tirzah Ann, Who Says They Are Going off for Rest and Pleasure—“Miss Skidmore Is Going, and all genteel People Go”—Samantha’s Advice, “Better Let Well Enough Alone,” is Rejected—Who need a Change of Scene and who do not—The Stiff-necked Miss Skidmore—Who Leads the Jonesville Aristocracy?—How Samantha Prescribed for her, and Was Winked out—“Burdock Won’t Help Her”—Proud Keturah Allen—Samantha’s Ideas of People who Put on Airs and Feel above Her	[270-302]

TIRZAH ANN TO A WATERIN’ PLACE.

How Tirzah Ann, Whitfield, and Samantha Joe, Went off for Rest, and how they Came back as poor as 3 Snails—Tirzah’s Story of her Experiences and Wrongs at Miss Skidmore’s Tavern—How She Resolved at Starting to outdo the Skidmores—How they Rested and Recreated—Midnight in the fourth Story of a Waterin’ Place—The young Man who Was Crossed in Love, and the young Maiden Who Owned a Melodeon—Wails of Woe—How the Baby Was Skairt into the Historicks—Bathin’, deep Water, Cramps and Drowndin’—Pulled out by the Hair—Too much Mineral Water—How Whitfield Played Polo (a Game Josiah Wants to Play) and Was Hit by a base Ball—How He Danced too much, and Got Disabled—Evenin’ Parties, Dancin’ and Flirtin’—The Worst of All; Tirzah’s dreadful Confession, Which must be Kept a Secret; “She Flirted with a Man!”—About Her Trouble with Whitfield in consequence, how He Was jealous, and how a Separation Was imminent—“Such Doins!”—Piles of Money Spent, and Morals Totterin’—Bought Wit is the best	[303-329]

MISS BOBBET LETS THE CAT OUT.

An old Acquaintance—Sorrows of Her domestic Life, and her great Consolation—The Dignity of Marriage—Simon’s horrible Horrors—A Present for Betsey—A Summer Evening’s Scene—Josiah and the high-tide Level of Love—The Stranger in the Kitchen—How He Looked, and What He Said—Why He didn’t Set down—He Calls for some Cider, and Persisting in his Demands, is Driven from the House at the Point of Samantha’s Umberel—Tobacco, and why People Use it—A Visit from Betsey, who Says the Intruder is Elder Judas Wart, Who is Sealed to Widder Bump, who has been Forwarded to Utah by Express—Betsey Tells about his disabled Wives, and about the Mormon Meetin’s in Jonesville—Shocking Disclosures—“Bobbet Went to ’em and so did Josiah Allen!”—Fearful Words—Samantha Groans aloud, and Feels Wicked—The Mormon Wimmen’s Appeal to Emily (She that was a Webb) and Samantha—A Woman to be proud of—Direlection in Duty—Samantha’s firm Resolve to be up and Doin’—She Hankers to Tackle Elder Wart and America, and Gets madder and madder	[330-354]

A SERENADIN’ EPISODE, ETC.

Betsey Bobbet’s new Poem, Entitled “A Wife’s Story,” and Published in the Gimlet—She Laments her Wedded Life and (although proud to Think she Married Simon) “to be a Widder is her Theme”—“Husbands are Tryin’,” and Simon’s Loss would be Betsey’s Gain—The pathetic Story of E. Wellington Gansey who Came from the Ohio to Visit his Childhood’s Home—He is Welcomed by His early Playmates, Has a good Time, and Resolves to Move back to Jonesville—Josiah and Others Are so elated that They Go to Serenade Him—Samantha, Left alone in the House, Has exciting Experiences—She Hears Noises, Gets Skairt, and Expects to be Burgled and Rapined—She is finally Appeared to and Talks with the Ghost—Poor Tamer Mooney and Her horrible Words—“Bloody Indians, Yells, and Tomyhawks!”—Rousting the Neighbors—Reappearance of Josiah—What Hit Him—What Hit Old Bobbet—What Hit the Editor of the Augur—What Hit Old Gansey, etc.—Eliab leaves His Childhood’s Home, and Starts for the Ohio by the first Train	[355-396]

JUDAS WART AND SUFFERIN’ WOMEN.

Josiah has a Stitch, Comes in on a Broom-handle, and is Made comfortable—The Elder Wart also Comes in, Seems dreadful Tickled, and Makes some complimentary Remarks—Josiah Overhears them, and Forgets his “Stitch”—Samantha Rescues the Elder, who, in retaliation, Twits Josiah about “a certain Widder” to whom He Had Been partial—Josiah Denies the Imputation and Gets luny—His strange Hallucination, and Memories of his Childhood—Samantha, being again “Approached” by the Elder, Gets mad and Threatens him with the Tea-kettle—He Wants to “Argue,” and Samantha Tackles Him—What Mormons Worship—Who they Rob and Murder—What they Covet, and Get, too—The Wretchedness of Mormon Wimmen, and especially of Wife No. 1—Ruined Morals—Beelzebub’s own Timber—A Voice from Old Babylon and the Turkey—No Acquaintance with Thalos and Mr. Plato—The Elder Gets “Sassy,” and Samantha Declares She Will Appeal to her Uncle Samuel, who, though a little distracted and run down by his domestic Troubles, Can and Will Stop Mormonism—The Elder’s parting Shot, which Josiah Resents by an Attack in the Rear—“A skairter Man never Lived”	[397-469]

A CRISIS WITH KELLUP.

Kitty Departs, and Kellup Calls to See her 5 Minutes afterward—He is greatly Depressed—“Wimmen is what’s the Matter”—He is sorry for Kitty, and says he will Write to her—On Reflection he Authorizes Samantha to tell her he Will Marry her whether or no, even if She is poor—Remembring Sofier’s Fate, he “Dassent” do an Errand at Marier’s House—A Visit from Cassandra and her young Babe—How Nathan Treated his Heir—A mysterious Decree—Thrillin’ News—Kitty Smith Disappears from the Scene—So Does Miss Smith the Elder—So Does Wart (the Elder)—So Does Kellup and the Hearse—A pastoral Scene—Samantha, Reclining by the Brook-side, Listens to a Bird as he Sings and Swings; Watches the Sky and Golden-rod Reflected in the Stream; Meditates on the Old and the New, the Steadfast and the Changing; and Thinks how swift the Water is a Runnin’ toward the Sea	[470-490]

THE PICTURES
MR. WILLIAMS HAS MADE.

			Page
1.	Frontispiece	(Full Page)
2.	“The Tedious Evening Waned Away”	(Full Page)	[18]
3.	Portrait of the Widder Bump		[24]
4.	An Ideal Family	(Full Page)	[28]
5.	Measured by the Widder		[32]
6.	Josiah Dreaming		[36]
7.	Those “Awful Words”	(Full Page)	[40]
8.	A Solemn Warning		[42]
9.	Josiah’s Disappointment		[47]
10.	Kitty Smith	(Full Page)	[54]
11.	Kellup		[59]
12.	The Woman Question		[63]
13.	The Deserted		[65]
14.	Paying Her Way		[67]
15.	How Jane was Roped in	(Full Page)	[69]
16.	The Death-blow		[71]
17.	A Judgment Seat		[74][74]
18.	Swingin’ Out		[83]
19.	A Cob(b) Without Corn	(Full Page)	[85]
20.	Kitty’s Kiss		[87]
21.	Josiah Feels Neat		[93]
22.	Arrival of the Spinkses		[97]
23.	Yoked but not Mated	(Full Page)	[100]
24.	Josiah Neighbors		[102]
25.	Borrowin’ Josiah		[106]
26.	Spinks’es Cow—A Night Scene	(Full Page)	[108]
27.	Our Hen-dairy		[110][110]
28.	Josiah’s Vow		[117]
29.	Danger Ahead		[118]
30.	The new Head-dress		[121]
31.	Apple Blossoms		[123]
32.	How it might have been		[124]
33.	Hard at it		[126]
34.	Nature’s Ocean Boudoir	(Full Page)	[129]
35.	Nature’s Work		[131][131]
36.	Baby Piller Case		[135]
37.	Feeling Christian		[137][137]
38.	“Blessings on Them all”	(Full Page)	[141]
39.	A Heavenly Messenger		[143]
40.	The wreathed Spear		[145]
41.	A Guiding Hand		[150]
42.	“What’s the Matter, Josiah?”		[154]
43.	A Poetical Simely	(Full Page)	[158]
44.	Josiah’s Idee		[161]
45.	Early Birds		[162][162]
46.	Our Boarders	(Full Page)	[165]
47.	A Surprised Colt		[170]
48.	Exercising the Gobbler		[172]
49.	A Heavy Bill	(Full Page)	[176]
50.	“Shut that Door”		[192]
51.	Arrival of Miss Rickerson		[196]
52.	Kellup’s Conundrum		[202]
53.	Nathan Spooner		[206]
54.	Nathan Snickers		[207]
55.	Pudding and Milk		[209][209]
56.	The Family Night-cap	(Full Page)	[211]
57.	“Nathan Sot Down”		[214][214]
58.	Cassandra’s Misfortune	(Full Page)	[217]
59.	Bad for Nathan		[222]
60.	Face to Face		[226][162]
61.	A Monument of Men’s Economy		[233][233]
62.	On the Ragged Edge		[236]
63.	Under the Meeting-house Shed	(Full Page)	[238]
64.	Routed out		[246]
65.	“Murder Will out”		[247]
66.	Samantha’s Dream	(Full Page)	[249]
67.	Facing Trouble	(Full Page)	[253]
68.	Bound for the Island		[255]
69.	On the Beach		[257]
70.	Discouraged Excursionist	(Full Page)	[260]
71.	A Desperate Situation		[264][264]
72.	Homeward Bound	(Full Page)	[267]
73.	The End of the Exertion		[269]
74.	Moving Josiah		[271]
75.	Dressed for the Occasion		[274][274]
76.	A Roadside Visit	(Full Page)	[279]
77.	A Happy Home		[281][281]
78.	Little Samantha Joe		[283]
79.	Josiah Still		[286]
80.	The Annual Turnout	(Full Page)	[289]
81.	Mrs. Skidmore		[292]
82.	Keturah Allen		[295]
83.	View of Jonesville	(Full Page)	[300]
84.	“A Pitiful Sight”	(Full Page)	[306]
85.	Keepin’ Up Her End		[309]
86.	Midnight at a Watering-place	(Full Page)	[312]
87.	Wail of Woe		[314]
88.	Quavers and Shakes		[316]
89.	Doin’ Their Level Best		[318]
90.	How Josiah Would Play Polo	(Full Page)	[320]
91.	The Rescue		[323][323]
92.	“It Tasted awfully”		[324]
93.	A Sad Scene		[325]
94.	Tirzah Ann Flirts With a Man	(Full Page)	[327]
95.	A Present for Betsey		[331]
96.	Friendly Feelin’s		[332]
97.	Meeting the Elder		[a]355][a]355]
98.	A Threatnin’ Attitude		[341]
99.	Miss Bobbet Tells About Josiah	(Full Page)	[344]
100.	“A Rarity to ’em”		[348][348]
101.	Bobbet and Josiah Talkin’		[352]
102.	Old Toil’s Bride	(Full Page)	[357]
103.	The Wild-Eyed Woman		[363]
104.	No Answer		[367]
105.	E. Wellington Gansey		[370]
106.	Burglers		[379]
107.	The Ghost		[380]
108.	Tamer Mooney		[383]
109.	The Serenading Party		[384]
110.	The Bruised Josiah		[387]
111.	The Serenade	(Full Page)	[390]
112.	“Mandana! Mandana!”		[395]
113.	A Stitch in the Back	(Full Page)	[398]
114.	Elder Judas Wart		[400]
115.	Rescuing the Elder		[401]
116.	Hot Water		[407]
117.	“Less Argue”	(Full Page)	[409]
118.	Mountain Meadows		[417][417]
119.	An Angel of Peace		[430][430]
120.	Mr. and Mrs. Plato		[436]
121.	The Hindoo Mother		[441][441]
122.	A Fallen Angel		[443][443]
123.	The Old Man		[450]
124.	Our Distracted Uncle		[453][453]
125.	The Call to Duty	(Full Page)	[455]
126.	Helps for the Heathen		[457]
127.	Josiah Ends the Argument	(Full Page)	[464]
128.	Departure of the Elder		[467]
129.	Takin’ a Reef		[475]
130.	Marier Burpey		[480]
131.	“Do You Want a Pair of Boots?”		[484]
132.	Thrilling News	(Full Page)	[486]

“THE TEDIOUS EVENING WANED AWAY.”

JOSIAH ALLEN GETS ASTRAY.

I have said, and said it calmly, that this is the curiousest world I ever see in my life. And I shan’t take it back. I hain’t one to whiffle round and dispute myself. I made the statement cool and firm, and shall stand by it. And truly if I never had said or thought anything of the kind, what I see with my own eyes last Friday night, and heard with my own ear before mornin’ dawned, would have convinced me that I was in the right on’t.

It’s happenin’ on a Friday, too, was strange as anything could be strange. It was on Friday that Mr. Columbus discovered the New World, and it was on a Friday (though some time after) that I discovered new regions in my pardner’s mind. Realms of mystery, full of strange inhabitents. That Christopher and me should both make such startlen and momentious discoveries on the same day of the week is a coincidence curious enough to scare anybody most to death.

Yes, this world is a curious place, very, and holler, holler as a drum. Lots of times the ground seems to lay smooth and serene under your rockin’ chair, when all the time a earthquake may be on the very p’int of busten’ it open and swollerin’ you up—chair and all. And your Josiah may be a-settin’ right on top of a volcano, unbeknown to you. But I am wanderin’ off into fields of poesy, and to resoom and proceed.

It was along the latter part of winter, pretty nigh spring, when my companion Josiah seemed to kinder get into the habit of going to Jonesville evenin’s. When I would beset him to go and get necessaries, groceries, and etcetery, he would say:

“Wall, I guess I’ll wait till evenin’, and then I’ll hitch up and go.”

He’d done it a number of times before I noticed it in particular, bein’ took up alterin’ over my brown alpacka, and bein’ short on’t for pieces and strained in my mind whether I would get out new backs without piecin’ ’em acrost the shoulder-blades. I don’t get much time to sew, bein’ held back by housework and rheumatiz, and the job had hung on, and wore on me powerfully, body and mind. Wall, every day or two he would make that curious remark, without my noticin’ of it (as it were):

“Wait till evenin’, and I’ll hitch up and go.”

And I wouldn’t say nothin’’, and he’d go, and wouldn’t get back till nine o’clock or after. Wall, as time went on, and my mind grew easier about my dress (I concluded to take the overskirt and make new backs and sleeves, and I got it cut foamin’, could have cut it profuse and lavish, if it had been my way), and my mind bein’ onstrained, and noticin’ things more, I thought it looked sort o’ peculier that Josiah should be so uncommon willin’ to go to the store evenin’s for necessaries and things, when he had always been such a case to stay to home nights; couldn’t get him out for the Doctor hardly. Collery morbeus couldn’t hardly start him, nor billerous colic.

It was on that Friday night after Josiah had started, that I, havin’ finished my dress, sot there a knittin’, and my mind bein’ sot free, it got to thinkin’ over things. Thinkin’ how I told him that mornin’ that the tea was a-runnin’ out, and I should have to have some that day, and he says:

“Wall, after supper I’ll hitch up and go.”

And I says to him sort o’ mechanically (for my mind was almost completely full of alpacka and waist patterns—I had concluded late the night before to take the overskirt):

“What has come over you, Josiah Allen? I couldn’t never use to get you out nights at all.”

He didn’t explain, nor nothin’, but says agin, in that same sort of a curious way, but firm:

“You make the tea last through the day, Samantha, and to-night I’ll hitch up and go.”

And then he beset me to have a chicken pie for dinner, and I, bein’ in such a hurry with my sewin’, didn’t feel like makin’ the effort, and he told me I must make it, for he had had a revelation that I should.

Says I, “a revelation from who?”

And he says, “From the Lord.”

And I says, “I guess not.”

But he stuck to it that he had. And I finally told him, “that if it was from the Lord he would probable get it, and if it wuzn’t, if it wuz as I thought, a revelation from his stomach and appetite, he most probable wouldn’t get it.” And I kep’ on with my sewin’. I laid out to get a good, wholesome dinner, and did. But I couldn’t fuss to make that pie, in my hurry. His revelation didn’t amount to much. But it was curious his talkin’ so—awful curious.

I got to thinkin’ it all over agin as I sot there a-knittin’, and I felt strange. But little, little did I think what was goin’ on under my rockin’-chair, unbeknown to me.

About half past 7 Josiah Allen got home. I asked him what made him come so soon, and he said sunthin’, as he took off his overcoat, about there not bein’ no meetin’ that night, and sunthin’ about the Elder bein’ most sick. And I s’posed he meant conference meetin’, and I s’posed he meant Elder Bamber. But oh! if I had only known who that Elder was, and what them meetin’s was, if I had only known the slippery height and hollerness of the volcano Josiah Allen was a-sittin’ upon, unbeknown to me! But I didn’t know nothin’ about it, and so I sot there, calm and serene in my frame, for my mind bein’ onharnessed, as I may say, speakin’ in a poeticule way, from the cares it had been a-carryin’, I felt first rate. And so I sot there a-knittin’, and Josiah sot by the stove seemin’ly a-meditatin’. I thought likely as not, he was a-thinkin’ on religious subjects, and I wouldn’t have interupted him for the world. But pretty soon he spoke out sort ’o dreamily, and says he:

“How old should you take the Widder Bump to be, Samantha?”

“Oh, about my age, or a little older, probable,” says I. “What makes you ask?”

“Oh, nothin’,” says he, and he sort o’ went to whistlin’, and I went on with my knittin’. But anon, or mebby a little before anon, he spoke out agin, and says he:

“The Widder Bump is good lookin’ for a widder, hain’t she? And a crackin’ good cook. Sometimes,” says he in a pensive way, “sometimes I have almost thought she went ahead of you on nutcakes.”

Her nutcakes was pretty fair ones, and midelin’ good shaped, and I wuzn’t goin’ to deny it, and so I says:

“What of it, Josiah? What if she duz?”

There hain’t a envious hair in my head (nor many gray ones for a woman of my age, though I say it that shouldn’t). I hain’t the woman to run down another woman’s nutcakes. My principles are like brass, as has been often remarked. If a woman can make lighter nutcakes than I can (which, give me good flour and plenty of sour cream, and eggs, and other ingregiencies, I shall never believe they can)—why, if they can, runnin’ down their nutcakes don’t make mine any higher up. There is where folks make a mistake—they think that runnin’ other folks down lifts them higher up; but it don’t, not a inch.

THE WIDDER BUMP.

So I kep’ on knittin’, cool as the heel of the sock I was knittin’ on. Pretty soon Josiah broke out agin:

“The Widder Bump hain’t got no relations, has she, Samantha, that would be a kinder hangin’ on, and livin’ on her, if she should take it into her head to marry agin?”

“I guess not,” says I. “But what makes you ask, Josiah?”

“Oh, nothin’, nothin’ in the world. I hadn’t no reason in askin’ it, not a single reason. I said it, Samantha,” says he, speakin’ in a sort of a excited, foolish way, “I said it jest to make talk.”

And agin he went to whistlin’, strange and curious whistles as I ever heard, and haulin’ a shingle out of the wood-box, he went to whittlin’ of it into as strange shapes as I ever see in my life. I looked at him pretty keen over my specks, for I thought things was goin’ on kinder curious. But I only says in a sort of a dry tone:

“I am glad you can think of sunthin’ to say, Josiah, if it hain’t nothin’ but widder. Howsumever,” says I, speakin’ in a encouragin’ tone, seein’ how dretful meachin’ he looked, and thinkin mebby I had been too hard on him, “Widder is better than no subject at all, Josiah, though I don’t call it a soarin’ one. But I can’t see,” says I, lookin’ at him uncommon keen over my specks, “I can’t see why you foller it up so awful close to-night. I can’t see why the Widder Bump is a-runnin’[a]a-runnin’] through your mind to-night, Josiah Allen.”

“Oh! she hain’t! she hain’t!” says he, speakin’ up quick, but with that dretful meachin’ and sheepish look to him.

“I am a talkin’ about her, Samantha, jest to pass away time, jest to make myself agreeable to you.”

“Wall,” says I, in a dryer tone than I had hitherto used, “don’t exert yourself too hard, Josiah, to make yourself agreeable. You may strain your mind beyond its strength. I can stand it if you don’t say nothin’ more about the Widder Bump. And time,” says I, “I guess time will pass away quick enough without your takin’ such pains to hurry it along.”

And then I launched out nobly on that solemn theme. About time, the greatest of gifts; how it come to us God-given; how we ort to use it; how we held our arms out blindly, and could feel the priceless treasure laid in ’em, close to our hearts, unbeknown to us; and how all beyond ’em was like reachin’ em out into the darkness, into a awful lonesomeness and emptiness; how the hour of what we called time was the only thing on God’s earth that we could grip holt of; how it was every mite of a standin place we could lift the ladder on for our hopes and our yearnin’s, our immortal dreams to mount heavenward; how this place, the Present, was all the spot we could stand on, to reach out our arms toward God, and eternal safety, and no knowin’ how soon that would sink under us, drop down under our feet, and let us down into the realm of Shadows, the Mysterious, the Beyond. “And still,” says I, “how recklessly this priceless treasure is held by some; how folks talk about its bein’ too long, and try to get ways to make it go quicker, and some,” says I, dreamily, “some try to make it pass off quicker by talkin’ about widders.”

AN IDEAL FAMILY.

I don’t think I had been more eloquent in over five weeks, than I was in talkin’ upon that theme. I was very eloquent and lengthy, probable from ¼ to ½ an hour. I talked beautiful on it. A minister would have said so if he had heard me, and he would have been likely to thought highly of it, and my gestures, for the waves that I waved outwards with my right hand was impressive, and very graceful. I held the sock in my right hand, as I waved it out; it was a good color, and it floated out some like a banner. I felt well, and acted well, and I knew it. And I thought at the time that Josiah knew it, and was proud of me, and felt more affectionate to me than his common run of feelin’s towards me wuz, for most the minute I got through episodin’, he broke out, and says he:

“Don’t you think you are a workin’ too hard, Samantha? Don’t you think it would be easier for you if you had some woman here a livin’ to help you? And,” says he, dreamily, “she might be a fryin’ the nutcakes while you was a brilin’ the beef-steak, and cookin’ other provisions.”

I was exceedingly affected by his tender feelin’s towards me, (as I supposed,) and says I, in affectionate axents:

“No, I can get along, Josiah.”

But oh! if I had known! If I had known what thoughts was a runnin’ through his mind, how different my axent would have been. My axent would have been so cold it would have froze him stiffer’n a mushrat, jest one axent would, it would have had that deadly icyness to it. Blind bein’ that I was, a speakin’ tender and soft to him, and knittin’ on his heel, (a double stitch, too, to make it firmer,) and he a settin’ of his own accord up on top of that volcano that was ready to bust right out, and burn up all my happiness, and swaller down and engulf my Josiah. What feelin’s I felt as I thought it all over afterwards.

Wall, I sot there a knittin’ on his heel, and occasionally makin’ eloquent and flowery speeches, and he, from time to time, a speakin out sudden and sort o’ promiscous, a praisin’ up the Widder Bump, and sort o’ mixin’ her up with religion, and seals, and revelations, and things, and anon, when I would take him to do about it, a whistlin’, and whittlin’ shingles into curious and foolish shapes, curiouser than I ever remembered to see him whittle, and whistlin’ more sort o’ vacant and excentrick whistles than I ever remembered hearin’ him whistle—dretful loud whistles, some of ’em, and then dwindlin’ down sudden and unexpected into low and dwindlin’ ones. And I a wonderin’ at it, and thinkin’ things was a goin’ on strange and curious. And then anon, or about that time, or anyway, as soon as I would have time to meditate on men’s curious and foolish demeanors at times—why I would give up that it was one of their ways, and he would get over it, knowin’ that they mostly did get over ’em.

And so the long, tejus evenin’ waned away. And Josiah locked the doors, and wound up the clock, and greased his boots, and went to bed. But oh! little did I know all the while he was a windin’ and a greasin’, and I a knittin’, and the carpet seemed to lay smooth and straight under us, all the time a earthquake was a rumblin’, and, to use a poetical and figurative expression, a snortin’ down under us, unbeknown to me.

Wall, that night my pardner, Josiah Allen, at two different times, once about midnight, and once about the time the roosters crowed—at two separate times, which I am ready to testify and make oath to, he spoke right out in his sleep, and says:

“Widder Bump!”

And that is the livin’ truth, and I have always been called truthful, and don’t expect to take up lyin’ now, at my age. How many more times he said it, while I was a sleepin’ peacefully by his side, I can’t say. But them two times I heard and counted, and my feelin’s as I lay there and heard them awful words can’t never be told nor sung; no, a tune can’t be made curious enough to sing ’em in.

Then I gin up, fully gin up, that sunthin’ was wrong. That a great mystery was hangin’ over my Josiah and the widder, or to one of ’em, or to somebody, or to sunthin’.

Oh the feelin’s that I felt, as I lay there and heard them words. I wuzn’t jealous that I will contend for; but what words them was for a affectionate, lovin’ pardner to hear from the lips of a sleepin’ Josiah.

“Widder Bump!”

I was not jealous. I would scorn to be. There wuzn’t a jealous hair in my foretop, and I knew it, or my back hair. And I knew I was better lookin’ than the widder, though she was wholesome lookin’.

MEASURED BY THE WIDDER.

She was the widder of Sampson Bump; he died with collery morbeus, and she moved to Jonesville and set up a tailoress shop, and had been called likely. Though the wimmen of Jonesville had gi’n in that their husbands never had so many clothes made in the same length of time, and a good many of the men had got scolded considerable by their wives for runnin’ through with their property, and goin’ so deep into their store-clothes. But the men had all gi’n in that ready-made clothes ripped so it was a perfect moth to buy ’em, and it was fur cheaper to hire ’em made by hand. And Josiah had started up about the middle of winter, and wanted to have her measure him for a vest, and get a new overcoat made. Josiah Allen didn’t need no vest, and I put my foot right down on it. But I had her come to the house and make the overcoat, and while she was there I run a splinter under my finger-nail, and was disabled, and I kep’ her a week to do housework.

As I say, she had always been called likely, though she seemed to be sort o’ shaky and tottlin’ in her religion. She had been most everything sense she come to Jonesville, not quite 2 years. She jined the Methodists first, then the ’Piscopals, then the Universalers, and then the Camelites. And I s’posed at this present time she was a Camel. I had hearn’ talk that she was a leanin’ towards the Mormons, but I had always made a practice of disputin’ of it, knowin’ how hard it was for good lookin’ wimmen to get along without bein’ slandered by other wimmen. I always dispised such littleness, and so I had come out openly and stood up for her, and called her a Camel. But I learnt a lesson in this very affair. I learnt to be more mejum than I had been, and I thought I knew every crook and turn in mejumness, I had always been such a master hand for it. But in dispisin’ littleness and jealousy in other wimmen, and tryin’ to rise above it, I had riz too fur. She wuzn’t a Camel! And while the other wimmen had been spiteful and envious, I had been a lyin’—though entirely unbeknown to me, and I don’t s’pose I shall ever be hurt for it.

As I have said, and proved, I wuzn’t jealous, but oh, what groans I groaned, as I heard for the second time them fearful words from the lips of my pardner—“Widder Bump!”

It was awful dark in the room, perfectly dark, but darker fur in the inside of my mind, and gloomier. How I did groan, and turn over agin and groan. And then I’d try to look on the bright side of things, right there in the dark. Thinkses I, I know I am better lookin’ than she is, and would be called so by good judges. To be sure, her heft was in her favor; her heft was a little less than mine, mebby 100 pounds or so, and she could most probable get around spryer, and act more frisky. But thinkses I, when a man loves a woman devotedly, when he carrys her in his heart, what is a few pounds more or less? Thinkses I, a hundred pounds hain’t more than a ounce to him under the circumstances; he don’t sense it at all. So I’d try my best to look on the bright side, (right there in the dark,) and I’d say to myself, my Josiah’s affections are sound, they are wrapped completely round me. And then I’d look on the dark side, and think how I had hearn that men’s affections was loose and stretchy, some like the injy rubber ribbins you get to put round papers. How it will set tight round one, and hold it seemin’ly so close that there don’t seem to be room for another single one, and then how easy it will stretch out and hold tight round another one—and another one—and et cetery—and et cetery. Seemin’ to set jest as easy round the last ones, and hold ’em jest as tight and comfortable as the first one. And then I’d groan, and turn over agin and groan. And once my groan (it was a louder one than my common run of groans, and deeper,) it waked Josiah Allen right up out of a sound sleep, and he was skairt, and riz right up in the end of the bed, and says he, in tones tremblin’ with emotion and excitement:

“What is the matter, Samantha?”

And I never let on what ailed me, but told him in tones that I tried to make calm and even, (and as lofty as I could when I knew I was talkin in a parable way) that it was a pain that was a goarin’ of me. I didn’t lie. I wuz in pain, but I didn’t feel obleeged to explain the parable to him, and tell him where the pain wuz. I didn’t tell him it was in my heart. And he thought it was in my shoulder-blades; he thought it was the rheumatiz. And he wanted to know, in affectionate tones, “if he shouldn’t rub my back, or if he shouldn’t get me the spirits of turpentine, or the camfire?”

But I told him no. I knew that turpentine was a master hand to strike in, but it couldn’t never go down deep enough to strike at the feelin’s I felt—and camfire never was made strong enough to ease off a wounded spirit, or bathe it down.

JOSIAH DREAMING.

But I held firm, and didn’t say nothin’. And Josiah lay down agin, and in ½ a minute’s time was fast asleep, and a dreamin’. What was his dream? Into what land was his mind a journeyin’? And who was his companion? Was it Widder Bump? At that fearful thought it seemed as if I should expier. I dassent groan for fear of roustin’ up my pardner, and so I had to stand it with sithin’. Sithes wouldn’t wake him up. And oh! what fearful and tremenjous sithes I sithed for the next several moments. I hain’t afraid to bet that the best judge of sithes that ever lived would have said that he never heard any that went ahead of these, nor see deeper ones, or more melancholy. Why my feelin’s was dreadful, and can’t be described upon. There it was, dark as pitch. It was jest before daylight, when it is the darkest time in the hull night. And there my companion wuz. Where wuz he? I couldn’t tell, nor nobody. His body lay there by my side. But the real Josiah, where wuz he? And who was with him where he wuz? Oh! what feelin’s I felt! what sithes I sithed!

What blind creeters we are, anyway. Our affections reach out like a wild grape-vine, layin’ hold of sunthin’, or somebody, a twistin’ and a clingin’, till death on-clinches of ’em, jest as foolish, jest as blindly. Human love is strong, but blinder than a mole.

How is that grape-vine to know what it is a clingin’ to? Blind instinct moves it to lay holt of sunthin’, and hang on till it is tore away, or sot fire to, or wrenched off by some power outside of itself, and killed, and destroyed. But how can it tell whether it is clingin’ round a live oak or a bean-pole? Round sunthin’ that is sound to the core, or holler as a pipes-tail? Round sunthin’ that will draw it along the ground, draggin’ it through mud and mire into a perfect swamp hole and bog, soilin’ its bright leaves, dwarfin’ its free growth, poisenin’ it with dark and evil shadows? Or whether it will draw it up towards the clear heavens and the sunlight, and hold it up there by its strength—a happy vine, growin’ fresh and bright, sendin’ out blessed tendrils touchin’ nothin’ less pure than God’s own sweet atmosphire.

Now I worshipped that man, Josiah Allen. And I thought he loved the very ground I walked on as devotedly as I did hisen. I thought I knew every crook and turn in that man’s mind. And now, after livin’ together over 20 years, that man had done what he had done; talked the hull evenin’ long about a certain widder, and even in his sleep had uttered them fearful and agonizin’ words—“Widder Bump!”

THOSE “AWFUL WORDS.”

And there I was, a strong woman in every way—strong in intellect and principles, strong in my love for him, strong in my heft. And here I was, powerless as a rag-babe. No more strength nor knowledge in the matter than the rag-babe would have. No more power in my hand to lift up the veil of mystery that was hangin’ round my Josiah than there would be in the babe’s, not a mite. Josiah’s mind wasn’t the strongest mind in the world—I had always known that, and had made a practice of remindin’ him of it frequent, when I see it would be for his good. But now, now there wuzn’t a intellect powerful enough on the face of the earth to foller it up and overthrow it. Out of the reach of friend or foe; beyond perswasion, ridicule, reasonin’, or entreaty; out of the reach of me, his Samantha. He had gone off a travelin’ without no change of clothin’, or railroad tickets. Settin’ off on a journey, unshackled by pardners, bundles, and umberells. A soarin’ free and calm through that wonderful land. The ring on my finger held him before earthly courts and constables, but there he was a wanderin’, a free Josiah. Was I a wanderin’ with him? Did his soul reach out to me from that realm—hold to me so close as to draw my spirit to his adown them shadowy streets, into them mysterious homes, over whose silent threshold no curious foot may pass? Was his lawful pardner with him there, where she should be? Was his thought loyal to me, where there was no law, no influence, or constraint to make him constant—or was he a cuttin’ up and a actin’, flirtin’ in spirit with the phantom thought of a Widder Bump? Here I would sithe powerful, and turn over agin, and sithe.

And so the tejus night passed away. But one great determination I made there in them fearful moments of darkness and mystery, one powerful resolve I made, and determined to keep: I would hold firm. And never let my pardner know I was a mistrustin’ anything. But every minute of the time, day and night, I would keep the eye of my spectacles open, and try to find out what was a goin’ on. But little, little did I think what it was that was a goin’ on. Little did I realize the size and heft of the earthquake that was a rumblin’ and a roarin’ under that feather-bed unbeknown to me. But more of this hereafter and anon.

The next mornin’ sunthin’ happened to me that, comin’ as it did jest at this curious and tryin’ time, was enough to scare anybody most to death. I had a sign; a mysterious warnin’. I happened to take up the last World while my dish-water was a heatin’, and the very first words the eye of my spectacles fell on—right there in broad daylight—entirely unexpected to me, I read these awful words:

A meetin’-house steeple had fell flat down the day before—fell right down into a man’s door-yard, sudden and unexpected, broke a hen-coop and five lengths of fence, and skairt ’em most to death. They thought, them folks did, that that steeple stood firm and sound. They never mistrusted it was a tottlin’. And it had stood straight and firm for year after year, probable for over 20 years. But there come along a gust of wind too strong for it, and over it went right into their door-yard; its lofty head was bowed into the dust, the hen-coop and fence was squshed down forever, and they was skairt.

I don’t believe too much in signs and wonderments, yet I don’t s’pose a man or a woman lives who hain’t got a little streak of superstition and curiousness in ’em. I s’pose livin’ as we do with another world that we don’t know nothin’ about pressin’ so close about us on every side, livin’ in such curious circumstances makes us feel sort o’ curious.

Some as Miss Arden felt, the one that Mr. Tennyson wrote about, she that was Ann Lee. When her husband Enock got lost she wouldn’t gin up that he was dead, and marry to another man, till she opened the Bible and looked for a sign. I have heard Thomas J. read it so much that Ann seems near to me, almost like one of the Smiths. But though Ann did find a sign, and was mistaken in it, or didn’t give it the right meanin’, I was determined to read mine right. I felt a feelin’ in my bones that them words was meant to me for a warnin; was gin to me as a sign to meditate on. If a meetin’ house steeple could tottle, my Josiah’s morals was liable to tottle; if that steeple fell right down flat into a man’s door-yard, breakin’ down and squshin’ what it had broke down and squshed, my Josiah was liable to fall flat down in a moral way, and sqush down all my earthly comfort and happiness; and I felt a feelin’ that if I would save him I must be up and a doin’.

Now if them folks had mistrusted that that steeple was gettin’ shaky, they could have tied it up, mebby, and kep’ it straight. And I was determined that if tyin’ up, or anything of that sort, would keep my Josiah up, he should be tied. I am speakin’ poetically, and would wish to be so understood. Ropes was not in my mind, neither tow strings.

And then as I come to think things over, and look at the subject on every side, as my way is, I felt a feelin’ that I hadn’t done as I ort. My mind had been on a perfect strain for 2 weeks on that alpacka dress, and I hadn’t kep’ watch of my pardner as pardners ort to be watched over. Men are considerable likely critters, but they are sort o’ frisky in their minds, onstiddy, waverin’ kinder. They need a stiddy bit, and a firm martingill, to drive ’em along straight in the married life, and keep their minds and affections stabled and firm sot onto their lawful pardners. I have said that there wasn’t a jealous hair in my head, not a hair. But filosify and deep reasonin’ has learnt me severe and deep lessons. Even after the fearful night I had passed, the awful words I had listened to from the lips of a sleepin’ Josiah, still filosify whispered to me that my pardner was as good as the common run of men, and I, in strainin’ my mind on store-clothes, had neglected things of far more importance; I had neglected lookin’ after my companion as men ort to be looked after. The cat, to use a poetical and figurative expression, had been away, and the mouse had gone to playin’. Or, to bring poesy down to prose, and to common comprehension, the cat had been fixin’ over a brown alpacka dress, and the mouse had got to follerin’ up a Widder Bump in his mind.

I believe when the man goes to cuttin’ up and actin’, if the female pardner, upheld by principle, would take a microscope and look over her past, she would more’n as likely as not come bunt up against some fault of her own, some neglect, some carelessness, some things she had done that she ortn’t to done, or some things she hadn’t done that she ort. She could trace back their cuttin’s up and actin’s to some little unguarded moments, when through hurry, or carelessness, or neglect, she had let the lines and martingills of tenderness and watchfulness drop out of her hand, and had let her pardner go a caperin’ off with nothin’ but a halter on, a prancin’ up and down society like a 3-year old colt that hadn’t had a bittin’ rig on. Pardners have got to be humored. They have got to be made comfortable and happy in their own homes; their companions has got to make themselves attractive to ’em, or they won’t be attracted. Viniger won’t draw flies worth a cent. And pardners have got to be watched; for this is the law and the profit.

They have got to be reined up to the post of duty, and hitched there. They are naturally balky, and love to shy off side-ways, and there haint no use denyin’ of it.

I tell you, I had deep thoughts that day as I went round the house a doin’ up my work; awful deep ones, and a sight of ’em, probable as many as 2 dozen a minute right along through the day; some solemn and affectin’ ones, about as solemn as they make, and some more hopeful like, and chirk. I tell you, my mind got fairly tuckered out by the middle of the afternoon.

But with Samantha, regret, repentance, and reformation foller right straight on after each other, jest like 3 horses hitched in front of each other drawin’ a heavy load. I see there was a duty in front of me to tackle; I see that I must not let Josiah Allen go off to Jonesville another night without his pardner. I must leave cares and store-clothes in the back-ground, and come out nobly, and make my home and myself agreeable to my pardner, and keep a keen and vigilant eye onto his proceedin’s and goin’s on.

So that evenin’ along towards night, when he spoke out in that same sort o’ strange and curious way about Jonesville, and that “after supper he guessed he’d hitch up and go.”

Then it was that I spoke up mild and firm as my soap-stun, and said, “I guessed I’d go, too.” He looked brow-beat and stunted by my remark, and says he: “I am most afraid to have you go out in such muggy weather, Samantha. I don’t believe you realize how muggy it is.”

Says I, in a brave, noble tone: “It hain’t no muggier for me than it is for you, Josiah Allen, and if you go, I go, too.”

“Wall,” says he, with that same dumb-foundered and stunted mean, “the old mare hadn’t ort to go out agin to-night; she lost a shoe off last week. I don’t believe we had better try to go.”

Says I coolly: “Do jest as you are a mind to, but if you must go, it is my duty to stand by you and go, too; if my pardner has got a hard job in front of him to tackle, it is my duty to tackle it, too.”

JOSIAH’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll go out to the barn and onharness. The old mare hadn’t ort to go out with her off shoe in such a condition.”

But as he drawed on his overhauls, I heard him mutter sunthin’ to himself about “its bein’ the last night the Elder would be there till fall.” But I overheard him, and says I:

“You know, Josiah Allen, that Elder Bamber has gin up goin’ home; his mother’s fits is broke up, and he hain’t a goin’. And there’l be meetin’s right along every night jest as there has been.”

They’ve been holdin’ protracted meetin’s to Jonesville for quite a spell, and I s’posed them was the meetin’s that Josiah meant. Ah! little, little did I know what Elder he meant, or what meetin’s. But he knew me too well to tell me. He knew well the soundness and heft of my principles. He hadn’t lived with ’em above 20 years without findin’ ’em out. But more of this hereafter and anon.

When Josiah come into the house agin, and sot down, he had that same sort o’ cross, brow-beat look to him. And he spoke out sort o’ surly like: “Hain’t it about supper-time, Samantha? And if you’ve got over bein’ in such a dreadful hurry with that dress, mebby you’ll have time to get a little sunthin’ better to eat. I declare for’t,” says he in a pitiful tone, “you have most starved me out for a week or two. And you hain’t seemed to have had time to say a word to me, nor nothin’. Your mind hain’t seemed to be on me a mite. And,” says he, with a still more depressted and melancholy look, “a cream-biscuit is sunthin’ I hain’t seen for weeks. Nothin’ but bread! bread!”

Oh! how my conscience smited me as I heard them words—it smited and smarted like a burn. Yet at the same time his words kind o’ chirked me up, they made me think what a powerful arrow I had in my hands to shoot down my sorrow with. They made me feel that it wuzn’t too late to save my pardner, and that was a sweet thought to me.

Yes, with a thankful and grateful heart, I grasped holt of that weepon that had defended me so many times before on hard battlefields of principle. I held that weepon firm and upright as a spear, and says I:

“Josiah, you shall have as good a supper as hands can get.” Says I, “Besides the common run of vittles we jenerally have for supper, cake and tarts and such stuff, what do you say, Josiah Allen, to havin’ a briled chicken, and toast, and mashed-up potatoes, and cream biscuit, and peaches?”

His mean changed in a minute. I never see a mean in my hull life look more radient than hisen did as I spoke them words. And my breast heaved with such happy and grateful emotion that it most bust off 2 buttens in front (them buttens wuzn’t what they was recommended to be; there was sunthin’ wrong about ’em in the shanks). Though the mournful and mysterious episode and Widder Bump was remembered, yet I felt a feelin’ that I should win my pardner back—I should save his sole alive.

But yet I had solemn feelin’s, I can tell you, all the while I was a mixin’ up them cream biscuit, and brilein’ that chicken, and makin’ that toast, and mashin’ up them potatoes, and puttin’ plenty of cream and butter into ’em.

I well knew I was a handlin’ my most powerful weepons. I knew if them failed, I was ondone.

I had meditated so many times and so deep onto this subject, that I knew every crook and turn in it. How a man’s conscience, his moral faculties, and his affections was connected by mighty and resistless cords to his appetite. I knew well that when his morals was tottlin’, when he was wild, balky, fractious, and oneasy, good vittles was the panaky that soothes. And when the mighty waves of temptation was tostin’ him to and fro—when scoldin’s seemed futile, and curtain lectures seemed vain, extra good vittles was the anchor that wimmin could drop down into them seethin’ waters, knowin’ that if that didn’t holt, she could, in the words of the Sammist, “give up the ship.”

Yes, as Josiah Allen see me a gettin’ that supper he grew calm, peaceful, his demeaner towards me grew sweet and lovin’, his affections seemed to be stabled and firm sot onto me. I see, and I can tell you I was a proud and happy woman as I see it, that the anchor I had throwed overboard was a grapplin’ the rock. Agin, as in days past and gone, in different crysises of my life, philosophy, principle, and Samantha conquered.

The supper was a success. The spring chicken was plump and tender, but not more tender than Josiah’s demeanor to me as he partook of that refreshment. The cream biscuit was light and warm; so was my heart as I see my happy pardner eat the 7th one. The peaches was delicious and sweet; so was my Josiah’s smile onto me, as I dipped out the 4th sass plate full and handed it to him. And after supper he sot there by my side calm and peaceful, and the Widder Bump and all other earthly cares and agonys seemed to be forgot.

But it wuzn’t till long afterwards, it wuzn’t till the 4th day of the next September, though I mistrusted, I mistrusted strong before, but it wuzn’t till then, that I knew for certain what a glorious and momentious victory I had won that day. What great and awful responsibilities was a devolvin’ onto them cream biscuit, and hangin’ round that chicken and toast and potatoes. I felt solemn feelin’s a gettin’ that supper, and curious ones a eatin’ of it. But oh, what feelin’s should I have felt if I had known what a earthquake was a rumblin’ and a roarin’ under that table unbeknown to me.

Oh, what blind creeters the fur seein’est of us are, how powerless are the most magnifyest spectacles to see the brinks that pardners are a hangin’ over unbeknown to us. But of this, more hereafter and anon.

KITTY SMITH AND CALEB COBB.

We have got a dretful pretty girl a-stayin’ with us now, one of the relation on my side, one of the Smiths. When we heard she was a comin’, Josiah kinder hung back from the idee at first. But as I see him a hangin’ back, I calmly, and with dignity, took the Widder Doodle, one of the relations on his side, and mildly yet firmly threw her in his face. It hit him jest right, the idee did, and I hain’t heard a word sense of murmurin’s or complainin’s about the Smiths.

KITTY SMITH.

I enjoy her bein’ here the best that ever was. We have took lots of comfort sense she come. Not that happiness and security has caused me to shut that open eye of my spectacle. No! that is still on the watch, vigilent and keen, and if there is anything a goin’ on, I feel that it cannot long be[be] hid from that eye. But everything has seemed calm and peaceful, Josiah is affectionate and almost tender in his mean to me. And I learn from the neighbers that the Widder Bump has gone off on a visit to her folkses. But still that eye of my speck is sleepless. Not once has it closed itself in slumber, and still I hold firm.

Kitty Smith is a pretty girl, as pretty a one as I ever see. The Smiths, as I have said to Josiah a number of times, was always pretty fair lookin’. He thinks so too, only when he is fractious. She looks a good deal as I did when I was her age; Josiah owned up to me the other night that she did. We had had a splendid good supper, and he felt well, and he said so of his own accord. And then she favors her mother considerable, a good-lookin’ woman as I ever see, and smart.

Kitty is very fair complected, smooth, as delicate as a sea-shell, with curly hair almost gold-colored, only bearin’ a little on the brown, kinder fruzzly and fluffy on top, blowin’ all over her forward when she goes out in the wind, or anything. And her forward bein’ white as snow, when the little gold rings and curls are a blowin’ all over it, they look well. She has got sort ’o pinky cheeks, and her eyes are big and dark, and kinder grey like, and all runnin’ over with fun and mischief. She is the biggest witch out. And her lips are red as two roses, and always a laughin’, them and her eyes; I don’t know which laughs the most. Her name is Kitty, and she is just as affectionate as a little kitten, and as playful.

I think a sight on her. And I love to look at her. I always did love to look at a handsome woman. There are some wimmen that it gauls to see a female handsomer than they be, but it never did me. I always loved to see handsome pictures, and a beautiful woman’s face is a picture with a soul in it.

I set a great deal of store by her, and so does Josiah and the childern; they are all a quarrelin’ now which will have her the most. But we shan’t none of us have her long, I s’pose. For she has told me in strict confidence, and if I tell, it must not go no further, for it must be kep’! She don’t want Josiah and the childern to get holt of it, knowin’ they would plague her most to death. She is engaged to be married to a awful smart-lookin’ feller. She showed me his picture—a keen-eyed, noble-lookin’ chap, I can tell you, and well off. His father owns the big manufactory where her father was overseer when he died, and where her mother keeps boarders now. His father stood out, at first, about his marryin’ a poor girl. And Kitty come off out here for a long visit; her mother wanted her to; they are both proud, and won’t force themselves into no company. But Mark—that is the young feller’s name—Mark stands firm, and the old man is a comin’ round gradual. Kitty, though she jest worships Mark, won’t go there till she is welcome, and I bear her out in it. That is why she is here on such a long tower. But she knows it is all a comin’ out right; her mother says it is; and Mark writes to her every day or two, and she is happy as a bird.

But she is a little too full of fun sometimes, and thoughtless. She don’t realize things as she ort, and as she will when she is older. Now there is a young feller here in Jonesville that has got after her, Caleb Cobb, or Kellup, as everybody calls him. And just out of pure fun she lets him foller her up. I feel bad about it, and so I have told Josiah. But he said “she didn’t mean no more hurt than a kitten did, a-playin’ with a mouse.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, hain’t it bad for the mouse?”

“Wall,” says Josiah, “it no need to have been a mouse then.”

Says I, “That is a dretful deep argument, Josiah.” Says I, “I should be afraid to be so smart, if I was in your place. I should be afraid they’d want me to Congress.”

My tone was witherin’ and dry as a fish. But Josiah didn’t feel withered up. The fact is, he hates Kellup, and loves to see him fooled, that is the truth on’t. Kellup’s father is the cabinet-maker to Jonesville, and Kellup drives the hearse, and he comes to see Kitty in it. His father does sights and sights of business out in the country all round Jonesville, and every time Kellup is called out with it, on his way home he will go milds and milds out of his way for the privilege of stoppin’ and seein’ her. And he’ll hitch that hearse to the front gate, and come in and try to court her. Why, anybody would think a pestilence had broke out in our three housen, our’n, and Tirzah Ann’s, and Thomas Jefferson’s, to see that hearse hitched in front of ’em every day or two. It works me up and gives me awful feelin’s. But Kitty jest giggles and laughs over it, and Josiah and the children encourages her in it. They hate Kellup like pisen.

And he is one of the stingiest, disagreeablest, conceitedest, self-righteousest creeters that I ever see in my life. And pretends to be religious. Why, I spose tight is no name for his tightness. Somebody made the remark that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And Thomas J. said it wasn’t nothin’ but the sheep’s hide, then, for if it had been the hull pelt he’d sell the wool offen it quicker’n a wink.

And he thinks he is so beautiful, and dangerous to wimmen. But I never could bear his looks. He has got great big black eyes, dretful shaller, no depth to ’em, some like huckleberries, only bigger, but jest about as much soul and expression into ’em as a huckleberry has. And a saller skin and low forward, with sights of hair and whiskers. The curiousest hair, and the singularest whiskers that I ever did see.

KELLUP.

They are very heavy and bushy, and he bein’ pretty well along in years, they would be as grey as two rats. But bein’ a bachelder, and wantin’ to pass off as a young man, he colors ’em. Which would be all perfectly proper and right, and no more than lots of folks do; but the peculiarity is, he is so uncommon tight that he wont buy hair dye, but makes experiments with himself, steeps up things, roots and herbs, and stuffs he can buy cheap, minerals and things, cateku, and so 4th, and pusly. And so you hardly ever see him twice with his hair and whiskers and eyebrows the same color. And I’ll be hanged if he haint some of the time the curiousest lookin’ creeter that was ever seen out side of a menagery.

If he would only settle down on one color and keep it up, it wouldn’t be so bad for him. London brown hair and whiskers wouldn’t look so awful bad after you get used to ’em, or cateku color, or madder red. But he thinks, I spose, that he will hit on sunthin’ cheaper than he has hit on; so he will keep on tamperin’ with ’em, and makin’ experiments, and you won’t no sooner get used to seein’ ’em cinneman color, than the very next thing they will be a bright pusly color, or sorrel. It jest spiles his looks, and so I have told Josiah.

And he said “It was hard spilin’ anything that was born spilt.” And I told him “That no human bein’ was ever born with pusly-colored hair and whiskers.”

And he said “He was born a dumb fool!”

And I didn’t deny it, and didn’t try to, only I scolded him powerful and severe on the “dumb.”

His hair and whiskers, as I say, are always some new and curius shade, very changeable and oncertain, as to color, but they are always greasy. He uses sights and sights of hair oil; he makes it himself out of lard, scented up high with peppermint. He uses peppermint essence on his handkerchy, too (he gathers his own peppermint and makes it, and uses it lavish). He says that is the only vain, worldly luxury he indulges in. He says he feels guilty about usin’ up his property in it, but it is such a comfort to him that he don’t feel as if he can give it up.

His clothes are always very cheap and poor lookin’, when he is dressed up the most, but he dresses very poor the most of the time, for principle, he says, to try to wean the wimmen from him as much as he can.

And take him with them clothes of hisen, and that curius lookin’ hair and whiskers all round his chin, and up the sides of his face, he is as sepulchral and singular a lookin’ a chap as I ever laid eyes on.

He is a bachelder, Kellup is, not from necessity, he says, but because he has found it so hard to select one from the surroundin’ wimmen that want him. He has told me that the two main reasons why he didn’t marry, one was, he found it so awful hard to select one out of so many, and the other, it was so tryin’ to him to hurt the feelins’ of them he would have to slight if he made a choice.

Why, he talked with me about it over two years ago. He was in to our house one day, and Josiah had been a attin’ him about his not gettin’ married, and after Josiah went out, he talked to me confidential. I s’pose it is that sort of a noble, lofty look, to my face, that makes folks confide in me so much. Says he,

“I am tender-hearted, Josiah Allen’s wife. I am too tender-hearted for my own good. There is so many wimmen that want me, and it would cut me, it would cut me like a knife to have to disapinte so many.”

He stopped here for me to say sunthin’, and I remarked, in a sort of a dry tone, that I wouldn’t worry about ’em, if I was in his place[place]

“Wall,” says he, “I shouldn’t worry, if I was like some men. I should slash right in and marry, without payin’ any attention to other wimmens feelin’s. But if I should kill half a dozen wimmen or so, Josiah Allen’s wife, I feel that I never should forgive myself.”

Here he stopped agin, and I see that he wanted me to say sunthin’; and not knowin’ exactly what to say, I said sort o’ mechanically, without really thinkin’ what I was a sayin’, that it would be a good stroke of business for his father.

“Yes,” says he, “but the profits we should make wouldn’t much more than half pay me for the feelin’s I should have a thinkin’ I was the means of their dyin’ off.

“Why,” says he, takin’ out his pocket handkerchief and wipin’ his forward, till the room smelt as strong as a peppermint sling,—“there haint a woman in Jonesville but what would jump at the chance of marryin’ of me. But they mustn’t calculate too strong on it. I wouldn’t be the one to tell ’em right out plain that there wasn’t no hopes of gettin’ me. That would be a little too heartless and cold-blooded in me. But they mustn’t build up too high castles in the air about it, for I may not marry at all.”[all.”]

“Like as not you wont,” says I, speakin’ not quite so mekanikle, but with considerable more meanin’. “I shouldn’t wonder a mite if you didn’t.”

“No,” says he, foldin’ his arms and lookin’ haughtily at a picture of a woman over the wood-box.

“No; the thing of it is I am so tender-hearted, and hate so to cause sufferin’.

“I can’t,” says he, knittin’ up his eyebrows (they was a kind of a olive green that day), “I can’t marry all the wimmen that want me. That is a settled thing. Anybody with half a mind can see that. I can’t do it. And so what would the result be if I should make a choice, and marry one. One woman made happy, and cruelty, wanton, bloody cruelty, to all other wimmen fur and near. Would that one woman’s happiness,” says he, knittin’ up his eye-brows as hard as I ever see any knit, and I have seen some considerable hard knittin’ in my day, “would that one woman’s happiness go anywhere near makin’ up for the agony that would rack the breasts of other wimmen, and tear their heart-strings all to flitters? That is the question,” says he, lookin’ gloomily into the wood-box, that is wearin’ on me night and day, and what shall I do to do right?”

THE WOMAN QUESTION.

“Wall,” says I, “I can’t advise you. I wouldn’t marry, if I thought it was a goin’ to kill ten or a dozen; and I wouldn’t marry anyway, unless I got a chance.”

“Chance!” says he haughtily. “Why, there haint a woman in the country but what would jump to have me; that is,” says he in a reasonable tone, “if they wasn’t too old to jump, or wasn’t disabled in some way, rheumatiz, or sunthin, or sprains. They all want me.”

“Why,” says I, tryin’ to chirk him up, and make him feel better, “I thought it was right the other way. I thought you had got the mitten more’n a dozen times. There was Polly Bamber”—

“Oh, well. Polly Bamber loved me to distraction. She tried to conceal it from me. She refused me, thinkin’ it would make me fiercer to marry her. But she got fooled. I only asked her three times. She was waitin’ for the fourth, and I spose she was as disapinted as a girl ever was. I was sorry for her; my heart fairly ached for her; but I had a man’s dignity to keep up, and I left her.”

“Wall, there was Betsey Gowdey.”

“Betsey would have had me in a minute, if it hadn’t been for influences that was brought to bear on her. She just as good as told me so. I s’pose she felt awfully to lose me; but she bore up under it better than I thought she would. I thought like as not she would break completely down under it.”

“Wall,” says I, tryin’ my best to chirk him up, “there was Mahala Grimshaw, and Martha Ann Snyder, and Jane Boden, and Serena Rumsey, and Serepta Mandagool.”

“Them girls was sorry enough, when it was too late. They lost me, every one of them girls did, by puttin’ on airs and pretendin’ not to want me. Pretendin’ to make fun of me, jest for an outside show. I see right through it. But I took ’em at their word, and when they said they wouldn’t have me, I jest left ’em, and paid no attention to what they suffered after I left. Sometimes I have thought that mebby I was too harsh with ’em, to punish ’em so; but I did it, and I’d do it agin if it was to do over. They no need to have been so deceitful. They might expect to suffer for it, and I am glad they did.”

“There was Nabby Ellis,” says I dreamily.

“Oh, Nabby was all right. It was envy and jealousy that broke that up. Sam Larkins jest filled her ears about me, I know he did; if he hadn’t, and hadn’t married her himself, Nabby would have gin her ears to have had me. I think she thinks more of me to day than she does of Sam; but I keep out of her way all I can; I don’t want to harrow up her feelin’s. I am a young man of principle, if there ever was one.

“Now I know of several married wimmen that I am obleeged to treat cool and distant, for their own good. What good would it do me?” says he, knittin’ up his eyebrows agin.

“What good could it do me for a lot of married wimmen to get over head and ears in love with me? They know they can’t get me. And though they may feel hurt at my coldness at the time, when they come to think it over they must know I am actin’ for their good in the long run, by bein’ cold and distant to ’em, and tryin’ my best to wean ’em from me.

“Some young men don’t seem to have no idee or care about the sufferin’ they cause on every side of ’em. They will trample right round over female hearts, as if there wusn’t no more feelin’ in ’em than in tan bark, and as if it didn’t hurt ’em and bruise ’em to tread on ’em. But it haint my way. I don’t think a young man can be too careful about such things. Why, I am so careful and conscientious that if I thought it was necessary for females’ peace of mind, and the good of surroundin’ wimmen, I would be willin’ to wear a veil over my face the hull time.”

I looked him full and keen in the face, over the top of my specks, and told him calmly that I didn’t think it was necessary.

“Wall,” says he, “I am jest that tender-hearted, that I would do it. I am too tender-hearted for my own good. I know that very well. Now I want to get married, I want to badly; but there them two reasons stand, right in front of me, headin’ me off. It haint the expense of keepin’ a wife that holds me back, for I could more than make her pay her way, doin’ the housework for father and me and five workmen. No, it is clear principle that is headin’ me off. I may get reckless after a while.”

PAYIN’ HER WAY.

Says he, with a sort of a bitter mean onto him: “I may get so carried away with some girl’s looks, and so hankerin’ after matrimony, that I shall forget my conscience and principle, and slash right in and marry her, and let the other wimmen go to wrack and ruin. But then agin when I think what the consequences would probable be, why then I tremble.”

And he kinder shook some as if he had a chill.

Says he: “When I think of Jane Sofier Burpy. When I think what my feelin’s was as I drove her hearse to the buryin’-ground. When I think how I felt durin’ that ride—why, I think I will never meddle again with any women, in any way, shape, nor manner. When I think how she wilted right down like a untimely flower cut down by the destroyer.”

“Why,” says I, “she died with a bile; that was what ailed her,—a carbuncle on her back.”

“Yes,” says he, with a unbelievin’ look on his face, “so the doctors said; so the cold world said. But I think it was sunthin’ deeper.”

HOW JANE WAS ROPED IN.

“Why,” says I, “a bile couldn’t go no deeper than her’n went. It was dreadful. It was the death of her.”

Says he: “I have always had my own idee of what ailed her. I know what that idee is, and I know what a guilty conscience is. I wuzn’t careful enough. I didn’t mean no harm to her, Heaven knows I didn’t. But I wuzn’t careful enough. I boarded two weeks with her mother the spring before she died. And I can see now where I missed it, where I did wrong. I wuzn’t offish enough to her. I treated her too friendly. I was off my guard, and didn’t notice how my attractions was bein’ too much for her.

THE DEATH BLOW.

“I paid her little attentions to the table, such as passin’ her the mashed-up potatoes and the beans. I talked with her, more or less. Once I helped her hang out the clothes-line. I brought her letters from the post-office. Twice I helped her into a wagon. I was onguarded. I think then was the time I give her her death-blow.”

And oh! what a harrowin’ and remorseful look he did cast into that wood-box, as he said this.

“She died in the fall. And my feelin’s durin’ that fall I shall never forget. If that thing should happen agin, and my feelin’s prey on me as they preyed then, I couldn’t stand it through more than seven or eight more such cases. I know I couldn’t. I have been careful since then. When I’m obliged to board now I don’t board in any house where there is a woman under seventy-five years of age. And sometimes I am most afraid it is resky then.”[then.”]

And agin he looked as gloomy at that wood-box as I ever see a box looked at. And he waited a minute or two. Mebby he waited for me to say sunthin’ but I didn’t say it, and he kep’ on:

“Several times sense that I have started up, and thought that I would marry anyway, and leave the result. But it has seemed to be broke up every time providential, and I’d make up my mind in the end not to have ’em. But after awhile agin I will start up, and almost make my mind up, that marry I will, no matter what the result may be. But there it is agin; I am too tender-hearted. That is where the stick is with me. I know jest how skurce men are, and how wimmen feel towards ’em. I know jest how they get their minds sot on ’em, and how they feel to loose ’em. I have got principle, Josiah Allen’s wife. I am principle clear to the back-bone.”

“Wall,” says I, “I don’t know but you be. I can’t dispute you, not knowin’ how it is.”

“It may end,” says he, with a bitter look at the woman over the wood-box, “it may end by my not marryin’ at all. But if I don’t marry, where will the blame lie?”

Says he, speakin’ up louder and more excited than he had spoke up:

“I have been blamed; blamed in public places; right in the grocery, and on the post-office steps; blamed by the trustees of the public school; blamed by the old man that keeps the children’s toy-store; blamed by the census man for shiftlessness, and slackness, in not increasin’ the population.

“But where does the blame rest? Is it with me, or with the wimmen that act so like furyation that it is impossible for me to make a choice amongst ’em?

“If I should tell them men that the reason I had lived along, year after year, without marryin’ was that I was so tender-hearted, they would laugh at me.”

“I hain’t a doubt of it,” says I heartily and decidedly.

“Yes, they would hoot at me, so little can they enter into such a heart as mine. But I can’t always live along in this way. Some day there may be a change. I give wimmen warnin’ that there may be.”

And so he went on for two hours, if it was a minute. Repeatin’ it over and over agin, till I was as sick as a dog of hearin’ of it. But knowin’ he was talkin’ to me in confidence, I didn’t want to come right out plain, and tell him what I thought of him. But I was glad enough when he got through and started off of his own accord.

But since Kitty come he has been to our house more than ever. He has acted crazy as a loon about her. Though true to his principle, he asked Josiah the other day, “if consumption run in her family, and if he thought it would go too hard with her if he didn’t make up his mind to marry her.”

A JUDGMENT SEAT.

Old Cobb is well off, but he and Kellup works hard, and fares hard. They stent themselves on clothes, and I don’t s’pose they allow themselves hardly enough to eat and drink. And all the literary feasts and recreations they allow themselves is to set round in stores and groceries, on dry-goods boxes and butter-tubs, a-findin’ fault with the government, spittin’ tobacco-juice at the stove, and fixin’ the doom of sinners. Kellup is harder on ’em than the old man is. Old Cobb thinks there won’t be more’n half the world saved; Kellup thinks there won’t be more than a quarter, if there is that.

They argue powerful. Have come to hands and blows frequent. And once Kellup knocked the old man down, he was so mad and out of patience to think the old man couldn’t see as he see about the Judgment. You know there is sights and sights said on that subject now and wrote on it; and Kellup and the old man will borrow books and papers that are wrote on it, some on one side and some on the other, and then they’ll quarrel agin over them. And they’ve tried to draw me into their arguments time and agin. But I have told ’em that I was a master hand to work where I was needed most, and I didn’t seem to be needed so much a judgin’ the world, and settlin’ on jest how many was a goin’ to be saved or lost, as I did a mindin’ my own business, and tryin’ to read my own title clear to mansions in the skies. Says I: “I find it a tuckerin’ job to take care of one sinner as she ort to be took care of, and it would make me ravin’ crazy if I had to take care of the hull universe.”

It fairly makes me out of patience, when there is so much work our Master sot for us to do for His sake, it fairly makes me mad to see folks refuse to do a mite of that work, but tackle jobs they hain’t sot to tackle. Why, the Lord don’t, like a good many human bein’s, ask impossibilities of us. He only wants us to do the best we can with what we have got to do with, and He will help us. He never refused help to a earnest, strugglin’ soul yet. But He don’t calculate nor expect us to judge the world, I know He don’t. Why, our Saviour said, in that hour when it seemed as if the God and the man was both speakin’ from a heart full of a human longin’ for love and a divine pity and tenderness for sorrowful humanity,—He said, “If you love me, feed my sheep.” He said it twice over, earnest and impressive. He meant to have it heard and understood. And once He said, seemin’ly so afraid the childern wouldn’t be took care of, “Feed my lambs.” That is a good plain business, tryin’ to feed them every way, doin’ our best to satisfy all their hunger, soul and body. That is the work He wants us to do, but He never gave a hint that He wanted us to judge the world. But He said out plain and square more’n once, “Judge not.” Then what makes folks try to do it? What makes ’em pass right by flocks and flocks of sheeps needy and perishin’ every way, pass right by these little lambs of Christ, hungry and naked, stumblin’ right over ’em without pickin’ of ’em up? Why, they might fall right over quantities of dead sheeps and dyin’ lambs, and not know it, they are so rampent and determined on tacklin’ jobs they hain’t sot to tackle, crazy and sot on judgin’ the world.

Why, everybody says they never did see such a time as it is now for arguin’ and fightin’ back and forth on that subject. Why, the papers are full of it. “Is there a Hell?” And “How deep is it?” And “How many are a goin’ there?” And “How long are they a goin’ to stay?” Books are wrote on it, and lectures are lectured, and sermons are preached on both sides of the Atlantic; and Kellup and his father are by no means the only ones who get mad as hornets if anybody disputes ’em in their views of the Judgment.

But I am glad enough that I don’t feel that way, for it would make me crazy as a loon if I thought I was sot to judge one soul, let alone the universe.

Why, how under the sun would I go to work to judge that one soul, and do it right? I could see some of the outward acts, ketch glimpses of the outside self. But how could I unlock that secret door that shuts in the real person,—how could I get inside that door that the nearest and the dearest never peeked through, that God only holds the key to—the secret recesses of the immortal soul—and behold the unspeakable, the soarin’ desires, and yearnin’s, and divine aspirations—the good and true intentions—the dreams and visions of immortal beauty, and purity, and goodness—and the secret thoughts that are sin—the unfolded scarlet buds of wrong, and the white folded buds of purity and holynesses, each waiting for the breath of circumstance, of change, and what we call chance, to unfold and blossom into beauty or hejusness? How could my eyes see if I should put on ’em the very strongest spectacles earthly wisdom could make—how could they behold all the passion and the glory, the despair and the rapture, the wingéd hopes and faiths, the groveling, petty fears and cares, the human and the divine, the eternal wonder and mystery of a soul?

And if I could once ketch a glimpse of this—that I never shall see, nor nobody else—if I could once get inside the mystery of a mind, how could I judge it right? How could I go to work at it? How could I tackle it? Good land, it makes me sweat jest to think on’t. How could I test the strength of that mighty network of resistless influences that draws that soul by a million links up toward Goodness and down toward Evil—binds it to the outside world, and the spiritual and divine? How could I get a glimpse of that unseen yet terrible chain of circumstances, the inevitable, that wraps that soul almost completely round? How could I ever weigh, or get the right heft if I could weigh ’em, of all the individual tendencies, inherited traits, sins, and goodnesses that press down upon that soul? How could I tell how the affections, powerful critters as I ever see, was a drawin’ it one way, and where? and how fur? And ambitions and worldly desires, how they was a hawlin’ it another way, and where to? and when? How true, noble aims and holy desires was pushin’ it one way, and ignoble impulses, petty aims and littleness, self-seekin’, and vainglory was givin’ it a shove the other way? Good land! if I could see all these, and see ’em plain—which no one ever can or will—but if I could, how could I ever sort ’em out, and mark ’em with their right name and heft, and calculate how far they was a drawin’ and a influencin’ that soul, and how fur it had power to resist? How could the eyes of my spectacles ever see jest how fur down into the depths of that soul shone the Divine Ideal, the holy, stainless image of what we pray to be,—and jest how fur the mists that rise up from our earthly soil darken and blind that light? Good land! I couldn’t do it, nor Josiah, nor nobody.

We are blind creeters, the fur-seein’est of us; weak creeters, when we think we are the strong-mindedest. Now, when we hear of a crime, it is easy to say that the one who committed that wrong stepped flat off from goodness into sin, and should be hung. It is so awful easy and sort o’ satisfactory to condemn other folks’es faults that we don’t stop to think that it may be that evil was fell into through the weakness and blindness of a mistake. Jest as folks fall down suller lots of times a gropin’ round in the dark tryin’ to find the outside door, and can’t. Doin’ their best to get out where it is lighter, out into the free air of Heaven, and first they know, entirely unbeknown to them, they open the wrong door, and there they are down suller, dark as pitch, and mebby with a sore and broken head.

And if a wrong is done wilfully, with a purpose, it is easy to think of nothin’ but the wrong, and not give a thought to what influences stood behind that soul, a pushin’ it off into sin. Early influences, sinful teachin’s drunk down eagerly before the mind could seperate the evil from the good. Criminal inheritances of depraved tastes, and wayward and distorted intellect, wretched, depressing surroundings, lack of all comfort, hope, faith in God or man, ignorance, blind despair, all a standin’ behind that soul pushin’ it forward into a crime. And then when we read of some noble, splendid act of generosity, our souls burn within us, and it is easy to say, the one who did that glorious deed should be throned and crowned with honor—not thinkin’ how, mebby unbeknown to us, that act was the costly and glitterin’ varnish coverin’ up a whited sepulchre. That deed was restin’ on self-seekin’, ambitious littleness.

Yes, we are blind creeters. And there is but One who holds the key to the terror, the glory, and the mystery of a soul. He, only, can see and judge. He whose age is ageless, and who can therefore alone judge of the mighty flood of influences that pour down upon the soul from that ageless past, swayin’ it with mysterious power. He whose life fills that boundless future—Eternity—He alone knows the strength of those mighty forces drawin’ us thither. He who sees the unseen—whose eyes can alone pierce the clouds that close so dark about us, and behold the host of shadowy forms that surround us on every side, angels and demons, things present, things to come, life, and death, and every other creature—He only knows their power over us. He who alone knows the meaning of life, the mystery of our creation. And all that keeps me from bein’ ravin’ distracted in even meditatin’ on this is to calm myself down on this thought, that there is One who knows all. And He alone can judge of what He alone can see. He, the just and loving One, will do right with the souls He made.

Why, if I didn’t lean up against that thought, and lean heavy, I should tottle and wobble round to that extent that I should fall to pieces—be a perfect wrack and ruin in no time. And another thought that gives me sights of comfort is, He don’t need none of my help in judgin’ the world. And if I was ever glad of anything in my life, I am glad of that. Why, in my opinion, it is irreverent, the very height of audacity, to dare to affirm what shall be the doom of a single soul.

Then to think of the countless millions on earth, and who sleep in its bosom—and the countless, countless worlds that fill endless and boundless space, the unnumbered hosts of the ageless past, and the endless future—the Eternity—and jest to speak that word almost takes away my breath—and then to think of us, poor, blind little aunts, on a aunt-hill, deciding on this mighty mystery, writin’ books, preachin’ sermons, givin’ lectures, one way and another, judgin’ the fate of these souls, and where they are goin’ to, and quarrelin’ over it. In my opinion it would be better for us to spend some of the breath we waste in this way in prayer to Him who is Mighty, for help in right living. Or, if we can’t do any better with it, let us spend a very little of it, mebby ½ of it, in coolin’ porridge for the starvin’ ones right round us; that would be better than to spend it as we do do, in beatin’ the air, quarrelin’ on who is goin’ to be saved, and how many. Them’s my idees, but, howsomever, everybody to their own mind. But good land! I am a eppisodin’, and a eppisodin’, beyond the patience of anybody. And to resoom and proceed:

As I was a sayin’ of Kellup and his father, I s’pose there’s lots of things said about ’em that there hain’t no truth in. Now I don’t believe that they chaw spruce-gum for dinner, and eat snow and icicles in the time of ’em—not to make a stiddy practice of it. Why, they couldn’t stand it, not for any length of time. But you know when anybody gets their name up for any particular thing, it is dretful easy—don’t take hardly a mite of strength—to histe it up a little higher. But I see this myself, with my own eye.

Last Thanksgivin’ I was in the meat-shop to Jonesville, a buyin’ a turkey, and some lamb, and oysters, and things. I was goin’ to have the childern home to dinner. And Kellup come in, and said his father thought it was such hard times they wouldn’t try to keep Thanksgivin’ this year. But he told his father it showed a ungrateful heart for all the mercies and benefits that had been bestowed on ’em durin’ the year, and it was settin’ a bad example to sinners round ’em to not celebrate it; so he had carried the day, and they was goin’ to swing right out, and buy half a pound of fresh beef, and celebrate.

And he bought it, and beat the butcher half a cent on that. I think myself that he is as tight as the bark to a tree, but I don’t believe he is any tighter. But they say he is as tight agin.

SWINGIN’ OUT.

Like myself and Josiah, Kellup is a member of the Methodist meetin’-house. And he is a dretful case to exhort other folks. And jest like them that don’t do nothin’ themselves, that never did a noble, generous act in their lives, he is a great case to talk about other folks’es duty. And jest like them that are too stingy to draw a long breath for fear of wearin’ out their lungs, he is a great case to talk about other folks’es givin’.

If anybody has decent clothes and vittles, he is always talkin’ about their extravagance, and how much they could do for the sufferin’ poor round ’em with the money. And a man could starve to death right on the road in front of him, and all he would do would be to stop that hearse, and exhort him from the top of it. Not a cent would he give if the man died right there in under the hearse. I despise such Christians, and I always shall; and there are lots of ’em all round us, who are always talkin’ about workin’ for Christ, and all the work they do is with their tongues. I say such religion is vain; empty as tinglin’ brass, and soundin’ thimbles.

A COB(B) WITHOUT CORN.

From the time he wore roundabouts, Kellup’s father promised him that jest as quick as he got big enough he should drive that hearse, and it has lifted him up, that hearse has, and always made him feel above the other boys. He has always seemed to think that was the highest station in life he could get up onto. We all think that the reason he comes to see Kitty on it, is he thinks he looks more stately and imposin’ on it than he would walkin’ afoot. And when the childern, the little Jonesvillians, hoot at him, and make all manner of fun of him, he thinks they envy him, and it makes him act haughtier than ever, and more proud-spirited, and stiff-necked.

As I say, I feel bad, and I take Kitty to do about it every time I see her a’most. And she’ll say:

“Oh, Auntie! it is too rich!”

KITTY’S KISS.

And she’ll laugh, and kiss me, and coax me not to be cross about it, till she makes most as big a fool of me as she does of Kellup, and I tell her so.

But I stand firm, and try to make her feel a realizin’ sense how it looks to have a hearse standin’ round promiscous every few days, hitched to our front gate. It is a solemn thing to me. And would be to anybody who looked at things serious and solemn. Most every subject has several sides to it, and some has more’n 20. And folks ort to tutor themselves to hold a subject right up in their hands, and look on every side of it. But Kitty don’t try to. The humorous side of things is the side she meditates on. And she thinks that Kellup’s travelin’ round after her on that hearse has a funny side to it. But I can’t see it. It is a solemn thing to me to see it drive up to our gate any time o’ day, and be hitched there, while he comes in and tries to court her. Why, it looks fairly wicked to me, and I tell her so. And then she’ll giggle and laugh, and make a perfect fool of Kellup. Or, that is, improve on the job; for truly Nater helped her powerful at his birth. Nater did a good job in that line—in the fool line. Though you couldn’t make him think he was most a fool, or leanin’ heavy that way, not if you should drive the fact into his head with a hammer. It is one of the hardest things in the world to make folks believe. They’ll own up to bein’ a fool twice as quick.

But as I say, it worries me most to death. And there is only jest one thing that keeps me from comin’ right out and puttin’ a stop to it, and tellin’ Kellup she is a foolin’ of him. I have meditated on it powerful. And sometimes I have thought that he needs such a affliction. Sometimes I have thought that, bein’ so overbearin’, and haughty, and big-feelin’, that such a takin’ down is what he needs to lift him up (morally).

But though that principle holds up my spirit, it is a hard trial to my spirit, and to the eye of my spectacles. And I’ll say to Josiah, every time I see him drive up, and groan loud as I say it: “I should think he’d know better than to go a courtin’ with a hearse.”

But he says: “Keep still; it don’t hurt you any, does it?”

That man enjoys it. He has wicked streaks, and I tell him so. And says I:

“Josiah Allen, you don’t seem to know what solemnity is, or what wickedness is.”

And he says: “I know what a dumb fool is.”

And that is all the help I can get. And I s’pose I shall have to let it go on. But I feel like death about it. When he comes here, and Kitty don’t happen to be here, he will always begin to exhort me on religion. He is the disagreeablest, self-righteousest creeter I ever see, and that I won’t deny.

“Oh,” says he to me yesterday—there had been a funeral up by here, and when he came back he hitched the hearse, and come in. And he began to exhort me, and says he: “I have been a thinkin’ of it all day,—how glad I am that salvation is free.”

I felt wore out with him, and says I: “Well you may be glad. For if it wasn’t free, you wouldn’t have any—not a mite. You wouldn’t either if you had to pay a cent for it.”

Before he could say anything, Kitty come in. She had been out to the barn with Josiah to feed the sheep. She looked like a blush-rose; her eyes a dancin’ and a sparklin’. And Kellup acted spoonier than any spoon I have got on my buttery shelves.

JOSIAH GOES INTO BUSINESS.

Josiah Allen has got a sort of a natural hankerin’ after makin’ money easy. A sort of a speculatin’ turn to his mind, which most men have. But not havin’ the other ingregiences that go with it to make it a success, his speculations turn out awful, 2 episodes of which I will relate and set down. One pleasant evenin’ Josiah had jest got back from carryin’ Kitty Smith to Tirzah Ann’s. Tirzah Ann had sent for her to stay a spell with her. And Josiah had got back and put the horses out, and sot by the fire a meditatin’ to all outward appearance. When all of a sudden he broke out and says:

“Samantha, I love to make money easy.”

“Do you?” says I, in a mechanicle way, for I was bindin’ off the heel of a sock of hisen, and my mind was sort o’ drawed out by that heel, and strained.

“Yes,” says he, crossin’ his legs, and lookin’ dretful wise at me, “Yes, I love to, like a dog. I love to kinder speculate.”

I had bound off the last stitch, and my mind bein’ free it soared up noble agin, and I says firmly and impressively:

“Good, honest hard work is the best speculation I ever went into, Josiah Allen.”

“Yes,” says he, with that same dretful wise look, “wimmen naterally feel different about these things. Wimmen haint got such heads onto ’em as we men have got. We men love to make money by a speck. We love to get rich by head work.”

I jest give one look onto his bald head, a strange, searchin’ look, that seemed to go right through his brains and come out the other side. I didn’t say anything, only jest that look, but that spoke (as it were) loud.

He looked kinder meachin’, and hastened to explain.

“I am goin’ to fix up that old house of our’n, Samantha, and rent it,” says he. “I am goin’ to make piles and piles of money out of it, besides the comfort we can take a neighborin’.” “And,” says he, “I love to—to neighbor, Samantha—I love to deerly.”

Says I in calm tones, but firm: “There are worse neighbors, Josiah Allen, than them that are livin’ in the old house now.”

“Livin’ there now?” says he. And his eyes stood out from ¼ to a ½ a inch in surprise and horrer.

“Yes,” says I, “you’ll find, Josiah Allen, that take it right along from day to day, and from year to year, that there are worse creeters to neighbor with than Peace, and Quiet, and Repose.”

“Dummit! scare a man to death, will you?”

Says I: “Stop swearin’ to once, Josiah Allen, and instantly!”

My mean was lofty and scareful, and he stopped. But he went on in a firm and obstinate axent: “I am determined to fix up that house and rent it. Wimmen can’t see into business. They haint got the brains for it. You haint to blame for it, Samantha, but you haint got the head to see how profitable I am goin’ to make it. And then our nearest neighbors live now well onto a quarter of a mile away. How neat it will be to have neighbors right here by us, all the time, day and night.” And agin he says dreamily: “If I ever loved anything in this world, Samantha, I love to neighbor.”

But I held firm, and told him he’d better let well enough alone. But he was sot as sot could be, and went on and fixed up the house. It was a old house right acrost the road from our’n. One that was on the place when we bought it. All shackly and run down; nobody had lived in it for years. And I knew it wouldn’t pay to spend money on it. But good land! he wouldn’t hear a word to me. He went on a fixin’ it, and it cost him nearer a hundred dollars than it did anything else—besides lamin’ himself, and blisterin’ his hands to work on it himself, and fillin’ his eyes with plaster, and gettin’ creeks in his back, a liftin’ round and repairin’.

But he felt neat through it all. It seemed as if the more money he laid out, and the worse he got hurt, the more his mind soared up, a lottin’ on how much money he was goin’ to make a rentin’ it, and what a beautiful time he was a goin’ to enjoy a neighborin’. He would talk about neighborin’ most the hull time days, and would roust me up nights if he happened to think of any new and happifyin’ idea on the subject. Till if ever I got sick of any word in the hull dictionary, I got sick of that.

Well, jest as quick as the house was done, and he pushed the work on rapid and powerful, fairly drove it, he was in such a hurry, nothin’ to do but he must set off huntin’ up a renter, for he couldn’t seem to wait a minute. I told him to keep cool. Says I “You’ll make money by it if you do.”

But no! he couldn’t wait till somebody come to him. He wouldn’t hear a word to me. He’d throw wimmen’s heads in my face, and say they was week, and wuzn’t like men’s. He was so proud and haughty about the speck he had gone into, and the piles and piles of money he was goin’ to make, that once or twice he told me that I hadn’t no head at all. And then he’d hitch up the old mare, and go off a huntin’ round and enquirin’. And finally one day he come home from Jonesville tickled to death seeminly. He’d found a family and engaged ’em—Jonathan Spinks’es folks. They was to Jonesville a stayin’ with Miss Spinks’es sister, Sam Thrasher’s wife, and they had heerd of Josiah’s huntin’ round; so they hailed him as he was a goin’ by, and engaged it, made the bargain right there on the spot. And as I said, he was tickled to death almost, and says to me in a highlarius axent:

“They are splendid folks, Samantha.”

Says I in very cold tones: “Are they the Spinkses that used to live to Zoar?”

“Yes,” says he. “And they are a beautiful family, and I have made a splendid bargain. 50 dollars a year for the house and garden. What do you think now? I never should have known they was a lookin’ for a house if I hadn’t been a enquirin’ round. What do you think now about my keepin’ cool?”

Says I mildly, but firmly: “My mind haint changed from what it wuz more formally.”

“Wall, what do you think now about my lettin’ the old house run down, when I can make 50 dollars a year, clear gain, besides more’n three times that in solid comfort a-neighberin’?”

Says I, firm as a rock, “My mind hain’t changed, Josiah Allen, so much as the width of a horsehair.”

“Wall,” says he, “I always said wimmen hadn’t no heads, I always knew it. But it is agravatin’, it is dumb agravatin’, when anybody has done the head-work I have done, and made such a bargain as I have made, to not have anybody’s wife appreciate it. And I should think it was about time to have supper, if you are goin’ to have any to-night.”

ARRIVAL OF THE SPINKSES.

I calmly rose and put on the teakettle, and never disputed a word with him whether I had a head or not. Good land! I knew I had one, and what was the use of arguin’ about it? And I didn’t say nothin’ more about his bargain, for I see it wouldn’t do no good. ’Twas all settled, and the writin’s drawed. But I kep’ up a severe thinkin’. I had heard of Spinks’es folks before. It had come right straight to me. Miss Ebenezer Gowdey, she that was Nabby Widrick, her nephew’s wive’s step-mother, old Miss Tooler, had lived neighber to ’em. And Miss Tooler told Nabby, and Nabby told me, that they was shiftless creeters. But when bargains are all made, it is of no use tryin’ to convince Josiahs. And I knew if I should tell Josiah what I had heard he’d only go to arguin’ agin that I hadn’t no head. So I didn’t say nothin’. And the next day they moved in. It seems they had brought all their things to Thrashers’es. They said the house they had been livin’ in to Zoar was so uncomfortable they couldn’t stay in it a day longer. But we heard afterwards—Miss Tooler told Nabby Gowdey with her own lips—that they was smoked out. The man that owned the house smoked ’em out to get rid of ’em.

Wall, as I said, they come. Mr. Spink, his wife, and his wife’s sister (she was Irish), and the childern. And oh! how neat Josiah Allen did feel. He was over there before they had hardly got sot down, and offered to do anything under the sun for ’em, and offered ’em everything we had in the house. I, myself, kep’ cool and collected together. Though I treated ’em in a liberal way, and in the course of two or three days I made ’em a friendly call, and acted well towards ’em.

But instead of runnin’ over there the next day, and two or three times a day, I made a practice of stayin’ to home considerable; and Josiah took me to do for it. But I told him I treated them exactly as I wanted them to treat me. Says I, “A mejum course is the best course to pursue in nearly every enterprise in life, neighberin’ especially. I begin as I can hold out. I lay out to be kind and friendly to ’em, but I don’t intend to make it my home with them, nor do I want them to make it their home with me. Once in two or three days is enough, and enough, Josiah Allen, is as good as a feast.”

“Wall,” says he, “if I ever enjoyed anything in this world I enjoy neighberin’ with them folks. And they think the world of me. It beats all how they worship me. The childern take to me so, they don’t want me out of their sight hardly a minute. Spink and his wife says they think it is in my looks. You know I am pretty lookin’, Samantha. They say the baby will cry after me so quick. It beats all what friends we have got to be, I and the Spinkses, and it is agravatin’, Samantha, to think you don’t seem to feel towards ’em that strong friendship that I feel.”

Says I, “Friendship, Josiah Allen, is a great word. True friendship is the most beautiful thing on earth; it is love without passion, tenderness without alloy. And,” says I, soarin’ up into the realm of allegory, where, on the feathery wings of pure eloquence, I fly frequent, “Intimacy hain’t friendship. Two men may sleep together, year after year, on the same feather-bed, and wake up in the mornin’, and shake hands with each other, perfect strangers, made so unbeknown to them. And feather-beds, nor pillers, nor nothin’ can’t bring ’em no nigher to each other. And they can keep it up from year to year, and lock arms and prominade together through the day, and not get a mite closer to each other. They can keep their bodies side by side, but their souls, who can tackle ’em together, unless nature tackled ’em, unbeknown to them? Nobody. And then, agin, two persons may meet, comin’ from each side of the world; and they will look right through each other’s eyes down into their souls, and see each other’s image there; born so, born friends, entirely unbeknown to them. Thousands of milds apart, and all the insperations of heaven and earth; all the influences of life, education, joy, and sorrow, has been fitting them for each other (unbeknown to them): twin souls, and they not knowin’ of it.”

YOKED BUT NOT MATED.

“Speakin’ of twin—” says Josiah.

But I was soarin’ too high to light down that minute. So I kep’ on, though his interruption was a-lowerin’ me down gradual.

“There is a great filisofical fact right here, Josiah Allen,” says I, tryin’ to bring down and fit the idee to my pardner’s comprehension, for it is ever my way to try to convince, as well as to soar in oritory. “You may yoke up the old mare and the brindle cow together and drive ’em year after year in a buggy. But you can’t make that horse into a cow, or make that old cow whinner. It can’t be done. And two wimmen may each of ’em have half a shear, and think they will screw ’em together and save property, and cut some with ’em. But if one of them halves is 2 or 3 inches shorter than the other, and narrower, how be they goin’ to cut with ’em? All the screws and wrenches in creation can’t do no more than hold ’em together. It hain’t no use if they wuzn’t made to fit each other in the first place, unbeknown to them.” Says I, “Some folks are j’ined together for life in jest that way, drawn together by some sort of influence, worldly considerations, blind fancy, thoughtlessness, and the minister’s words fasten ’em, jest as these shears was. But good land! after the vapory, dreamy time of the honeymoon is passed through, and the heavy, solid warp and woof of life lays before ’em for them to cut a path through it, they’ll find out whether they fit each other or not. And if they don’t, it is tejus business for ’em, extremely tejus, and they’ll find it out so.”—“Speakin’ of twin—” says Josiah.

JOSIAH NEIGHBORS.

His persistent and stiddy follerin’ up of his own train of thought, and the twin, was lowerin’ me down now awful fast, and says I, sort o’ concludin’ up, “Be good and kind to everybody, and Mr. Spinks’es folks, as you have opportunity; but before you make bosom friends of ’em, wait and see if your soul speaks.” Says I, firmly, “Mine don’t, in this case.”

“Speakin’ of twin,” says Josiah agin, “Did you ever see so beautiful a twin as Mr. Spinks’es twin is? What a pity they lost the mate to it! Their ma says it is perfectly wonderful the way that babe takes to me. I held it all the while she was ironin’, this forenoon. And the two boys foller me round all day, tight to my heels, instead of their father. Spink says they think I am the prettiest man they ever see, almost perfectly beautiful.”

I give Josiah Allen a look full in his face, a curious look, very searchin’ and peculiar. But before I had time to say anything, only jest that look, the door opened, and Spinks’es wive’s sister come in unexpected, and said that Miss Spink wanted to borrow the loan of ten pounds of side pork, a fine comb, some flour, the dish-kettle, and my tooth-brush.[tooth-brush.]

I let her have ’em all but the tooth-brush[tooth-brush], for I was determined to use ’em well. And Josiah didn’t like it at all because I didn’t let that go. And he said in a fault-findin’, complainin’ axent “that I didn’t seem to want to be sociable.”

And I told him that “I thought borrowin’ a tooth-brush was a little too sociable.”

And he most snapped my head off, and muttered about my not bein’ neighborly, and that I didn’t feel a mite about neighborin’ as he did. And I made a vow, then and there (inside of my mind), that I wouldn’t say a word to Josiah Allen on the subject, not if they borrowed us out of house and home. Thinkses I, I can stand it as long as he can; if they spile our things, he has got to pay for new ones; if they waste our property, he has got to lose it; if they spile our comfort, he’s got to stand it as well as I have; and, knowin’ the doggy obstinacy of his sect, I considered this great truth, and acted on it, that the stiller I kep’, and the less I said about ’em, the quicker he’d get sick of ’em; so I held firm. And never let on to Josiah but what it was solid comfort to me to have ’em there all the time a most; and not have a minute I could call my own; and have ’em borrow everything under the sun that ever was borrowed: garden-sass of all kinds, and the lookin’-glass, groceries, the old cat, vittles, cookin’ utensils, stove-pipe, a feather-bed, bolsters, bed-clothes, and the New Testament.

They even borrowed Josiah’s clothes. Why, Spink wore Josiah’s best pantaloons more than Josiah did. He got so he didn’t act as if he could stir out without Josiah’s best pantaloons. He’d keep a tellin’ that he was goin’ to get a new pair, but he didn’t get ’em, and would hang onto Josiah’s. And Josiah had to stay to home a number of times jest on that account. And then he’d borrow Josiah’s galluses. Josiah had got kinder run out of galluses, and hadn’t got but one pair of sound ones. And Josiah would have to pin his pantaloons onto his vest, and the pins would lose out, and it was all Josiah could do to keep his clothes on. It made it awful bad for him. I know one day, when I had a lot of company, I had to wink him out of the room a number of times, to fix himself so he would be decent. But all through it I kep’ still, and never said a word. I see we was loosin’ property fast, and had lost every mite of comfort we had enjoyed, for there was some of ’em there every minute of the time, a most, and some of the time two or three of ’em. Why, Miss Spink used to come over and eat breakfast with us lots of times. She’d say she felt so mauger that she couldn’t eat nothin’ to home, and she thought mebby my vittles would go to the place. And besides losin’ our property and comfort, I’ll be hanged if I didn’t think sometimes that I should lose my pardner by ’em, they worked him so. But I held firm. Thinkses I to myself, it must be that Josiah will get sick of neighborin’, after a while, and start ’em off. For the sufferin’s that man endured couldn’t never be told nor sung.

Why, before they had been there a month, as I told sister Bamber,—she was to our house a visitin’, and Josiah was in the buttery a churnin’, and I knew he wouldn’t hear,—says I: “They have borrowed everything I have got, unless it is Josiah.”

And if you’ll believe it, before I had got the words out of my mouth, Miss Spinks’es sister opened the door, and walked in, and asked me “if I could spare Mr. Allen to help stretch a carpet.”

And I whispered to sister Bamber, and says I: “If they haint borrowed the last thing now; if they haint borrowed Josiah.”

But I told the girl “to take him an’ welcome.” (I was very polite to ’em, and meant to be, but cool.)

BORROWIN’ JOSIAH.

So I took holt and done the churnin’ myself, and let him go. And he come home perfectly tuckered out. Wasn’t good for nothin’ hardly for several days. He got strained somehow a pullin’ on that carpet. But after that they would send for him real often to help do some job. They both took as much agin liberty with Josiah as they did with me; they worked him down almost to skin and bones. Besides all the rest he suffered. Why, his cow-sufferin’ alone was perfectly awful. They had a cow, a high-headed creeter; as haughty a actin’ cow as I ever see in my life. She would hold her head right up, and walk over our fence, and tramp through the garden. I didn’t know how Josiah felt about it, but I used to think myself that I could have stood it as well agin if it hadn’t been so high headed. It would look so sort o’ independent and overbearin’ at me, when it was a walkin’ through the fence, and tramplin’ through the garden. Josiah always laid out his beds in the garden with a chalk-line, as square and beautiful as the pyramids, and that cow jest leveled ’em to the ground. They tied her up nights, but she would get loose, and start right for our premises; seemed to take right to us, jest as the rest of ’em did. But I held firm, for I see that gettin’ up night after night, and goin’ out in the night air, chasin’ after that cow, was coolin’ off my companion’s affection for the Spinkses.

SPINKS’ES COW—A NIGHT SCENE.

And then they kept the awfulest sight of hens. I know Josiah was dretful tickled with the idee at first, and said, “mebby we could swap with ’em, get into their kind of hens.”

And I told him in a cautious way “that I shouldn’t wonder a mite if we did.”

OUR HEN-DAIRY.

Wall, them hens seemed to feel jest as the rest of the family did; didn’t seem to want to stay to home a minute, but flocked right over onto us; stayed right by us day and night; would hang round our doors and door-steps, and come into the house every chance they could get, daytimes; and nights, would roost right along on the door-yard fence, and the front porch, and the lilack bushes, and the pump. Why, the story got out that we was keepin’ a hen-dairy, and strangers who thought of goin’ into the business would stop and holler to Josiah, and ask him if he found it profitable to keep so many hens. And I’d see that man shakin’ his fist at ’em, after they would go on, he would be that mad at ’em. Somehow the idee of keepin’ a hen-dairy was always dretful obnoxious to Josiah, though it is perfectly honorable, as far as I can see.

Finally, he had made so much of ’em, the two boys got to thinkin’ so much of Josiah that they wanted to sleep with him, and he, thinkin’ it wouldn’t be neighborly to refuse, let ’em come every little while. And they kicked awfully. They kicked Josiah Allen till he was black and blue. It come tough on Josiah, but I didn’t say a word, only I merely told him “that of course he couldn’t expect me to sleep with the hull neighborhood,” so I went off, and slept in the settin’-room bedroom. It made me a sight of work, but I held firm.

At last Spink and his wife, and his wife’s sister, got into the habit of goin’ off nights to parties, and leavin’ the twin with Josiah. And though it almost broke my heart to see his sufferin’s, still, held up by principle, and the aim I had in view, I would go off and sleep in the settin’-room bedroom, and let Josiah tussle with it. Sometimes it would have the colic most all night, and the infantum, and the snuffles. But, though I could have wept when I heerd my pardner a groanin’ and a sithein’ in the dead of night, and a callin’ on heaven to witness that no other man ever had the sufferin’s he was a sufferin’, still, held up by my aim, I would lay still, and let it go on.

It wore on Josiah Allen. His health seemed to be a runnin’ down; his morals seemed to be loose and totterin’; he would snap me up every little while as if he would take my head off; and unbeknown to him I would hear him a jawin’ to himself, and a shakin’ his fist at nothin’ when he was alone, and actin’. But I kep’ cool, for though he didn’t come out and say a word to me about the Spinkses, still I felt a feelin’ that there would be a change. But I little thought the change was so near.

But one mornin’ to the breakfast-table, as I handed Josiah his fourth cup of coffee, he says to me, says he:

“Samantha, sposen we go to Brother Bamberses to-day, and spend the day. I feel,” says he, with a deep sithe, “I feel as if I needed a change.”

Says I, lookin’ pityingly on his pale and haggard face, “you do, Josiah,” and says I, “if I was in your place I would speak to Brother Bamber about the state of your morals.” Says I, in a tender yet firm tone, “I don’t want to scare you, Josiah, nor twit you, but your morals seem to be a totterin’; I am afraid you are a back-slidin’, Josiah Allen.”

He jumped right up out of his chair, and shook his fist over towards the Spinks’es house, and hollered out in a loud, awful tone:

“My morals would be all right if it wuzn’t for them dumb Spinkses, dumb ’em.”

You could have knocked me down with a pin-feather (as it were), I was that shocked and agitated; it had all come onto me so sudden, and his tone was so loud and shameful. But before I could say a word he went on, a shakin’ his fist vehementer and wilder than I ever see a fist shook:

“I guess you be neighbored with as I have been, and slept with by two wild-cats, and be kicked till you are black and blue, and mebby you’d back-slide!”

Says[Says] I: “Josiah Allen, if you don’t go to see Brother Bamber to-day, Brother Bamber shall come and see you. Did I ever expect to live,” says I, with a gloomy face, “to see my pardner rampagin’ round worse than any pirate that ever swum the seas, and shakin’ his fist, and actin’. I told you in the first on’t, Josiah Allen, to begin as you could hold out.”

“What if you did?” he yelled out. “Who thought we’d be borrowed out of house and home, and visited to death, and trampled over by cows, and roosted on; who s’posed they’d run me over with twin, and work me down to skin and bone, and foller me ’round tight to my heels all day, and sleep with me nights, and make dumb lunaticks of themselves? Dumb em!”

Says I in firm accents, “Josiah Allen, if you swear another swear to-day, I’ll part with you before Squire Baker.” Says I, “It betters it, don’t it, for you to start up and go to swearin’.”

Before Josiah could answer me a word, the door opened and in come Miss Spink’ses sister. They never none of ’em knocked, but dropped right down on us unexpected, like sun-strokes.

Says she, with a sort of a haughty, independent mean onto her (some like their cow’s mean), and directin’ her conversation to Josiah:

“Mr. Spink is goin’ to have his likeness took, to-day, and he would be glad to borrow the loan of your pantaloons and galluses. And he said if you didn’t want your pantaloons to go without your boots went with ’em, he guessed he’d wear your boots, as his had been heel-tapped and might show. And the two boys bein’ so took up with you, Mr. Allen, their Ma thought she’d let ’em come over here and sleep with you while they was gone; they didn’t know but they might stay several days to her folks’es, as they had heard of a number of parties that was goin’ to be held in that neighborhood. And knowin’ you hadn’t no little childern of your own, she thought it might be agreeable to you to keep the twin, while they was gone—and—and—”

She hadn’t got through with her speech, and I don’t know what she would have tackled us for next. But the door opened without no warnin’, and in come Miss Spink herself, and she said that “Spink had been urgin’ her to be took, too, and they kinder wanted to be took holt of hands, and they thought if Josiah and me had some kid gloves by us, they would borrow the loan of ’em; they thought it would give ’em a more genteel, aristocratic look. And as for the childern,” says she, “we shall go off feelin’ jest as safe and happy about ’em as if they was with us, they love dear Mr. Allen so.” And says she with a sweet smile, “I have lived on more places than I can think of hardly—we never have lived but a little while in a place, somehow the climates didn’t agree with us long at a time. But never, in all the places we have lived in, have we ever had such neighbors, never, never did we take such solid comfort a-neighborin’, as we do here.”

Josiah jumped right upon his feet, and shook his fist at her, and says he, in a more skareful tone than he had used as yet:

“You have got to stop it. If you don’t stop neighberin’ with me, I’ll know the reason why.”

Miss Spink looked skairt, and agitated awful, but I laid hands on him, and says I, “Be calm, Josiah Allen, and compose yourself down.”

“I won’t be calm!” says he; “I won’t be composed down.”

Says I, firmly, still a-keepin’ between him and her, and still a-layin’ holt of him, “You must, Josiah!”

“I tell you I won’t, Samantha! I’ll let you know,” says he, a-shakin’ his fist at her powerful, “I’ll let you know that you have run me over with twin for the last time; I’ll let you know that I have been trampled over, and eat up by cows, and roosted on, and slept with for the last time,” says he, shakin’ both fists at at her. “You have neighbored your last neighbor with me, and I’ll let you know you have.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, I tell you to compose yourself down.”

“And I tell you again, Samantha, that I won’t!”

But I could see that his voice was sort ’o lowerin’ down, and I knew the worst was over. I spoke sort ’o soothin’ly to him, and told him, in tender axents, that he shouldn’t be neighbored with another mite; and finally, I got him quieted down. But he looked bad in the face, and his sithes was fearful.

My feelin’s for that man give me strength to give Miss Spink a piece of my mind. My talk was calm, but to the purpose, and very smart. It was a very little on the allegory way. I told her jest how I felt about mejum courses; how sweet and happyfyin’ it was to pursue ’em.

Says I, “Fire is first-rate, dretful comfortin’ for warmin’ and cookin’ purposes; too much fire is bad, and leads to conflagrations, martyrs, and etcetery. Water is good; too much leads to drowndin’, dropsy, and-so-forth. Neighborin’ is good, first-rate, if follered mejumly. Too much neighborin’ leads to weariness, anarky, kicks, black and blue pardners, and almost delerious Josiahs.”

As quick as I mentioned the word kick, I see a change in Josiah’s face; he begun to shake his fist, and act; I see he was a-growin’ wild agin; Miss Spink see it too, and she and her sister fled.

That very afternoon Josiah went to Jonesville and served some papers onto ’em. They hadn’t made no bargain, for any certain time, so by losin’ all his rent, he got rid of ’em before the next afternoon. And says he to me that night, as he sot by the fire rubbin’ some linement onto his legs where he had been kicked, says he to me:

“Samantha, if any human bein’ ever comes to rent that house of me, I’ll shoot ’em down, jest as I would a mushrat.”

JOSIAH’S VOW.

I knew he had lost over two hundred dollars by ’em, and been kicked so lame that he couldn’t stand on his feet hardly. I knew that man had been neighbored almost into his grave, but I couldn’t set by calmly and hear him talk no such wickedness, and so says I:

“Josiah Allen, can’t you ever learn to take a mejum course? You needn’t go round huntin’ up renters, or murder ’em if they come nigh you.” Says I, “You must learn to be more moderate and mejum.”

But he kep’ right on, a-pourin’ out the linement on his hand, and rubbin’ it onto his legs, and stuck to it to the last. Says he, “I’d shoot him down, jest as I would a mushrat; and there hain’t a law in the land but what would bear me out in it.”

MORALIZIN’ AND EPISODIN’.

Anybody would have thought that this episode (Spink episode) would have sickened Josiah Allen of launchin’ out into any more headwork, and tryin’ to made money on a speck. But if you’ll believe it, Jonathan Spink’ses folks hadn’t been gone three weeks—for Kitty come back the day after Spink’ses folks left, and she only stayed with us two weeks that time, havin’ promised to stay a spell to Thomas Jefferson’s, and it was only a few days after she went—and then I knew by Josiah’s legs—the black-and-blue spots hadn’t begun to wear off; they had just begun to turn yaller—and then I knew by my head-dress, too—when that man come home from Jonesville one night, cross as a bear.

I said I knew by my new head-dress. I well remember I had wore it that afternoon for the first time, some expectin’ very genteel company, and wantin’ to look well. But the company didn’t come, and Kellup Cobb did. He come to bring home a cent he had borrowed the night before at the missionary meetin’ to send for his annual gift to the heathens. And he noticed my new cap in a minute. He looked witherin’ and overbearin’ at it, and in a sort of a back-handed, underground way, that I can’t bear, nor never could, he begun to throw hints at me about it. About married women and members of meetin’-housen spendin’ their money in such extravagance, when they might spend it in spreadin’ the Gospel in benighted lands—and about how awful wicked it was to be so dressy—and et cetery, et cetery.

My cap wuz middlin’-foamin’ lookin’. I couldn’t deny it, and didn’t try to. It wuzn’t what you might call over and above dressy, but it was handsome, and very nice. The ribbin on it cost me 18 pence per yard, and the cap contained two yards and a half; it was very nice. But none too good for me, my Josiah said.

He is what you may call a close man at a bargain. (Tight, would perhaps be a better word to express his situation.) But he loves dearly to see me look beautiful. And he is very gay in his tastes; red is his favorite color, and the more fiery shades of yellow; he would be glad to see me dressed in these tints all the time. But I don’t encourage him in the idee. Not that I think one color is wickeder than another, but they don’t seem to be becomin’ to my style and age.

Now this new head dress, I had picked it out and selected it with my pardner by my side, and he whispered to me loud, as I was a-selectin’ of it: “If you have got to have a new cap, Samantha, for mercy’s sake get a red one.”

But I whispered to him that I should look like a fool with a red cap on, and to keep still.

THE NEW HEAD-DRESS.

And then he whispered agin, in a more anxious tone: “Wall then, for pity’s sake do get yeller, or sunthin’ that has got a little color to it. Black! black! the whole of the time; you look jest like a mourner.”

I had a black one on my hand at that time, admirin’ of it, and most settled on it. But Josiah’s mean was such as I was a-settlin’, that I, as a devoted pardner, and a woman of principle, compromised the matter with Josiah and Duty, by purchasin’ one trimmed with a sort of a pinky, lilock color. It was very becomin’ to me. But I won’t deny, as a woman who is bred to tellin’ the truth, and not gin to deceit and coverin’ up,—I won’t deny that the first time I tried that head-dress on after I got home, I had my curious feelin’s. I thought mebby it was wrong for me to buy such costly ribbin, and so much of it. And then I worried about the color, too. Thinkses I, mebby it is too young for me; too young for a woman who owns a bald-headed pardner and a grandchild, and who has but few teeth left in her head.

My conscience is a perfect old tyrent, and jest drives me round more’n half the time. I am willin’ to be drove by her as fur as I ort to be. But sometimes, I declare for’t, I get so tuckered out with her drivin’s, that I get fairly puzzled, and wonderin’ whether she knows herself all the time jest what she is about; whether she is certain that she is always a drivin’ me in the right road; and how fur I ort to be drove by her, and when, and where to; and whether I ort to let my intellect and common sense lay holt and help her drive. As I say, she run me considerable of a run on this head-dress. I had a awful time of it, and won’t deny it, and I was on the very pint several times of carryin’ it back. But when Kellup come right out, and gin such powerful hints about it; about extravagance, and wickedness, and vanity; and about married wimmen settin’ sinful patterns to them outside of meetin’-housen, and that it didn’t look likely, and et cetery, et cetery, and so forth.

APPLE BLOSSOMS.

Why, as he went on a hintin’ so powerful strong, and givin’ such burnin’ glances onto that head-dress, why, I sort o’ sprunted up, and begun to see things on the other side plainer than I had seen ’em.

Then says I, as the eyes of my specks rested upon the apple-boughs that filled the north kitchen winder with a glow of rosiness and sweetness:

“The Lord don’t seem to think as you do, Kellup. Jest see how He has dressed up that old apple-tree.” Says I: “No fashionable belle in New York or Paris village can ever hope to wear garments so daintily fine and sweet. No queen nor empress ever wore or ever will wear for their coronation robes such splendid and gorgeous raiment as the common spring suit of that old apple-tree.”

HOW IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

Says Kellup, holdin’ his head well up in the air, and drawin’ his lips down with a very self-righteous drawin’, that I knew meant head-dress, though he didn’t come right out and say it:

“I despise and detest the foolishness of display. There is more important and serious business on earth than dressin’ up to look nice.”

“That is so,” says I, “that is jest as true as you live. Now that old apple tree’s stiddy business and theme is to make sweet, juicy apples; but at the same time that don’t hender her from dressin’ up, and lookin’ well. The Lord might have made the apples grow in rows right round the trunk from top to bottom, with no ‘foolishness of display’ of the rosy coloring and perfume—but He didn’t. He chose in His wisdom, which it is not for you or me to doubt, to make it a glory and a delight to every beholder. So beautiful that the birds sail and sing with very joy in and out of the sweet branches, and the happy bees hum delightedly about the honey-laden cells, and she whose name was once Smith, has been made happy as a queen all day long, by jest lookin’ out of that window down into the fragrant, rosy depths of sweetness and light.”

“Wall,” says Kellup, lookin’ keen at my head-dress, “I don’t consider it likely, anyway, to spend so much time a dressin’ up—it is a shiftless waste of time, anyway.”

“Why,” says I; for the more he scolded me, the plainer I see the other side of things. So curious are human bein’s constituted and sot.

HARD AT IT.

“Nater has always been considered likely—I never heard a word against her character, and she is stiddy minded, too, and hard workin’. She works hard, Nater does. She works almost beyond her strength sometimes. She has sights of work on her hands all the hull time, and she has a remarkable knack of turnin’ off tremendous day’s works. And I never in my hull life heard her called shiftless or slack. But what a case she is to orniment herself off; to rag out and show herself in so many different colors. And if she feels better to be dressed up and fixed off kinder pretty while she’s to work, I don’t know whose business it is. I never was no case myself to dress up in white book muslin, or pink silk, or bobonet lace, or anything of that kind, when I was a doin’ hard jobs, such as makin’ soap, and runnin’ candles, and cleanin’ house, and etcetery. And when I have got to be out in the rain when it is all drabbly and muddy, why I jest wrap up and look like fury. But she don’t. No! I have known her time and agin to tie the most gorgeous and shinin’ rainbow round her old waist and jest lay herself out to look foamin’ and dressy, right there in the rain.

“It beats all how she does fix herself up. But it don’t hurt my feelin’s at all. I never was a mite jealous of other females lookin’ better than I did. The better they look, the better I enjoy lookin’ at ’em. And if Nater can dress up better and look better while she is a doin’ her spring work and all her other hard jobs than I can, good land! how simple it would be in me to blame her. There is where I use such cast-iron reason. You don’t ketch me a blamin’ other folks for their little personal ways and habits that don’t do nobody no hurt. She is well off, Nater is, and able to do as she is a mind to; she has got plenty to do with; she don’t have to scrimp herself to buy flowers, and tossels, and rainbows. If she did, I shouldn’t approve of it in her, not at all. I despise folks goin’ beyond their means to look pretty. I think it is wicked, and the height of dretfulness. But if them that are abundantly able and willin’ want to look nice, I say, let ’em look.”

And I cast a conscious and sort of a modest glance up into the lookin’-glass that hung over the table. I could jest ketch a glimpse of my head-dress, and I see that its strings floated out noble, and I see at the same glance that he was still lookin’ witherin’ at it. But I didn’t care a mite for it. I was jest filled with my subject (that side of it, for every subject has got more’n a dozen sides to it), and the more he cast them witherin’ looks onto me the more I wuzn’t withered—but soared up in mind, and grew eloquent.

And I went on fearfully eloquent about Nater, and the way she fixed herself up perfectly beautiful—right when she was a workin’ the hardest.

“Why,” says I, “when she goes way down into the depths of the under world to make iron, and coal, and salt, and things that has got to be made, and she has got to make ’em—why, she can’t be contented way down there in the dark, all alone by herself, without deckin’ herself off with diamonds, and all sorts of precious gems, and holdin’ up wreaths of shinin’ crystal, enameled fern fronds, and hangin’ clusters snowy white, and those shinin’ with every dazzlin’ hue.

“And way down on the ocean floor, fifteen miles or so down below, where she would naturally expect nobody would come a visatin’—why, way down there, where she must know that there hain’t no company liable to drop in on her onexpected, yet every minute of the time she is all ornimented off with pearls, and opal-tinted shells, daintest green and crimson seagrass, gem-like purple astreas, wonderful pink and white coral wreaths—all strange and lovely blossoms of the sea.

“What tongue can tell the wonders of the beauty she arrays herself with way down there in the dark alone. How every little bud of beauty is wreathed around with other marvels of loveliness—how all about one tiny little bit of a blossom will be twined other wonderful little flowerin’ vines, starred with crystal bells.

“No tongue can ever describe it—not mine, certainly, for I say but little myself, and that little is far too small to express these wonders of beauty.

NATURE’S OCEAN BOUDOIR.

“And then right round here, when she is to work right here in our fields, doin’ her common run of hard work—such as makin’ wheat, and oats, and other grain. No matter how hot the weather is, or muggy; no matter whether she is behindhand with her work, and in a awful hurry—she always finds time to scatter along in the orderly ranks of the grain, wild red poppies and blue-eyed asters. And I never in my life, and Josiah never did, see her ever make a solid ear of corn without she hung on top of it a long silk tossel. And I don’t believe she ever made a ton of hay in the world, if she had her own way about it, but what she made it perfectly gay with white daisies and butter-cups.

NATURE’S WORK.

“And all the gardens of the world she glorifies, and all the roads, and hedges, and lanes, and by-ways. No matter how long and crooked they are, or how tejus, she scatters blossoms of brightness and beauty over them all.

“And clear up on the highest mountains, under the shadow of the everlastin’ snows, she will stop to lay a cluster of sweet mountain anemones and Alpine roses on the old bosom—for she is a gettin’ considerable along in years, Nater is. Not that I say it in a runnin’ way at all, or spiteful, or mean. But I s’pose she is older than we have any idee of—as old agin as folks call her. But she acts young, and looks so. She holds her age remarkable, as has been often remarked about a person whose name was once Smith.

“Why, she acts fairly frisky and girlish sometimes. Way down in the lowest valleys, down by the most hidden brook-side, she will sit down to weave together the most lovely and coquetish bunches of fern and grasses, and scarlet and golden wild flowers, and deck herself up in ’em like a bride of 16. You never ketched her runnin’ in debt for a lot of stuff though—her principles are too firm. But she goes on makin’ beauty and gladness wherever she goes, and lookin’ handsome, and if it had been wicked the Lord wouldn’t have let her go on in it. He could have stopped her in a minute if He had wanted to. She does jest as He tells her to, and always did.

“And,” says I, with considerable of a stern look onto Kellup, “if Nater—if she who understands the unwritten language of God, that we can’t speak yet—if she, whose ways seem to us to be a revelation of that will of the Most High—if she can go on wreathing herself in beauty, I don’t think we should be afraid of gettin’ holt of all we can of it—of all lovely things. And I don’t think,” says I, givin’ a sort of a careless glance up into the lookin’-glass, “that there should be such a fuss made by the world at large about my head-dress.”

“But,” says Kellup, a groanin’ loud and violent, “it is the wickedness of it I look at. To follow the vile example of the rich. And oh! how wicked rich folks be. How hard-hearted, how unprincipled, and vile.” And agin he groaned, deep.

Says I, “Don’t groan so, Kellup,” for it was truly skairful to hear him.

Says he, “I will groan!” Says he, “The carryin’s on and extravagance of the rich is enough to make a dog groan.”

I see I couldn’t stop his groanin’, but I went on a talkin’ reasonable, in hopes I could quell him down.

Says I, “There is two sides to most everything, Kellup, and some have lots of sides. That is what makes the world such a confusin’ place to live in. If things and idees didn’t have but one side to ’em, we could grab holt of that side, hold it close, and be at rest.

“But they do. And you must look on both sides of things before you make a move. You mustn’t confine yourself to lookin’ on jest one side of a subject, for it hain’t reasonable.”

“I won’t try to look on both sides,” says he with a bitter look. “That is what makes folks onsettled and onstabled in their views, and liberal. But I won’t. I am firm and decided. I am satisfied to look on one side of a subject—on the good old orthodox side. You won’t ketch me a whifflin’ round and lookin’ on every side of a idee.”

“Wall,” says I, calmly, for to convince, and not to anger, is ever my theme and purpose. And knowin’ that to the multitude truth is most often palatable if presented in a parabolical form, and has been for centuries often imbibed by them in that way, entirely unbeknown to them. And knowin’ that the little scenes of daily life are as good to wrap round morals and cause ’em to be swallowed down unbeknowin’, as peach preserves are to roll round pills, I went on and says:

“If you won’t look on only one side of a subject, Kellup, you may find yourself in as curious a place as Melvin Case was last fall. His wife told it herself to Miss Gansey, and Miss Gansey told the editor of the Augurs’es wife, and the editor of the Augurs’es wife told Miss Mooney, and she told the woman’s first husband’s mother-in-law that told me. It come straight.

“It was a very curious situation, and the way on’t was: Melvin Case, as you know, married Clarinda Piller of Piller P’int, down on the Lake Shore road. Wall, they had been married 23 years and never had no childern, and last fall they had a nice little boy. He was a welcome child, and weighed over 9 pounds.

“Wall, Malvin thought the world of his wife, and bein’ very tickled about the boy, and feelin’ very affectionate towards his wife at the time, he proposed at once that they should call him after her maiden name—Piller. Of course she give her willin’ consent, and they was both highly tickled. But you see, bein’ blinded by affection and happiness, they didn’t look on only one side of the idee, and they never studied on how the two names was a goin’ to look when they was put together, till after he had wrote it down in the Bible; and then he paused, with his pen in his hand, and looked up perfectly horrified at his wife, who was holdin’ the baby in her arms and lookin’ over his shoulder, and she looked perfectly dumbfoundered at him, for they see it looked awful—Piller Case.

BABY PILLER CASE.

“Now you are lookin’ at one side of the subject, but there is another side to it, Kellup,—there is as sure as you live and breathe.

“God knows too much cannot be said or sung about the duty the rich owe to the poor. They cannot study too correctly, and follow too closely the pattern that He, the loving Elder Brother, set them. He who was so tender in His compassion; so helpful and thoughtful to the claims of the poor and humble. But charity is a big word, and it has more than one side to it. It means charity to the poor, under whose lowly roofs He once entered, a child of the poor, and so consecrated them honorable for all time. Those who were His closest friends through His toilsome earthly life; those whom He loved first, and loved last; cared for even in that supreme moment of His most triumphant and glorious ignominy. Shall not His followers forever love and bless those He hallowed by His tender care in such a moment? Yes, charity to the poor first. But we mustn’t stop there, Kellup. We may want to set right down in front of that side of the word, and stay there. But we mustn’t. If we want to view this heavenly word on every side we must walk round on the other side of it, and see that it means, too, charity to the rich. A higher, subtler quality of charity it calls for in us than the other.

“For I can tell you, Kellup, some folks say it is a tough job for one to keep a sweet, charitable, loving spirit towards them that are richer, more successful, and happier than they be. Hard for ’em to rejoice over the good fortune of the great. Hard for ’em to keep from judgin’ them severely—from feelin’ envious over the good fortune they cannot share.

FEELIN’ CHRISTIAN.

“We are exhorted to feel sorry for the man who falls down and breaks his leg. We are exhorted to feel christian toward that humble man. But though there hain’t much said on the other side of the subject, I think it is enough sight harder to feel christian towards that man when we are a layin’ flat on the ice, or slippery sidewalk, and he is a standin’ up straight.

“It is easy to deceive ourselves; easy to give very big, noble names to very small emotions. And if we feel uncomfortable to see some one else who has always stood on the same level with ourselves suddenly lifted above us,—no matter how worthily he may have earned that more exalted station,—we may call that uncomfortable feelin’ any name we please. We may call it a holy horror of worldly-mindedness—a hauntin’ fear lest he be jeopardizin’ his immortal soul, by settin’ up on that loftier spear. And mebby it is. I hain’t a goin’ to come right out and say that it hain’t. But I will say this, for there hain’t no harm in it, and it can’t make no trouble. I will say that if we feel this uncomfortable feelin’ we ort to keep a close watch of our symptoms. For though that gripin’ pain in the left side may be a religious pain, yet there is a possibility that it may be envy. And if it is, it requires fur different treatment. And it may be a self-righteous, Pharasaical feelin’ that our Lord seemed to hate worst of any feelin’ we could feel.

“I tell you it requires the very closest dognosing (to use a high learnt medical phrase) to get the symptoms exactly right, and see exactly what aches we are a achin’. For the heart that we imagine is a gripin’ and a achin’ at sinful worldly-mindedness, may be a achin’ with the consumin’ fever of spite, and envy and revenge,—the heart-burnin’ desire and determination to bring the loftier and the nobler down in some way on a level with ourselves, if not by fair means, with the foul ones of malice and slander and lies.

“I don’t say it is so; but I say, let us be careful, and let us be charitable to all,—the rich and the poor,—for charity, Kellup, like the new linen ulsters, covers a multitude of sinners.

“Now,” says I, metaforin’ a little, as I might have known I should before I got through, “now if I was a woman, and should say that to wear diamonds was wicked, or to live in a beautiful home full of books and pictures, and all the means of ease and culture was an abomination to me, and wicked, when I was hankerin’ in the very depths of my soul to be wicked in jest that way, if I only had the wherewith to be wicked with, why, that holy horror I professed would be vain in me; empty as soundin’ brass and tinglin’ symbols. Let us be honest and true first, and then put on more ornamental christianity afterwards; there hain’t no danger of our gettin’ any too much of it, that is, of the right kind. Envy and hypocracy and cant look worse to me than diamonds; and I would wear the diamonds as quick agin—if I got the chance.”

Kellup didn’t look a mite convinced. But I kep’ right on, for though I am a woman that says but little, yet when I begin to convince anybody I always want to finish up the job in a handsome, thorough way, and then I felt real eloquent; and I tell you it is hard, even for a close-mouthed woman, it is hard for ’em when they feel as eloquent as I did then to keep from swingin’ right out and talkin’, and I didn’t try to stop myself; I kep’ right on, and says I:

“It is a mistake in you and in me if we think that every rich person is necessarily a hard-hearted one; if we think a tender heart cannot beat jest as warmly and truly aginst a ermine robe, as a shabby overcoat; aginst a rich boddist waist, as a calico bask. There are little, stingy, narrow, contracted souls in every station-house of life, high ones and low ones; and there are loving, generous ones, visey versey, and the same. And God bless those tender hearts where-ever they are; those who in lofty places organize the great charities whose benefactions bless the nations in famine, in war, and in the calamity of national sickness and distress. And Heaven bless the lowly toilers of life, whose humble gifts out of their scanty means are in God’s sight equally as great.

“The little blue potato-blossom laid upon the pillow of the sick by the child of poverty—we think the perfume of that little odorless flower will rise to Heaven as sweet as the most royal blossom given by the children of kings. The blossoms of true charity are all sweet in Heaven’s sight.”

“BLESSINGS ON THEM ALL!”

And says I, lookin’ up to the ceilin’ in a almost rapped eloquence of mean, and a lofty fervency and earnestness of axent:

“Heaven bless all the generous, loving hearts that beat under any and every colored robe; under the shabby garb of poverty; the somber hue of some consecrated sisterhood of compassion; under the quaint Quaker garb, or the bright silks of the Widder Albert’s generous daughters; those who conscientiously wear sober clothing, and those who jest as innocently wear brighter apparel. Heaven bless them all; the gray-robed sisterhood of Mercy, God’s dove-colored angels, who lean over the beds of the sick and the sorrowing, and whose shadows falling by the beds of pain the sad-eyed soldiers kiss; Catholic or Protestant, whatever their creed, they have the divinest gift of the three—the divine gift of Charity. God made them all—the rose and the gray; the blue sky, the rainbow, and the soft shadow of the twilight clouds. He made the earth for His beloved; nothing is too good for them, or too beautiful. And why should one color boast over another, as being purer-minded, and less wicked?”

A HEAVENLY MESSENGER.

I had been very eloquent, and felt considerable eloquent still, but happenin’ to let the eye of my speck fall for a minute on Kellup, I see by the awful unbelievin’ look on his face that I had got to simplify it down to his comprehension. I see that he did not understand my soarin’ ideas as I would wish ’em to be understood.

Not that I blamed him for it. Good land! a tow string hain’t to blame for not bein’ made a iron spike. But at the same time it is bad and wearisome business for the one who attempts to use that tow string for a spike—tries to drive it into the solid wall of argument and clinch a fact with it. I had said a good deal about beauty, but it seemed[seemed] as if I wanted to say sunthin’ more, and I went on and said it:

“Some folks seem to be afraid of beauty; as ’fraid of it as if it was a bear. They seem to be more afraid of lettin’ a little beauty into their lives than they be of lettin’ the same amount of wickedness in. You would think a man was awful simple who would spend his hull strength in puttin’ up coverin’s to his windows to keep out the sunshine and fresh air, and not pay any attention to the obnoxious creeters, wild-cats, burglars, and etcetery that was comin’ right into the open front-door. And it hain’t a mite more simple than it is for them, for they take so much pains a puttin’ up iron bars (as it were) across the windows of their souls to keep beauty and brightness and innocent recreation out of it, that they have no time to see how uncharitableness and envy and malice and hatred and a hull regiment of just such ugly creeters are troopin’ right into the front-door unbeknown to them.

“They seem to take a pride in despisin’ beauty, as if it was a merit in them to look down upon, and feel hauty and contemptuous toward the divinest and loveliest thing God ever made. I don’t feel so, Kellup. I don’t think it is wicked for me to lay holt of all the beauty and happiness that I can, consistently with my duty to humanity and Josiah.

“There are some things that must be done first of all. We must hold the spear firm and upright. We must carry our principles stiddy and firm. But we have a perfect right and privilege to wreath that spear and them principles with all the blossoms of brightness and innocent happiness we can possibly lay holt of. Them is my opinions. Howsomever, everybody to their own mind.”

“Beauty the divinest thing God ever made!” says Kellup in a hauty, ironical tone. “How dare you be so wicked, Josiah Allen’s wife? I call it awful wicked to talk so.”

Says I, “I don’t believe anything is wicked that lifts us right up nearer to Heaven. I don’t mean to be wicked.”

“Wall, you be,” says he, speakin’ up sharp. “Worshipin’ beauty, worshipin’ the creature instead of the creator.”

Says I, “Can you tell me, Kellup, what that spirit of beauty is, that you are so sot aginst?” Says I, feelin’ more and more eloquent as I dove further and further into the depths of the subject than I had doven—and the more I went on about it the more carried away I wuz and lost, till before I had gone on 2 minutes I was entirely by the side of myself, and carried completely out of Kellup Cobb’s presence, out of Josiah Allen’s kitchen, out into the mighty waste of mystery that floats all round Jonesville and the world:

“What is this spirit of beauty—there is something, some hidden spirit, some soul of inspiration, in all beautiful things, pictures, poetry, melody—a spirit that forever eludes us, flies before us, and yet smiles down into our souls forever with haunting, glorious eyes. What is this wonderful spirit, this insperation that thrills us so in all sweetest and saddest melodies, in lovely landscapes, in the soft song of the summer wind, and the mournful refrain of ocean waves, in sunset, and the weird stillness of a starry midnight? That thrills us so in all glorified legends of heroism—and in that divinest poem of a noble life.—That haunts us, and so fills our souls with longing that sometimes we imagine we can catch a glimpse of it in the clear look of some inspired eye; but almost e’er we behold it, it is gone. Some fleetin’ echo of whose voice we fancy we have caught in the lofty refrain of some heavenly melody—but, e’er our soul could hardly listen, the sweet strain was drowned in the discord of human voices. Ah! sometimes the veil has seemed but thin between us, as we stood for brief, blissful moments on the mountain tops of our best and noblest emotions, so transparent, and glowing with inner brightness, that we could almost behold the face of an angel behind the shining barriers. But the mists swept coldly up, and the sweet face was lost in the cloudy, earthly vapors.

“If we could reach it, if we could once reach out our longing arms, and touch that wonderful, illusive soul of beauty, if we could hold it with our weak, mortal grasp, and look upon it face to face—can you tell me, Kellup, what it would be? Can you tell me how pure, and holy, and divine a shape it would be? The Ideal of Beauty that forever rises before us—this longing for perfection implanted in our souls? We cannot believe by bad spirits, but by the Ever Good. This ideal that every poet and artist soul has longed for, prayed for, but never reached—this ideal of purity which we strive to mould in clay; poor, crumblin’, imperfect clay, that will not, however earnestly we toil, take the clear shape of our dreams. Can you tell me, Kellup, that it is not the longing of the mortal for the immortal, the deathless cry of the human for the divine?

“To me, it is the surest proof of immortality. For we know that our God is not cruel, and we cannot think He would hold out to us a lovely gift only to mock us with glimpses of its glory, and then withdraw it from us forever.

“And this ideal of perfection that we have so striven and prayed to realize—perhaps these longings and strivings are perfecting that image in our lives, unbeknown to us; and when the clay that wraps it round drops off, shall we behold it in glad wonder in the land of the King? Shall we see that the dull stroke of care and the keen blow of suffering helped most to mould it into beauty? Surely, surely, He will one day give the desire of our souls. Surely there is a land of immortal purity, immortal beauty, where to the souls of all who truly aspire the dim shadow light of our hope will be lost in the bright glory of fulfillment.”

Says Kellup, castin’ the witherin’est look onto my head-dress that he had cast onto it, and clingin’ close to his old idee, as close as a idee ever was clung to, says he, comin’ out plain:

“That head-dress is a shame, and a disgrace. You wouldn’t ketch me in no such extravagance. The money had better have been took and distributed round amongst the poorer classes in the country.”

I don’t s’pose I ort to, and I don’t know exactly how it happened that I did, but I won’t deny it, that comin’ down so awful sudden off of the height of eloquence I had been a soarin’ on, bein’ brought down so awful short and sort o’ onexpected, it did, and I won’t deny it, it did, for as much as a minute and a half, make me mad. It sort o’ jarred me all over, and I spoke up sharp, and says I:

“There are exceptions to every ruler, as scholars have always said. But as a general thing, the people who deny themselves all the beauty and brightness of life, are the very ones who deny it to others. Those who talk the most about others’ extravagance, and what great things they would do if they was in other folks’es places, are the very ones who, if they wuz there, wouldn’t do nothin’. It is the tight ones of earth who talk the most about looseness: how awful loose they would be under certain circumstances. But I believe, and Josiah duz, that they wouldn’t under the very loosest circumstances ever be loose, but would always be tight. And them who says the least often does the most. Them who scold the least about other folks’es duty, often do their own duty the best. Curious. But so it is.

“And those who love to put beauty into their own lives, are often the ones who love to bless other lives—are the ones whose hearts ache at the pleading of a sorrowful eye—whose hearts thrill clear to their center at the voice of a hungry child.

“And if the heart is thrilled in the right way, that thrill always trembles right down into the portmoney, and trembles it open, and jars the money right out of it. The money that will make that hungry cry change into a thankful one, and that wistful look change into a rejoicin’ one.

“Why,” says I in a earnest, lofty tone, wantin’ to convince him, “look at that female I have been a talkin’ about; look at Nater. See what she duz. You have had to give up that no other female ever loved the beautiful as she duz. And you have got to give up that no other female was ever so great-hearted, so compassionate and generous.”

And havin’ by this time got all over my little temporary madness, I went on agin about her, beautiful. Somehow I always do talk eloquent about Nater. I guess it is because I think so much of her.

Says I: “No tenderer care does she give to the monarch on his throne than she gives to the little bare-foot peasant child, or the little foolish sparrer. She takes no greater thought to guide the great ship freighted with noble lives, and help her plow her way through the billows, than she takes to guide the way of the sea-bird over the wild waters, or the flight of the frightened northern birds fleeing southward through the trackless sky before the snows.

“Good to all, generous, helpful to all, patient to all. And at the last she just opens her loving arms and gives rest to all, simple and gentle, serf and monarch; to the prosperous and happy, and to all the heavy-hearted, all the broken-hearted, all the worn, the defeated, the despairin’ souls; the saint and the sinner alike, without rebuking or questioning; she jest reaches out her arms to them all, and gives them rest.”

Says Kellup: “I guess I’ll go out and look at Josiah’s new stun-bolt. I don’t know but what I shall want to borry it bimeby to draw some stuns.”

And he started off—and I was glad he did.

JOSIAH UNDERTAKES MORE BUSINESS.

Wall that was the very night, as I said, that Josiah Allen come home so awful cross. And what under the sun ailed him I could not imagine. He had been clever when he left home,—very; he had had a extra good breakfast, and he was the picture of happiness; and his morals seemed stiddy and firm. And comin’ off so sudden onto such fearful fractiousness, it worried me.

But little did I think he was plannin’ more head-work. If I had I should have worried fur more. But he wuz. Old Ben Mandagool, a friend of Josiah’s, was takin’ in boarders, and makin’ money by ’em. And that very day (unbeknown to me) he had throwed them boarders, six of ’em, into Josiah’s face, and the pile of money he had made by ’em, and twitted him that if it wasn’t for his wife he could make jest as much. Old Mandagool knew well how I felt about takin’ in boarders; he knew I was principled against it, and sot. Mandagool misuses his wife shamefully; makes a perfect underlin’ of her; works her down to skin and bone; they don’t live happy together at all. And he seems to be envious of anybody that does live agreeable with their pardner, and loves to break it up. And so it went on for a number of days; he a twittin’ Josiah how if it wuzn’t for his wife he could have his way, and make money, (and Josiah loves to have his own way dearly,) and throwin’ them half a dozen boarders into his face, and it hain’t no wonder that Josiah felt hurt. And it hain’t no wonder, constituted as men be, that he was exceedingly cross to me. But knowin’ how cast-iron my mind was when it was made up, he never let on what ailed him. And I was skairt most to death to see him look so mauger, and act so restless and oneasy, and crosser’n any bear out of a circus.

How strange and mysterious things be in this world. Lots and lots of things we can see the effects of,—powerful effects,—but can’t ketch a glimpse of the causes. I could see the crossness, and bear it; but what the cause of it was, was concealed from me by a impenetrable vail. And I, jest as poor, blind mortal bein’s will do, when they stand in front of mysteries, and don’t want to own they are puzzled by ’em, would make up reasons in my own mind, and call ’em facts. Thinkses I to myself: he is a enjoyin’ poor health, or else he is a gettin’ back-slid. And one day I says to him, says I:

“Josiah Allen, what is the matter with you? You don’t act like the same man you did several days ago. I am goin’ to steep up some catnip and thoroughwort tea, and see if it won’t make you feel better,—and some boneset.”

“I don’t want none of your boneset and catnip.”

Says I: “You know, Josiah Allen, that you are enjoyin’ very poor health. You enjoy as bad agin health as you did along in the winter.”

“WHAT’S THE MATTER, JOSIAH?”

“WHAT’S THE MATTER, JOSIAH?”

“My health is well enough,” says he sort o’ surly like.

“Wall then,” says I in still more anxious tones, “if it hain’t your health that is a sufferin’, is it your morals? Do they feel totterin’, Josiah? Tell your pardner how they feel.”

“Dummit, my morals feel all right.”

Says I sternly: “Stop that swearin’ instantly and to once.” And I went on in reasonable tones: “If you hain’t enjoyin’ poor health, Josiah, and your morals are firm, why is there such a change in your mean?” Says I: “Your mean don’t look no more like your old one than if it belonged to another man.”

But instead of answerin’ my affectionate and anxious inquiries, he jumped up and started for the barn. And so it went on for over 4 days; I a knowin’ sunthin’ ailed him, and couldn’t get him to tell; he a growin’ crosser and crosser, and lookin’ maugerer and maugerer, and I a growin’ alarmed about him to that extent that I knew not what to do. And finally one mornin’ to the breakfast table, I says to him in tones that would be answered:

“Josiah Allen, you are carryin’ sunthin’ on your mind.” And says I firmly: “Your mind hain’t strong enough to carry it alone; your pardner must and will help you carry it.” He see determination in my eyebrow, and he finally up and told me. How he was a hankerin’ to take in summer boarders; how he wanted to get back the money he had lost in some way, and he knew there was piles and piles of money to be made by it; and it was such pretty business, too,—nothin’ but fun to take ’em in; anybody could take such perfect comfort with ’em, besides bein’ so awful profitable; and knowin’ my principles rose up like cast-iron against the idee, it was a wearin’ on him.

I didn’t say nothin’. Some wimmen would have throwed Jonathan Spink and his wife in her pardner’s face, and some wimmen would have throwed the twin and the hull of the family. But I didn’t. I knew my pardner was a sufferin’ fearfully, and my affection for him is like a ox’es, as has been often remarked. No, I only said in a cold, cautious tone: “Will you pass me the buckwheat-cakes, Josiah, and the syrup?”

But them words, them buckwheat-cakes, was only a vail (as it were) that I threw over my feelin’s, tryin’ to hide ’em from my pardner. For oh! what a wild commotion was goin’ on inside of me between my principles and my affection. And of all the wars that ever devastated the world, that is the most fearful; though it may be like many others, a silent warfare. Yes, when love—such a love as my love for Josiah—and principles strong and hefty as my principles are, get to fightin’ with each other, and kickin’ back and forth, and ragin’, and as I may say, in a practical and figurative way, snortin’ and prancin’,—then ensues and follers on a time long to be remembered.

I was principled against takin’ in summer boarders. I had seen ’em took in, time and agin, and seen the effects of it, and I had said, and said calmly, that for people like us boarders was a moth. I had said, and felt, that when a woman does her own housework it was all she ort to do to take care of her own men folks, and her house, and housen stuff, and common run of visitors,—and hired girls I was immovably sot against from my birth.

A POETICAL SIMELY.

Home seemed to me to be a peaceful haven, jest large enough for two barks,—Josiah’s bark and my bark,—and when foreign schooners (to foller up my poetical simely), when foreign schooners and periogers sailed in, they generally proved to be ships of war, pirate fleets stealin’ happiness and ease, and runnin’ up the skeliton of our dead joys at their mast-heads. But I am a episodin’, and wanderin’ off into fields of poesy, and to resoom and go on:

It would be in vain and only harrow up the reader’s feelin’s to tell how the long struggle went on inside of my mind. But when I say that my pardner daily grew before my eyes crosser and more fearfully cross, and mauger and more awfully mauger, any female woman who has got a beloved companion, and a heart inside of her breast bones, knows how the conflict ended. I yielded and gin in, and the very day I gin my consent Josiah went and engaged ’em. He’d heard of ’em from old Mandagool. He had boarded ’em the summer before, and he said they wanted to get board again in Jonesville, though for some reason Mandagool didn’t seem to want to board ’em himself. I thought to myself that looked squally. I never liked old Mandagool,—not for a minute,—but I didn’t say a word. Neither did I say anything when he told me there was 4 childern in the family that was a comin’. No; I held firm. The job was undertook by me for the savin’ of my pardner. I had undertook it in a martyr way, and I wuzn’t goin’ to spile the job by murmerin’s and complainin’s.

But oh! how animated Josiah Allen was the day he come back from engagin’ of ’em. His appetite come back powerfully; he eat a immense dinner. His crossness had disappeared, his affectionate demeanor all returned; he would have acted as spoony as my big iron spoon if he had had so much as a crumb of encouragement from me. But I didn’t encourage him. There was a loftiness and majesty in my mean (caused by my principles) that almost awed him. I looked first-rate, and acted so. But oh, how highlarious Josiah Allen was! He was goin’ to make so much money by ’em. Says he, with a happy look:

JOSIAH’S IDEE.

“If a man loses money by one speck, he must launch out into another speck and get it back again.” Says he: “I have tried to make money easy, time and agin, and now I have hit the nail on the head; now I can make up my loss, and get independently rich. Why, besides the pure happiness we shall enjoy with ’em, the solid comfort, jest think of four dollars a week for the man and his wife, and two dollars a piece for the childern. Less see,” says he dreamily:

“Twice 4 is 8, and no orts to carry; 4 times 2 is 8, and 8 and 8 is 16. Sixteen dollars a week. Why, Samantha,” says he, “that will support us; there hain’t no need of our liftin’ our fingers agin, if we could only keep ’em right here with us always.”

“Who is goin’ to cook and wait on ’em?” says I almost coldly. Not real cold, but sort o’ coolish like. For I hain’t one when I tackle a cross to go carryin’ it along groanin’ and cryin’ out loud all the way. No! if I can’t carry it cheerfully, I’ll drop it. So, as I say, my tone wasn’t frigid, but sort o’ cool like. “Who’ll wait on ’em?”

“Get a girl! get two girls! Think of sixteen dollars a week. You can keep a variety of hired girls if you want to. Yes,” says he, with a blissful expression and joyous axent, “besides the sweet rest and comfort we are a goin’ to take with ’em, we can have everything else we want. Thank Heaven we have now got a compeatency.”

“Wall,” says I in the same tones, or about the same,—coolish, but not frigid,—“time will tell.”

EARLY BIRDS.

EARLY BIRDS..

Wall, they come on a Monday mornin’, on the six o’clock train. Josiah had to meet ’em to the depot, and he was so afraid he should miss ’em, and somebody else would undermine him, and get ’em as boarders, that he was up about three o’clock, and went out and milked by candle-light, so’s to be sure and be there in season. And I had to get up and get his breakfast before daylight, feelin’ like a fool, too, for he kep’ me awake all night a’most, walkin’ round the house, and fallin’ over chairs and things,—sort o’ gropin’ round,—lightin’ matches to look at the clock to see what time it was. And if he said to me once, he said 30 times durin’ that night: “It would be jest my luck to have somebody get in ahead of me to the cars, and undermind me at the last minute, and get ’em away from me.”

Says I, in dry tones (not so dry as I had used, but dryish): “I guess there won’t be no danger, Josiah.”

But the very last thing I heard him say, in fearful and fractious tones, as he got into that democrat, was: “It would be jest like old Mandagool to undermind me.”

Wall, about a quarter to 7 he driv up with ’em. A tall, spindlin’, waspish-lookin’ woman, and 4 childern. The man, they said, wasn’t comin’ till Saturday night. I thought the woman had a singular look to her when I first see her, and so did the oldest boy, who was about 13 years old. I thought he looked dretful white in the face, and sort o’ strange like. He looked like his ma, only he was fleshy,—dretful sort o’ fleshy,—flabby like. And as they walked up from the gate, side by side, I thought I never in my hull life see a waspisher and spindlener woman, or a curiouser lookin’ couple. The other 3 childern that come behind seemed to be pretty much of a age, and looked healthy, and full of the old Harry, as we found out afterwards they indeed was.

Wall, I had a hard tussle of it through the day to cook and do for ’em. Their appetites was tremenjous, specially the woman and the oldest boy. They wasn’t healthy appetites. I could see that in a minute. Their eyes would look holler and hungry, and they would look voraciously at the empty deep dishes and tureens, after they had eat ’em all empty,—eat enough for 4 men. Why, it did beat all. Josiah looked at me in silent wonder and dismay, as he see the vittles disappeer before that woman and boy. The other three childern eat about as common healthy childern do,—each of ’em about twice what Josiah and me did. But there wasn’t nothin’ mysterious about them. But the woman and boy made me feel curious, curiouser than I had ever felt, for truly I thought to myself if their legs and arms hain’t holler, how do they hold it. It was to me a new and interesting spectacle, to be studied over and filosofied upon. But to Josiah it was a canker, as I see the very first meal. I could see by the looks of his mean that them two appetites was sunthin’ he hadn’t reckoned and calculated upon. And I could see plain, havin’ watched the changes of my pardner’s mean as close as astronomers watch the moon, I could see that them two appetites was a wearin’ on him.

Wall, I thought mebby they was kinder starved out, comin’ right from a city boardin’-house, and a few of my good meals would quell ’em down.

OUR BOARDERS.

But no, instead of growin’ lighter them two appetites of their’n seemed, if possible, to grow consuminer and consuminer, though I cooked lavish and profuse, as I always did. They devoured everything before ’em, and looked hungry and wistful at the plates and table-cloth. Josiah looked on in perfect agony I knew, though he didn’t say nothin’ (he is very close). And it seemed so awfully mysterious to me. I would get so lost reasonin’ and felosifyin’ on it; whether their legs was holler or not holler; and if they was holler, how they could walk round on ’em; and if they wasn’t holler, where the vittles went to. Why, studyin’ so deep into it, bringin’ all the deep scientific facts I could think on to bear onto it, I don’t know but I should have gone ravin’ distracted if she hadn’t herself up and told me what the matter was.

They had got tape-worms—she and the oldest boy; immense ones, so the doctor said, and they had to eat to satisfy ’em. That explained it, and I felt relieved. And I told Josiah, for I love that man, and love to happify him when I possibly can. But if you’ll believe it, that man was mad; and he vowed he would charge extra for ’em. It was after we went to bed I told him, and I had to talk low, for their room was right over our’n. Says I, in a low but firm whisper:

“Don’t you do no such thing, Josiah Allen. Do you realize how it would look; what a sound it would have to community?”

“Wall,” he hollered out, “do you s’pose I am goin’ to board all the tape-worms in the world free of expense? Do you s’pose I am goin’ to have ’em all congregate here, and be boarded on me for nothin’? I took men and wimmen and childern to board. I didn’t agree to board anything else, and I won’t, nuther. It wuzn’t in the bill.”

“Do you keep still, Josiah Allen. She’ll hear you,” I whispered.

“I say it wuzn’t in the bill,” he hollered out agin. I s’pose he meant it wasn’t in the bargain, but he was nearly delirious (he is very close—nearly tight). But jest that minute,—before I could say a word,—we heard a awful noise right over our heads; it sounded as if the hull top of the house had fell in.

Says Josiah: “The old chimbly has fell in.”

Says I: “I think it is the ruff.”

And we both started for up-stairs on the run. I sent him back from the head of the stairs, for in the awful fright he hadn’t realized his condition, and wasn’t dressed. I waited for him at the top of the stairs, for to tell the truth, I dassent go on. He hurried on his clothes, and went in ahead,—and there she lay; there Miss Danks was on the floor in a historical fit. Josiah, thinkin’ she was dead, run in and ketched her up, and went to puttin’ her on the bed; and she, jest as they will in historicks, clawed right into his hair, and tore out above half he had on that side. She then struck him a fearful blow in the eye—made it black and blue for over two weeks. She didn’t know what she was about; she wuzn’t to blame—though the hair was a great loss to him, and I won’t deny it.

Wall, we stood over her most all night to keep the breath of life in her; and the oldest boy, bein’ skairt, it brought on some fits that he was in the habit of havin’,—a sort of fallin’ fits; he would fall anywheres; he fell onto Josiah twice that night, and almost knocked him down. He was awful large for his age; dretful big and fat. It seemed as if there was sunthin’ wrong about his heft, it was so oncommon hefty for a boy of his age. He looked bloated. His eyes, which was a pale blue, seemed to be kinder sot back in his head, and his cheeks stood out below, some like baloons; and his mouth was kinder open a good deal of the time, as if it was hard work for him to breathe; he breathed thick and wheezy,—dretful oncomfortable. His complexion was bad, too; sallow and sort o’ tallery lookin’. He acted dretful logy and heavy at the best of times, and in them fits he was as heavy and helpless as lead.

Wall, that was the third night after they got there, and from that night, as long as they stayed there, she had the historicks frequent and violent, and Bill had his fallin’ fits. And you wouldn’t believe if you hadn’t seen ’em, how many things he broke a fallin’ on ’em in them fits. It beat all how unfortunate he was. They always come onto him unexpected, and it seemed as if they would always come onto him while he was in front of sunthin’ to smash all to bits. And I says to Josiah, says I: “Did you ever see, Josiah Allen, anybody so unfortunate as that boy in his fits? It seems as if he’ll break everything in the house if it goes on.”

Says he, “’Tis a pity his cussed neck don’t break!”

A SURPRISED COLT.

I don’t know as I ever gin Josiah Allen a firmer, eloquenter lecture against swearin’ than I did then. But in my heart I pitied him, for it was only the day before that he fell as he was a lookin’ at the colt. It was only a week old, but Josiah sot his eyes by it, and the boy was admirin’ of it—there wasn’t nothin’ ugly about him—but a fit come on, and he fell onto the colt, and the colt not expectin’ of it, and bein’ unprepared, fell flat down, and the boy on it; and the colt jest lived, that is all. Josiah says it never will be worth any thing; he thinks it broke sunthin’ inside. As I said, there wasn’t a ugly thing about Bill. He’d be awful sorry when he broke things, and squshed ’em, and flatted ’em all out a fallin’ on ’em.

All I blamed him for was his prowlin’ round so much. I thought then, and I think still, seein’ he knew his own heft, and knew he had ’em, and was liable to have ’em, he’d done better to have kep’ still, and not tried to got round so much. But his mother said he felt restless and oneasy. I couldn’t help likin’ the boy; and when he fell right into my bread that I had a risin’ and spilte the hull batch, and when he fell acrost the table in the parlor and broke everything that was on it, and when he fell onto a chicken-coop and broke it down and killed a hull brood of chickens, and when he fell onto some tomato plants of a extra kind which Josiah had bought at a great expense and sot out, and broke ’em off short, I didn’t feel like scoldin’ him. I s’pose it was my hefty principles that boyed me up; them and the sweet thought that would come to me—mebby Josiah Allen will hear to me another time, mebby he’ll get sick of summer boarders and to takin’ of ’em in.

I s’pose it was these lofty feelin’s that kep’ me up; truly if it hadn’t been I don’t know how I could have lived, cookin’ as much as I had to, and goin’ through with what I did, historics, and fallin’ fits, and etcetery, etcetery.

And the 3 smaller children was ugly; there haint no other name made that will describe their demenors and acts, only jest that word, ugly.

They made me more work than all my housework put together. A handlin’ everything, and a breakin’ everything, and a ridin’ the turkeys, and actin’, and performin’.

EXERCISING THE GOBBLER.

I spose they was told more’n a hundred times by me and Josiah to not ride that turkey gobbler. And I don’t spose there was ever any other children on earth, only jest them 3, that would have dast to gone near it. Why, I have seen right-minded and moral children time and agin weep and cry when they seen it comin’ nigh ’em, it was so powerful lookin’, and high-headed. But good land! first thing I’d know I’d see one on ’em right on that gobbler, pretendin’ to ride it; they almost killed that Tom Turkey.

And then all of a sudden we’d hear the fannin’ mill a goin’ full blast, and Josiah would run to the barn, and there they would be a runnin’ dirt through it, slates, stuns, or anything. And then I’d hear the wheel a goin’ up stairs, buzzin’ as if it would break its old band, and up I’d go, and there they’d be a spinnin’ of my best rolls. And five different times I took the youngest one out of the flour barrel, where they was a makin’ a ghost out of him, to appear to the oldest one—they loved to scare that boy into fits, they loved it dearly.

And they’d lay to and eat between meals all the preserves and jell and honey they could get holt of, unbeknown to me; they wasted twice over every day what their board come to. But I kep’ still, and held firm. Thinkses I the medicine is bitter, but it is goin’ to do good; the patient is feelin’ the effects of it. For Josiah looked awful as the days went by. He see he had made a terrible mistake; he see that he’d done better to have listened to his faithful pardner. He see where he had missed it. But pride kep’ him silent, only in the little unguarded speeches that he would make in sudden moments of anger and agony, unbeknown to him. Such as sayin’ in loud, quick axents:

“Dummit, I can’t stand it so much longer.” Or in low, plaintive tones, “Did Heaven ever witness such tribulation?”

I’d ketch him a sayin’ that as he would be a bringin’ Bill in, for Josiah would have to lift him and lug him in when he would fall out doors. That in itself I could see was a underminin’ my pardner’s strength and his back bones. And I shall always believe that was the reason why Danks stayed out of the way. It was underhanded in him; he knew that boy was heavy as lead, and he knew he would fall when he had ’em, and would have to be fetched in, and so he jest stayed away and let Josiah do all the luggin’ and lifting’.

It was three weeks before that man come, and Josiah didn’t look like the same man. What with chasin’ after them three littlest boys, and carryin’ round Bill in his fallin’ fits, and havin’ the care of providin’ more provisions than was ever devoured on earth before by the same number of people, and bein’ kep’ awake night after night by Miss Danks’es historicks, and the oldest boy’s walkin’ in his sleep (I don’t know as I have mentioned it, but Bill was liable to appear to us any time, and have to be headed up stairs agin)—take it all together, Josiah looked like a shadder. And thinkses I to myself, almost wildly, my principles was hefty, and they are hefty; I have said I would stand firm, and I have stood firm. But oh, must I, must I see my pardner crumple down and die before my face and eyes?

A HEAVY BILL.

It was Josiah’s pride that stood in the way of his startin’ of ’em off. He couldn’t bear to give in to me that he was in the wrong on it, and I was in the right on it. He couldn’t bear to come right out openly and own up to his pardner how deceived, and fooled, and took in he had been. Men’s pride is high, it towers up like a meetin’-house steeple, and when it tottles and falls down, great is the fall thereof. I knew this, divin’ into the mysterious ingregiencies of men’s naters so deep as I had doven, I knew this great filisofical fact as well as I knew the dimensions of the nose on my pardner’s face. And so I shuddered to myself as I thought it over, and pondered on what the end would be. But I held firm on the outside, and never let on how agonized and burdened in soul I was. My mind is like a ox’es for strength, and very deep.

This was on a Friday mornin’ that I had this melancholy revery, as I looked out of the buttery window, as I stood there a washin’ dishes to the sink, and see Josiah come from the barn a luggin’ Bill in. He had had a fit, and fell acrost the grin’-stun where Josiah was a grindin’, and Josiah had to drop everything and come a luggin’ of him in. He broke some of the runnin’-gear of the grin’-stun that time. Josiah had it fixed so he could put a pail of water on top of it, and it would water itself while he was a grindin’, but Bill had fell right acrost it and flatted it all down. It cost Josiah upwards of seven shillin’s to make that loss good.

Wall, that night old Danks come. It was most bed-time when he come, and I didn’t see him much that night. She had the historicks the first part of the night, Miss Danks did, but we knew he was with her, so we sort o’ gin up the care to him. Bill got up in his sleep, and went to prowlin’ round as usual in the kitchen. But Josiah headed him off up-stairs, and locked the chamber door onto him, and let his father tussle with him. He had a fallin’ fit, we both think,—Josiah and me do, that he had,—and fell onto his father, and knocked him down. We don’t know it for certain, but we think so. For we heard the awfulest katouse you ever did hear. It sounded as if the house was a comin’ down, and then we heard groanin’ and sithin’ and low, very low swearin’.

Of course we couldn’t sleep none while such a rumpus was a goin’ on, and historicks and everything, and he a tryin’ to quell ’em down, but we lay and rested, which was a good deal for us. Wall, in the mornin’, if you’ll believe it, Danks told us (Miss Danks and the childern had gone down into the orchard to eat some strawberries), and Danks up and told Josiah and me that he was goin’ off agin that day, on the afternoon train. He did look bad, I’ll say that for him; his sufferin’s was great. But he hadn’t ort to shirk ’em off onto somebody else; he hadn’t ort to throw a historicky wife onto perfect strangers, and bring a lot of childern, perfect young hyenas, into the world, and then caper off, and let other folks tussle with ’em.

But I held firm. I knew a crysis was approachin’ and drawin’ nigh, but I wasn’t goin’ to say nothin’; I held firm; only I says in a mecanical and sort of wonderin’ way:

“Goin’ away to-day?”

“Yes,” said Danks, “it is a case of life and death; I must go.”

And then all of a sudden Josiah Allen bust right out, and oh! what a scene of wild excitement rained down for the next several moments. Josiah riz right up, and hollered out to Danks louder than I most ever hearn him holler,—loud enough to be hearn for half a mile, though Danks was within half a foot of him. Says he, in that loud, scareful, wild tone:

“If you leave this house for half a minute, without takin’ your family with you, I’ll prosecute you, and throw you into jail, and take the law to you.”

It skairt Danks dretfully; it come so unexpected onto him, he fairly jumped. And it started me for a minute, though my principles are so solid and hefty that they hold down my composure and keep it stiddy better’n a iron wedge, makin’ my presence of mind like a ox’es for strength.

Says Josiah, in that awful and almost deafenin’ tone of hisen, and with a mean as wild and delerious as a mean ever looked on earth:

“I hain’t a wet-nurse, and I’ll let you know I hain’t, and Samantha hain’t a horsepittle. Here I have,” says he, in a still more agonizin’ tone, “here I have for week after week kep’ stiddy company with fallin’ fits and historicks. I have been broke to pieces a luggin’ boys! and rode to death by childern! and eat up by tape-worms! And there has got to be a stop put to it, or somebody is goin’ to get hurt.”

He was perfectly delerious, and I says to him soothin’ly:

“Be calm, Josiah!”

“I won’t be calm, Samantha!”

But Danks had got over bein’ skairt, and begun to look cross,—crosser’n a bear. And he spoke out, in a pert, hateful tone, old Danks did, and says he:

“’Tain’t nothin’ to me; I don’t have the fallin’ fits nor the historicks.” He looked dretful mad, and spoke up as pert and impudent to my pardner as if it was Josiah’s business to tussle with them fits and things, instead of hisen.

I had thought I wouldn’t put in my note at all, but I hain’t one to stand by and see my pardner imposed upon. And then, too, I felt in the name of principle I ort to speak. I felt a feelin’ that mebby here was a chance for me to do good. And when he spoke out agin, more impudenter and hatefuler than before, “that it wasn’t nothin’ to him,” says I:

“It is sunthin’ to you.” And then I went on powerful and eloquent. I can tell you I talked deep and solemn to that man about what he took onto himself when he sot out in matrimony; about the responsibility of marriage, and bringin’ childern into the world; the responsibility to God and man of usherin’ eternal souls into this world for everlasting joy or misery; the terrible responsibility to these souls and to God, the righteous Judge; and the terrible responsibility to the world of lettin’ loose in it such mighty powers for good or evil,—a set of likely creeters, blessings and benefactors forever, or shacks and sources of uncounted misery, made so greatly by early care and culture; influences that will go on and on for all time, growing and widening out all the time, till no mind but the Eternal can reckon up or even imagine the awful consequences for good or evil of one human soul. “How dare anyone,” says I, “lightly and irreverantly even think on the subject,—much less tackle it.”

I talked beautiful on the subject, and deep, deeper than I had for some time. I felt fearfully eloquent, and acted so, and very noble. But Danks acted mad, mad as a hen. And he snapped out agin:

“Who made any calculations on fallin’ fits and such things? I didn’t.”

Why, that man almost took my head off, he snapped me up so. But I didn’t care; I knew I was a talkin’ on principle, and that reflection is a high rock to lean and rest the moral back against. That thought is a thick umberell to keep off the little hailstuns of impertinence and impudence that might otherwise hurt one’s self-respect and mortify it. I felt well and noble in my mind, and acted well, very. I kep’ right on cool and collected together.

And says I, “That is one great reason why any one ort to consider well on’t. They ort to know that this is one of them jobs that you can’t calculate on exactly how it is a comin’ out. You must take the chances. There is lots of undertakin’s jest so—jest as hard to tell how it is a comin’ out as some things in Nater. Now the greatest of minds can’t figger out exactly to a minute what time the butter will come—or how a marriage is a goin’ to turn out—or jest when it will stop rainin’, or begin—or when the old hen will lay.

“The world is a curious place, and in lots of undertakin’s you have to step out blindfold and ketch holt of the consequences, good or bad. The blinders will be took offen our eyes sometime, probable, but the time is not yet. And marriage, I take it, is one of the very reskiest undertakin’s you can undertake. It may lead you into a happiness as pure and lofty as a certain couple I could mention have enjoyed for the neighberhood of 20 years. It may, and then again it mayn’t. But there is one great comfort in this that there hain’t in some things, such as rain, and thunder storms, and etcetery. You needn’t enlist in this warfare if you hain’t a mind to—that is a sweet and consolin’ thought—if you feel scareful over it. But if you do enlist you must take the chances of war, you must take the resks. And if it wasn’t a resky piece of business to embark in, why did them old fathers put these words in the marriage service, ‘for richer, or for poorer.’ They knew what they was about, them old fathers did. They knew they couldn’t tell whether it would turn out rich as rich could be with blessings and bliss, or poor as poverty. Them old fathers knew that, and bein’ likely men and sound-moraled, they fixed that halter so that folks couldn’t squirm their necks out of it every time they got oneasy and worrysome.

“Historical fits, and etcetery,” says I, in reasonable tones, “might come under the head of ‘worse.’ But you can’t slip your head out; that vow holds you, for better or worse. You no need to have tackled that vow, but you did, and now you ort to stand up under it; that is law, and that is gospel too, which don’t always go together.”

“Well, what of it,” says Danks; “what if it duz? What are you goin’ to do about it?”

Oh, how surly and mad that man did look. His mean would have skairt some wimmen, but it didn’t me; mebby it would if I hadn’t been talkin’ on such high principle, but that boyed me up.

“Why,” says I, “as I have said more’n 40 times, folks ort to get it into their heads that it is a great and serious subject that ort to be considered and prayed over and meditated upon. They ort to realize that gettin’ married is a solemn thing; solemner, if anything, than it is not to, and that has always been considered a very solemn thing, very. But instead of lookin’ on it in this serious and becomin’ way, folks will caper and prance off into matrimony in jest as light and highlarious and triflin’ a way as if they was headin’ a row of fantasticks on the 4th of July. They don’t consider and filosifize on it that the fantasticks can take off their uniforms at night, and be themselves agin, but the matrimourners can’t. They can’t do it nohow; there they be, matrimourners. No matter how bad they feel, and how disappointed they be by the looks of the state they have got into, they can’t get out of it. They are matrimourners, and can’t help themselves.

“The state of wedlock has got a high, slippery wall round it, as high up as eternity, and as low down as the same. It is a wall that can’t be stepped acrost and climbed over. It is a wall that a man or a woman can’t sneak out and creep up on without fallin’ back—it is too slippery. It is a wall that can’t be broke down, and jumped over only on Bible grounds. And then when you do take that jump on Bible grounds, oh how fatiguein’ that leap is. How much happiness and ease of mind the matrimourner has to drop in the jump, drop forever. And how much trouble he has to carry with him, and disquietude of mind, and condemnation, and upbraidin’s, and gossip, and evil speaking, and hateful memories, and hauntin’ ones, and travel of soul and body. Oh, what a time that matrimourner duz have.”

“I thought,” says he, with that surly, mad look of hisen, “I thought you was one that preached up liberty, freedom, and etcetery.”

“So I be,” says I. “Hain’t I jest been a doin’ of it? Hain’t I jest said that no man or woman ort to be drove into the state of matrimony by anybody only jest their own selves? But after they lay holt, and drive themselves in, they ortn’t to complain. But, as I have said frequent, they’ll find after they have drove themselves in that it is the curiousest state that ever was made. None of our States of America will compare with it for curiosity,—and some of our’n are exceedingly curious, take ’em laws and all, to wit: Havin’ a man in congress to make laws that imprison a man for havin’ two wives, while he himself, proud and hauty, a settin’ up a makin’ that law, has four on ’em. Exceedingly curious that is, and to wit: Fixin’ penalties against crime and vice, and then sellin’ licenses to encourage and make it respectable. Oh! how curious, how curious some of our states be! But the state of matrimony is far curiouser. It is curiouser in the beginning—some like a conundrum. States have to be admitted into the Union; a union admits you into that state. And then, it is bounded on every side by divinest possibilities of happiness, or the most despairin’ ones, and no knowin’ which will break over the frontier, and capture you. Sweetest and most rapturous joys may cover its soil as thick as blossoms on a summer prairie, or angry passions and disappointments and cares may crunch ’em down under foot, and set fire to ’em. Peace and trust and tenderness may rain over that state, or anarky and sizm.”

“Yes, and fallin’ fits,” says Danks, with a bitter tone, “and historicks.”

“Yes,” says I calmly, “matrimourners ort to take all the blessings and enjoyments and comforts with a thankful heart, and they ort to have the courage and the nobility and the common sense to take all the evils, fallin’ fits, historicks, and etcetery, and etcetery, with a willin’ mind. You ort,” says I firmly, “you ort to have figured it all out. You ort to have figured out the hull sum, orts and all, and seen what was to carry, and got the right answer to it, before you drove yourself into that state.”

“How could I see to carry historicks? how could I figured ’em out?” says he bitterly.

But I kep’ right on: “You ort to have studied it out, whether you was strong enough to stand the climate, with its torrid weather and its frigid zones, its sweet summery winds and its blasts, its squalls and hurrycains. But as I have said 40 times, if I have once, after you have drove yourself into that state, you ort to hist up your moral umberell, and make the best on’t.”

Danks didn’t look convinced at all. He muttered sunthin’ agin about fits and other things, and how he hadn’t made no calculations on ’em; and I felt fairly out of patience, and went to allegorin’, as I might have known I should before I got through. (It is next to impossible for me to be so eloquent as I was then without allegorin’ some).

“Why,” says I, “when a man buys a farm, he must be a natural fool, or else a luny, if he expects and calculates the sun to shine on it every day the year round. He must make calculations for rain and snow, sunshine and thunder. He can’t expect it all to be ripe wheat and apple-sass. He buys it with his eyes open; buys it with all its possibilities of good or evil; and don’t expect, if he hain’t a fool, to shirk out of carryin’ of ’em.”

“Who has shirked out of carryin’ of ’em?” says Danks. “I hain’t.”

“You have!” says Josiah, a jumpin’ up and hollerin’ at him agin; and his face was red as a fire-bran’.

“I hain’t!” says Danks.

“You have!” says Josiah. “And don’t you dispute me agin if you know what is good for yourself. You have shirked out of carryin’ that dumb boy of your’n, in his dumb fits. And I let you know that I have broke my back for the last time a luggin’ him round, or somebody or sunthin’ is goin’ to get hurt, and I can tell you so—dummit!”

I felt as if I should sink. My Josiah was almost doin’ what Miss Job advised Mr. Job to do when he was smote with agony and biles. He was almost a swearin’. But here was where I and the late Miss Job differ. I knew my pardner’s sufferin’s was intense, and them sufferin’s was terrible to me. But still I says in a reprovin’, but tender and pityin’ tone:

“Be calm, Josiah!”

“I won’t be calm!” says he.

Says I: “Josiah, you must; you are almost delerious.” Says I: “You are a swearin’, Josiah! be calm!”

“Wall, I tell you agin that I won’t be calm; and I tell you agin, dummit! there now! dummit!”

Oh! how my pardner did look, how his axent did sound, as he uttered them fearful and profane words. And then before I could put in a soothin’ word to soothe him, Danks spoke right out, and says he:

“You promised to take ’em for all summer, and if you don’t I won’t pay you a cent for their board, and you can’t make me.”

Here Josiah turned as white as a white milk-pail, and groaned to that extent that I thought he was a goin’ to faint away.

And as it turned out, the law was on Danks’es side. Josiah made ’em all go that very day, but he couldn’t get a cent from ’em. He hired a lawyer to prosicute Danks, but Danks, bein’ sharp-witted and ugly (and sometimes I think that such trials as he underwent, if anybody don’t take ’em as a means of grace, makes anybody ugly. I can’t help feelin’ sorry for Danks, after all). But as I was a sayin’, Danks worked it in such a way that Josiah lost the case, and had to pay the costs on both sides. They was heavy bills,—most as heavy as Bill Danks,—and take it with what we lost boardin’ of ’em, and what the childern tore to pieces, and Bill smashed and squshed down, a fallin’ on ’em,—take it all together, it is a loss that makes Josiah Allen groan now every time he thinks on it. We don’t either of us think his back will ever feel as it did before. He strained it beyond its strength.

A VISIT FROM MISS RICKERSON.

It was about a week after the Danks’es departure and exodus. It was a cool day for the time of the year, and very windy. And I was settin’ calm and peaceful, hullin’ some strawberries for dinner. For my companion, Josiah Allen, had gone to Jonesville, and I wanted to have dinner ready by the time of his arrival. But I had only jest got my potatoes pared and over the stove, when I heard the old mare and him drive into the barn-yard. He had come sooner than I looked for. But it didn’t excite me; I was prepared. For not knowin’ exactly the time of his arrival, I had made ready for any emergency. I had drawed the table out, and put the table-cloth on; and I felt at rest, and peaceful.

Let wimmen whose pardners are wont to rampage round and act, when they come in and find dinner only jest begun—let ’em not tell any wrong stories or exagerations or parables, let ’em not bandy words or argue, but let ’em, jest before he comes in, draw out the table and throw the table-cloth on, and everything will move on peaceful; their pardners will think dinner is most ready, and as they glance at that snowy table-cloth their wrath will leave ’em, and they will demean themselves like lambs.

I only tell what I have learnt from experience. And any little crumbs of wisdom and knowledge that I have gained by hard experience, and through tribulation, I am willin’ to share freely, without money and without price, with the female sect; I think so much of ’em, and wish ’em so well. Now jest this one little receipt,—this table-cloth performance,—would have been worth dollars and dollars to me if I had known it when I was first a pardner. But I never found it out till I had been married over thirteen years, and had been jawed accordingly, when I was belated and dinner wasn’t ready. Why no woman would have any idee of its value till they try it. Men are as likely creeters as the earth affords, if you only know how to get along with ’em. And wimmen has to try various ways and measures. I learnt this jest by tryin’ it as a experiment. I have tried a good many experiments—little harmless ones like this. Some of ’em work, and some don’t.

Wall, I sot there hullin’ my berries, and listenin’ to the wind, which was a roarin’ round the house. Seems as if I never heard it blow no harder. It blowed for all the world as if it had been kep’ in through sickness in its family, or sunthin’, and was out now for the first time, on a regular spree.

And though it didn’t come right out and sing ’em in plain words, yet it seemed to be a roarin’ it down the chimbley, and blowin’ it through the orchard and round the corners of the house, and whistlin’ it through the open buttery window—the song that other elevated and gay spirits indulge in, about bein’ fairly determined and sot to not go home till mornin’.

It blowed fearfully. But I was calm and peaceful, knowin’ the table-cloth was on, and Josiah would act first-rate. And then, when a tempest is a howlin’ and a actin’ out-doors, it seems as if I enjoy more than ever the safety and sweet repose and happiness of my own hearth-stun (which last is a poetical simely, our hearth not bein’ stun at all, but iron, with a nickel platin’ round it).

Wall, there I sot, feelin’ well and lookin’ well. I had combed my hair slick, and put on a clean gingham dress,—when Josiah Allen opened the door and walked in. He glanced at the table-cloth, and a calm, contented look settled upon his eye-brow, but he left the door open behind him as composed as if he had been born in a saw-mill; and says I:

“Josiah Allen, if there was a heavy fine to pay for shettin’ up doors, you wouldn’t never loose a cent of your property in that way.” And says I, clutchin’ my pan of strawberries with a firmer grip, for truly it was a movin’ and onstiddy, and my apron was a flutterin’ like a banner in the cold breeze: “If you don’t want me to blow away, Josiah Allen, shet up that door.”

“SHUT THAT DOOR.”

“Oh shaw! Samantha. You won’t blow away; you are too hefty. It would take a hurrycane and a simon, too, to tackle you, and lift you.”

“Simon who?” says I, in cold axents, caused partly by my frigid emotions and the cool blast, and partly by his darin’ to say any man could take me up and carry me away.

“Oh! the simons they have on the desert. We hearn Thomas J. read about ’em. They’ll blow camels away, and everything.”

Says I dreamily: “Who’d have thought twenty years ago, to have heard that man a courtin’ me, and callin’ me a zephire and a pink posy and a angel, that he’d ever live to see the day he’d call me a camel.”

“I hain’t called you a camel. I only meant you was hefty, and camels was hefty, and it would take a simon or two to lift you round, either on you.”

“Wall,” says I, in frigid tones, “what I want to know is, are you a goin’ to shet that door?”

“Yes, I be, jest as quick as I change my clothes. I don’t want to fodder in these new briches.”

I rose with dignity,—or as much dignity as I could lay holt of, half bent, tryin’ to keep five or six quarts of strawberries from spillin’ all over the floor,—and went and shet the door myself, which I might have known enough to done in the first place, and saved time and breath. For shettin’ up doors is a accomplishment that Josiah Allen never will master. I have tutored him up on lots of things since we was married, but in this branch of education he has been too much for me. Experiments have been vain; I have about gin up.

In the course of ten or fifteen minutes, Josiah come out of the bedroom lookin’ as pleasant and peaceful as you please, with his hands in his pantaloons pockets, seemin’ly searchin’ their remotest depths, and says he in a off-hand, careless way:

“I’ll be hanged if there hain’t a letter for you, Samantha.”

“How many weeks have you carried it ’round, Josiah Allen?” says I. “It would scare me if you should give me a letter before you had carried it round in your pockets a month or so.”

“Oh! I guess I only got this two or three days ago. I meant to handed it to you the first thing when I got home. But I hain’t had on these old breeches sence that day I went to mill.”

“Three weeks ago to-day,” says I, in almost frosty axents, as I opened my letter.

“Wall,” says Josiah cheerfully, as he hunted round in the bedroom for his old hat, “I knew it wuzn’t long, anyway.”

I glanced my gray eye down the letter, and says I in agitated tones:

“Come out here, Josiah Allen, and let me look at you, and wither you! She that was Alzina Ann Allen is comin’ here a visatin’. She wrote me three weeks ahead, so’s to have me prepared. And here she is liable to come in on us any minute, now, and find us all unprepared.” Says I, “I wouldn’t have had it happen for a ten-cent bill to had one of the relation on your side come and ketch me in such a condition. There the curtains are all down in the spare room. Bill Danks fell and dragged ’em down onto the floor under him, and mussed ’em all up, and I washed ’em yesterday, and they hain’t ironed. And the carpet in the settin’-room up to mend, where he fell onto it with a lighted candle in his hand and sot it afire. And not a mite of fruit-cake in the house, and she a comin’ here to-day. I am mortified most to death, Josiah Allen. And if you had give me that letter, I should have hired help and got everything done. I should think your conscience would smart like a burn, if you have got a conscience, Josiah Allen.”

“Wall, less have a little sunthin’ to eat, Samantha, and I’ll help round.”

“Help! What’ll you do, Josiah Allen?”

“Oh! I’ll do the barn chores, and help all I can. I guess you’d better cook a little of that canned sammen I got to Jonesville.”

Says I coldly, “I believe, Josiah Allen, if you was on your way to the gallus, you’d make ’em stop and get vittles for you—meat vittles, if you could.”

I didn’t say nothin’ more, for, as the greatest poets have sung, “the least said, the soonest mended.” But I rose, and with outward calmness opened the can of salmon, and jest as I put that over the stove, with some sweet cream and butter, if you’ll believe it, that very minute she that was Alzina Ann Allen drove right up to the door, and come in. You could have knocked me down with a hen’s feather (as it were), my feelin’s was such; but I concealed ’em as well as I could, and advanced to the door, and says I:

“How do you do, Miss Rickerson?” She is married to Bildad Rickerson, old Dan Rickerson’s oldest boy.

ARRIVAL OF MISS RICKERSON.

She is a tall, bony woman, light-complected, sandy-haired, and with big, light-blue eyes. I hadn’t seen her for nineteen years, but she seemed dretful tickled to see me, and says she:

“You look younger, Samantha, than you did the first time I ever seen you.”

“Oh, no!” says I, “that can’t be, Alzina Ann, for that is in the neighberhood of thirty years ago.”

Says she, “It is true as I live and breathe, you look younger and handsomer than I ever see you look.”

I didn’t believe it, but I thought it wouldn’t look well to dispute her any more; so I let it go; and mebby she thought she had convinced me that I did look younger than I did when I was eighteen or twenty. But I only said “That I didn’t feel so young any way. I had spells of feelin’ mauger.”

She took off her things, or “wrappers,” as Tirzah Ann says it is more genteel to call ’em. She was dressed up awful slick, and Josiah helped the driver bring in her trunk. And I told her jest how mortified I wuz about Josiah’s forgettin’ her letter, and her ketchin’ me unprepared. But good land! she told me that “she never in her hull life see a house in such beautiful order as mine was, and she had seen thousands and thousands of different houses.”

Says I, “I feel worked up and almost mortified about my settin’-room carpet bein’ up.”

But she held up both hands—they was white as snow, and all covered with rings—and says she, “If there is one thing that I love to see more than another it is to see a settin’-room carpet up, it gives such a sort of a free, noble look to a room.”

Says I, “The curtains are down in the spare bedroom, and I am almost entirely out of cookin’.”

Says she, “If I had my way, I never would have a curtain up to a window. The sky always looks so pure and innocent somehow. It is so beautiful to set and look up into the calm heavens, with no worldly obstructions between, such as curtains. It is so sweet to sit in your chair, and knit tattin’, and commune with holy nature. And cookin’,” says she, with a look of complete disgust on her face, “why I fairly despise cookin’. What’s the use of it?” says she, with a sweet smile.

“Why,” says I, reasonably, “if it wasn’t for cookin’ vittles and eatin’ em, I guess we shouldn’t stand it a great while, none of us.”

I didn’t really like the way she went on. Never, never, through my hull life, was I praised up by anybody as I was by her durin’ the three days that she stayed with us. She praised everything fur beyond what they would bear.

I believe in praisin’ things that will stand praisin’. Nothin’ does any one more good than appreciation. Honest admiration, sympathy, and good-will put into words are more inspirin’ and stimulatin’ than tongue can tell. They are truly refreshin’. I think as a rule we New Englanders are too cold in our means. Mebby it is settin’ on Plymouth Rock so much, or leanin’ up against Bunker Hill Monument; or mebby we took it from our old Puriten four-fathers, and mebby them four old men ketched cold in their demeaniers from settin’ under the chilly blue light of their old laws, or took the trait from the savages. Any way, we are too undemonstrative and reticent (them are very hefty words, and it is seldom indeed that I harness up a span of such a size to carry my idees.

As a general thing I don’t have idees so hefty but what I can draw ’em along with considerable small words. And I prefer ’em always, as bein’ easier reined in, and held up, and governed. Why, I have seen such awful big words harnessed in front of such weak little idees that they run away with ’em, kicked in the harness, got all tangled up, and made a perfect wrack and ruin of the little idee. Hence, I am cautious, and if I owned droves of ’em, I should be on the safe side, and handle ’em careful and not drive ’em hardly any. But these two I have heard Thomas J. use in jest this place, and hain’t a doubt but they are safe and stiddy as any ever was of their size.)

Thomas J. said, and I believe, that we are too bashful, or shy, or sunthin’, too afraid of expressin’ our hearty appreciation, the honest, friendly admiration and regard we entertain for our friends. But if my friends like me, or my work, I want ’em to tell me of it, to give me the help, and encouragement, and insperation this knowledge will bring. A few sympathetic, cheerin’ words and a warm smile and hand-clasp will do more good than to wait and cut the praise on marble, when the heart they would have cheered and lightened is beyond the touch of joy or pain. I think it is not only silly, but unchristian, to be so afraid of tellin’ our friends frankly how pleasant and admirable we think them, if we do think so. But let us not lie. Let us not praise what won’t stand praisin’. Now when Alzina Ann Rickerson told me that I was as pretty as any wax doll she ever see in her life—and if my intellect and Shakespeare’s intellect was laid side by side, Shakespeare’s would look weak and shiftless compared with mine—and when she said that my old winter bunnet that I had wore on and off for thirteen years was the most genteel and fashionable, and the loveliest piece of millionary she ever sot her eyes on, she was goin’ too fur. Why, that old bunnet wouldn’t hardly hold together to stand her praisin’. And she praised up everything. She flattered Kellup Cobb so, when he happened to come in there one mornin’, that it skairt him most to death.

He had been up by on his father’s business, and as he come along back he stopped the hearse and come in to see when Kitty was a comin’ back, and to see if he could borrow Josiah’s stun-bolt that afternoon to draw some stuns. He was goin’ to wait till Josiah come back from the factory to see about it, but Alzina Ann praised him up so, and looked so admiringly at him, that he dassent. As a general thing I think Kellup is afraider than he need to be of doin’ hurt and gettin’ wimmen in love with him, but now I’ll be hanged if I blame him for thinkin’ he was doin’ damage. Why, she praised him up to the very skies.

She pretended to think that his hair and whiskers and eyebrows was the natural color. They was a sort of a greenish color that mornin’—he had been a tamperin’ with ’em agin, and tryin’ experements. He had been a usin’ smartweed and sage, as I found out afterwards, and they bein’ yellow before, the two colors together made ’em a sort of a dark bottle-green—made him look as curious as a dog, and curiouser than any dog I ever laid eyes on.

But oh, how Alzina Ann did praise ’em up. You’d have thought, to heard her go on, that she had all her hull life been longin’ to ketch a glimpse of jest such colored hair and whiskers. She said they looked so strikin’, and she never had seen anything like ’em in her life before, which last I don’t doubt at all. And then she would glance out at the hearse, and tell him he looked so noble and impressive on it, it give him such a lofty, majestic look, so becomin’ to his style. And then she would branch off again and praise up his looks.

Why, I don’t wonder a mite that Kellup thought he was ensnarin’ her affections and doin’ harm.

He follered me out onto the back stoop, where I was feedin’ a chicken that the old hen had forsook, and I was bringin’ up as a corset. He follered me out there, and whispered, with a anxious look, that he was goin’ to start for home that minute, that he dassent wait another minute to see Josiah about the stun-bolt; and, says he; with a awful anxious look:

“I am afraid I have done hurt as it is, but Heaven knows I didn’t mean to.”

I threw the corset another handful of dough, and told him, in a encouragin’ tone, that “I guessed he hadn’t done much harm.”

“Why,” says he, “don’t you s’pose I could see for myself what I was a doin’? She was a gettin’ head over heels in love with me. And,” says he, frownin’ and knittin’ up his eyebrows:

“What good will it do to have another married woman a droopin’ round after me?”

KELLUP’S CONUNDRUM.

Says I, mechanically, as I put some fresh water on the corset’s dish:

“I thought you wanted to see Josiah about the stun-bolt, you said you needed it.”

“Yes, I need the stun-bolt, but I need a easy conscience more. I had ruther lug the stuns in my arms, and crack my back, and bruise my stomach, than crack the commandments and strain my principles. I see from her actions that I have got to leave at once, or no knowin’ what the consequences will be to her. I am afraid she will suffer now, suffer intensely. But what can a man do?” says he, frownin’ heavily. “They have got to go around some, and do errants. And if wimmen lay traps for ’em on every side, and make fools of themselves, what is a man to do? But I don’t want to do harm, Heaven knows I don’t.”

And he started for the gate almost on the run. And I was jest a goin’ in when Alzina Ann come out to the back door herself, and happenin’ to see the corset, she said “she should rather have it for a pet, and it was far handsomer and more valuable than any mockin’-bird, or canary, or parrot she ever laid eyes on.” And so she kep’ on in jest that way. And one mornin’ when she had been goin’ on dretfully that way, I took Josiah out one side and told him “I couldn’t bear to hear her go on so, and I believed there was sunthin’ wrong about it.”

“Oh, no,” says he, “she means every word she says. She is one of the loveliest creeters on earth. She is most a angel. Oh!” says he, dreamily, “What a sound mind she has got. How fur she can see into things.”

Says I, “I heard her a tellin’ you this mornin’ that you was one of the handsomest men she ever laid eyes on, and didn’t look a day over twenty-one.”

“Wall,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect, “she thinks so; she says jest exactly what she thinks.” And says he, in firm axents, “I am a good-lookin’ feller, Samantha—a crackin’ good-lookin’ chap; but I never could make you own up to it.”

I didn’t say nothin’, but my gray eye wandered up, and lighted on his bald head. It rested there searchin’ly and very coldly for a moment or two, and then says I sternly, “Bald heads and beauty don’t go together worth a cent. But you was always vain, Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “What if I wuz?” And says he, “She thinks different from what you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye in her head for beauty. She is very smart, very. And what she says, she means.”

“Wall,” says I, “I am glad you are so happy in your mind. But mark my words, you won’t always feel so neat about it, Josiah Allen, as you do now.”

Says he in a cross, surly way, “I guess I know what I do know.”

I hain’t a jealous hair in the hull of my foretop or back hair, but I thought to myself, I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s eyes opened; for I knew as well as I knew my name was Josiah Allen’s wife, that that woman didn’t think Josiah was so pretty and beautiful. But I didn’t see how I was goin’ to convince him, for he wouldn’t believe me when I told him she was a makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so there it was. But I held firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by her.

CASSANDRA’S TEA PARTY.

That very afternoon we was all invited to take tea with she that was Cassandra Allen, Miss Nathan Spooner, that now is. And we all went, Alzina Ann, Josiah, and me.

Cassandra didn’t use to be likely. She had a misfortune when she was a girl. It is six years old now. But all of a sudden she took a turn, and went to behavin’. She learnt the dress-maker’s trade, experienced religion, and jined the Methodist Church. And folks begun to make of her. I didn’t use to associate with her at all, Josiah didn’t want me to, though she is his 2nd cousin on his father’s side. But jist as quick as she went to behavin’, we went to makin’ of her. And the more she behaved, the more we made; till we make as much of her now as we do of any of the relation on my side, or on hisen. And last fall she was married to Nathan Spooner. She got acquainted with him about two years ago.

Nathan is a likely feller, all that ails him is he is bashful, too bashful for any sort of comfort. But Cassandra is proud-spirited, and holds him up, and I tell Cassandra “I dare say he’ll get over it by the time he gets to be a old man. I tell her “I shouldn’t wonder at all if by the time he got to be seventy or eighty, he would talk up quite well.” I try to make her feel well, and encourage her all I can.

NATHAN SPOONER.

But bein’ proud-spirited, it works her up awfully to have Nathan get over the fence, rather than meet a strange woman, and walk in the lot till he gets by her. And it mortified her dretfully, I s’pose, when she introduced him to our new minister and his wife, to have him instead of bowin’ to ’em, and speakin’, turn his back to ’em, and snicker.

NATHAN SNICKERS.

But he couldn’t help it, I told her he couldn’t. I was present at the time, and I could see, his mouth bein’ a little open, that his tongue was dry, and parched, and his eyes wild and sot in his head.

He has the worst of it, as I told Cassandra—it don’t hurt nobody else so bad as it does him. But I s’pose it has been almost the means of his death, time and agin—through his not dastin’ to call for anything to eat when he is away from home, and not dastin’ to eat it when it is on the table. And then again, sometimes, through his not dastin’ to stop eatin’ when he gets at it.

He went to Bobbets’ one day in the fall of the year,—it was a year ago this present fall. Cassandra was a sewin’ for Miss Bobbet. They had jest had some new corn ground, and they had a new corn puddin’ and milk for dinner.

Nathan had been to dinner jest before he went in there. His mother had had a boiled dinner, and mince pie, and etcetery—he had eat a awful dinner, and was so full he felt fairly uncomfortable. But Miss Bobbet urged him to set down and eat, and wouldn’t take no refusal. She thought he was refusin’ because he was bashful, and she urged him out of his way, telling him he must eat, and he, not dastin’ to refuse any longer, thought he would set down and eat a few mouthfuls, if he could, though it seemed to him as if he couldn’t get down another mouthful.

PUDDING AND MILK

PUDDING AND MILK.

But when he stopped, Cassandra, thinkin’ it was bashfulness that made him stop, and thinkin’ a good deal of him then—and wantin him to eat all the puddin’ he wanted, she told him she shouldn’t think he showed good manners at all, if he didn’t eat as much as she did, anyway. So he dassent do anything else then, only jest eat as long as they wanted him to, and he did. Miss Bobbet would press him to have his bowl filled up again with milk, and Cassandra would urge him to have a little more puddin’, and he not dastin’ to stop, after she had said what she had, I spose he eat pretty nigh three quarts. It almost killed him. He vomited all the way home, and was laid up bed-sick for more’n two weeks.

And he has destroyed his clothes dretfully. Now hats,—I spose it took pretty nigh all he could earn to keep himself in hats. When he would go to any new place, or evenin’ meetings or anything, he would muss ’em so, rub ’em, and everything—why, he couldn’t keep no nap on a hat at all, not for any length of time—he would rub ’em so, and poke at ’em[’em], and jab ’em, and wring ’em when he was feelin’ the worst. Why, he got holt of Josiah’s hat, thinkin’ it was hisen, one night at a church social; they appointed Nathan to some office, and he wrung that hat till there wasn’t no shape of a hat to it. When Josiah put it on to go home, it was a sight to behold. Anybody would have thought that it was the fashion in the Allen family to wear hats for night-caps, and this had been the family hat to sleep in for years. Josiah was for makin’ him pay for the wear and tear of it. But I wouldn’t hear a word to it. I told him breakin’ bruised reeds, or smokin’ flax, would be tender-hearted business compared to makin’ anybody pay for such sufferin’s as Nathan Spooner had suffered that night. Says I, “if he wrung one mite of comfort out o’ that hat, for pity sake don’t begrech it to him.”

THE FAMILY NIGHT-CAP.

Why, I have been so sorry for that feller that I didn’t know what to do. Now when he was a courtin’ Cassandra (and how he ever got up spunk enough to court a mouse, is a mystery to me), Cassandra used to sew for me, and he would come there evenin’s to see her, and set the hull evenin’ long and not say nothin’, but jest look at her, and twirl his thumbs one over the other. And I told Josiah “I felt bad for him, and it seemed as if his thumbs must give out after a while, and it looked fairly solemn to me, to see ’em a goin’ so, for evenin’ after evenin’, and week after week, without any change.”

And Josiah said there was a change. He said about the middle of the evenin’ he changed thumbs, and twirled ’em the other way.

I don’t know whether it was so or not. I couldn’t see no change; and I told Josiah I couldn’t.

How under the sun he ever got up courage to ask her to marry him, is another deep and mysterious mystery, and always has been. But there are strange things in this world that there hain’t no use tryin’ to pry into and explain. But in his feeble way, he courted her a good deal, and thought everything of her, anybody could see that. And he popped the question to her, or she to him, or it popped itself,—anyway it was popped, and they was married.

They said he suffered dretfully the day he was married, and acted strange and bad. They said he seemed to act sort o’ paralyzed and blind. And she had to take the lead, and take holt of his hand, and lead him up to the minister, instead of his leadin’ her.

Some made fun of it, but I didn’t. I told ’em I presumed he was fairly blind for the time bein’, and sort o’ numb, and didn’t sense what was passin’ round him.

NATHAN SOT DOWN.

NATHAN SOT DOWN.

It made it as bad agin for him, to think he fell jest after they was married. You see he sort ’o backed off to set down, for he needed rest. And feelin’ so weak and wobblin’ and sort o’ tottlin’, he didn’t back quite fur enough, and sot right down on the floor. It hurt him awfully, I s’pose, from their tell. He was tall, and they say he struck hard. But he was too bashful to have a doctor, or make any fuss, only jest set there where he wuz. Some think he would have sot there all night, and not tried to make a move towards gettin’ up at all. But Cassandra was proud-spirited, and helped him up onto his feet. But they said he acted jest exactly like a fool.

And I told ’em in reasonable axents “that I presumed he wuz a fool for the time bein’.” Says I, “When anybody’s senses are gone, they are a fool.” Says I, “It is jest as bad to be skairt out of ’em, as be born without ’em, as long as it lasts.”

But says I, “He knows enough when he hain’t skairt to death.” And he does. He is industrious, and so is she, and I shouldn’t wonder if they got along first-rate, and done well.

Wall, when we got there, Nathan was settin’ by the stove in the settin’-room. He was afraid of Alzina Ann, and was too bashful to set down, or stand up, or speak, or anything. And when she asked him “how his health was,” he didn’t say nothin’, but looked down on the floor, and under his chair, and into his hat, as if he was tryin’ to find his health, and drive it out, and make it tell how it was.

But she asked him over agin—she was perfectly heartless, or else she didn’t notice his sufferin’s. And the second time she asked him, he sort o’ looked under his chair agin, and into his coat pocket, and seemed to give up findin’ his health and makin’ it speak for him, so he said, sort o’ dry and husky, sunthin’ about bein’ “comfortable.”

Which was one of the biggest stories Nathan Spooner had told sence he j’ined the meetin’-house, for he wuzn’t comfortable; far from it. His face was red as blood, and he was more than half blind, I could see that by the looks of his mean. But after awhile he seemed to revive up a little. He wuzn’t afraid of me and Josiah, not very. And after Alzina Ann and Cassandra got engaged in talkin, he said quite a number of words to us, as rational and straight as anybody. But Alzina Ann had to bring back his sufferin’s agin, and worse than he had suffered.

I hadn’t said a word to Alzina Ann about Cassandra’s misfortune; I hadn’t mentioned the child to her. He is a dretful humbly child, about the humbliest boy I ever see in my life. He looks fairly pitiful he is so humbly, and he hain’t more than half-witted, I think. But Alzina Ann couldn’t keep still; she had to flatter somebody, or sunthin’, so she had to begin agin:

“How much! how much! that beautiful little boy looks like his pa! Don’t you think so?” says she to Cassandra.

And then she would look at Nathan, and then at the boy, in that rapt, enthusiastic way of her’n. And says she to Cassandra:

“Hain’t it a comfort to you to think he looks so much like his pa?”

CASSANDRA’S MISFORTUNE.

And Cassandra’s face would get red as blood, and I could see by her looks that she hadn’t the least idee what to say, or do, she was so awful wretched, and feerfully uncomfortable. And truly if Nathan Spooner could have sunk right down through the floor into the suller, right into the potato-ben, or pork-barrell, it would have been one of the most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed.

If she had said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann never’ll do that; she has to enlarge on her idees. And so she would keep a-askin’ Cassandra in that rapturous, admirin’ way of her’n, if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look and manners that his father had. And Cassandra’s face and Nathan’s would be as red as two red woolen shirts. And then Alzina Ann would look at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathan’s, which is a sort of a Roman one, and the best feature on his face, as Josiah says. She would look from one nose to the other as if she admired both of ’em so she couldn’t hardly stop lookin’ at ’em, and would ask Nathan “if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy resembled his pa?”

And Nathan didn’t say nothin’ but jest set there red as blood, his eyes fixed and glarin’ on the opposite wall, a watchin’ it as close and wishful as if he expected to see a relief party set out from it to befriend him, and shoot him down where he sot, or drag him off into captivity. Anything that would relieve him of his present sufferin’s he would have hailed gladly. I could see that by his mean.

But at supper-time worse was in store for him. Her supper was good—good enough for anybody. She haint got a great deal to do with, but bein’ a little afraid of Alzina Ann, and bein’ proud-spirited and wantin to make a good appearance, Cassandra had sent over and borrowed her mother-in-laws’s white-handled knives, and entirely unbeknown to Alzina Ann I had carried her over some tea-spoons and other things for her comfort, for if Cassandra means to do better, and try to get along and be respectable, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.

But all the time Cassandra was a settin’ the table, Nathan looked worse and worse; he looked so bad it didn’t seem as if we could keep him out of the suller. He realized what was in front of him.

You see Cassandra, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathan ask a blessin’. But he bein’ so uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they had company. He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on him. He looked more and more as if he would sink all the while she was a gettin’ the supper onto the table. And when she was a settin’ the chairs round the table he looked so bad that I didn’t know but what he would have to have help to get to the table. And he would give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks onto Cassandra that ever was, but she would shake her head at him, and look decided, and then he would look as if he would wilt right down agin.

So, when we got set down to the table, Cassandra give him a real firm look, and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and Cassandra, and me, and Josiah put on a becomin’ look for the occasion, and shet up our’n, when, all of a sudden, Alzina Ann—she never asked a blessin’ in her own house, and forgot that other folks did—she spoke out in a real loud, admirin’ tone, and says she:

“There! I will say it, I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in my hull life. White-handled knives, with a gilt of sun-flowers on ’em, is something I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But never, never did I see any that was so perfectly beautiful as these are.”

And she held her knife out at arm’s length, and looked at it admirin’ly, and almost rapturusly.

Nathan looked bad, dretful bad, for he see by Cassandra’s looks that she wuzn’t goin’ to set him free from the blessin’. And he sort o’ nestled round, and looked under the table, a wishful and melancholy look, as if he had hopes of findin’ a blessin’ there; as if he thought mebby there might be one a layin’ round loose on the floor that he could get holt of, and so be sot free himself. But we didn’t none on us reply to Alzina Ann, and she seemed to kind o’ quiet down, and Cassandra give Nathan another look, and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she, and me, and Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathan was jest beginnin’ agin, when Alzina Ann broke out afresh, and says:

“What wouldn’t I give if I owned some knives like them? What a proud and happy woman it would make me.”

BAD FOR NATHAN.

That rousted us all up agin, and never did I see—unless it was on a funeral occasion—a face look as Nathan’s face looked. Nobody could have blamed him a mite if he had gin up then, and not made another effort. But Cassandra bein’ so awful determined to do jest right, and start right in the married life, she winked to Nathan agin, as firm and decided a wink as I ever see wunk, and shet up her eyes, and Josiah and I done as she done, and shet up our’n.

And Nathan (feelin’ as if he must sink), got all ready to begin agin. He had jest got his mouth opened, when says Alzina Ann, in that rapturus way of her’n:

“Do tell me, Cassandra, how much did you give for these knives, and where did you get ’em?”

Then it was Cassandra’s turn to feel as if she must sink, for, bein’ so proud-spirited, it was like pullin’ out a sound tooth to tell Alzina Ann they was borrowed. But bein’ so sot in tryin’ to do right she would have up and told her. But I, feelin’ sorry for her, branched right off, and asked Nathan “if he layed out to vote republican or democrat.”

Cassandra sithed, and went to pourin’ out the tea. And Nathan, feelin’ so relieved, brightened up, and spoke up like a man, the first words he spoke out loud and plain, like a human bein’, that day—says he:

“If things turn out with me as I hope they will, I calc’late to vote for old Peter Cooper.”

I could see by the looks of Josiah’s mean that he was a gettin’ kinder sick of Alzina Ann, and (though I haint got a jealous hair in the hull of my back-hair and foretop) I didn’t care a mite if he wuz. But truly worse wuz to come.

After supper Josiah and me was a settin’ in the spare room close to the window, a lookin’ through Cassandra’s album, when we heard Alzina Ann and Cassandra out under the window a-lookin’ at the posy beds, when Alzina Ann says:

“You must excuse my lookin’ at you so much, Cassandra, but you are so lovely and fair-lookin’ that I can’t keep my eyes offen you. And what a noble-appearin’ husband you have got—perfectly splendid! And how pleasant it is here to your house—perfectly beautiful! Seein’ we are such friends to her, I feel free to tell you what a awful state I find Josiah Allen’s wife’s house in. Not a mite of a carpet on her settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look as that. She said it was up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t believe a word of it. I believe it was up for some other purpose, somethin’ she didn’t want to tell.

“And the curtains was down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first night in that condition. I might jest as well set up, for I could not sleep, it looked so. And when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they wuzn’t nothin’ but plain, white muslin. I should think she could afford something a little more decent than that for her spare room. And she hadn’t a mite of fruit cake in the house, only two kinds of common-lookin’ cake. She said Josiah forgot to give her my letter, and she didn’t get word I was comin’ till about ten minutes before I got there; but, between you and me, I never believed that for a minute. I believe they got up that story between ’em to excuse it off, things lookin’ so. If I wuzn’t such a friend of hern, and didn’t think such a sight of her, I wouldn’t mention it for the world. But I think everything of her, and everybody knows I do, so I feel free to talk about her.

“How humbly she has growed! Don’t you think so? And her mind seems to be kind o’ runnin’ down. For how under the sun she can think so much of that simple old husband of hern is a mystery to me, unless she is growin’ foolish. If it was your husband, Cassandra, nobody would wonder at it, such a splendid, noble-appearin’ gentleman as he is. But Josiah Allen was always a poor, insignificant-lookin’ creeter; and now he is the humbliest, and foolishest, and meachin’est-lookin’ creeter I ever see in human shape. And he looks as old as Grandfather Rickerson, every mite as old, and he is most ninety. And he is vain as a peahen.”

I jest glanced round at Josiah, and then instinctively I looked away agin. His countenance was perfectly awful. Truly, the higher we are up the worse it hurts us to fall down. Bein’ lifted up on such a height of vanity and vain-glory, and fallin’ down from it so sudden, it most broke his neck (speakin’ in a poetical and figurative way). I, myself, havin’ had doubts of her all the time, didn’t feel nigh so worked up and curious, it more sort o’ madded me, it kind o’ operated in that way on me. And so, when she begun agin to run Josiah and me down to the lowest notch, called us all to naught, made out we wuzn’t hardly fit to live, and was most fools, and then says agin:

“I wouldn’t say a word aginst ’em for the world if I wuzn’t such a friend to ’em—”

FACE TO FACE.

FACE TO FACE.

Then I riz right up, and stood in the open window; and it come up in front of me some like a pulpit, and I s’pose my mean looked considerable like a preacher’s when they get carried away with the subject, and almost by the side of themselves.

Alzina Ann quailed the minute she sot her eyes on me, as much or more than any minister ever made a congregation quail, and, says she, in tremblin’ tones:

“You know anybody will take liberties with a friend that they wouldn’t with anybody else.”

Says I, in deep, awful tones, “I never believed in knockin’ folks down to show off that we are intimate with ’em.”

“Wall,” says she, “you know I do think everything in the world of you. You know I shouldn’t have said a word aginst you if I wuzn’t such a warm friend of yourn.”

“Friend!” says I, in awful axents, “friend! Alzina Ann Rickerson, you don’t know no more about that word than if you never see a dictionary. You don’t know the true meanin’ of that word no more than a African babe knows about slidin’ down hill.”

Says I, “The Bible gives a pretty good idee of what it means: it speaks of a man layin’ down his life for his friend. Dearer to him than his own life. Do you s’pose such a friendship as that would be a mistrustin’ round, a tryin’ to rake up every little fault they could lay holt of, and talk ’em over with everybody? Do you s’pose it would creep round under windows and backbite and slander a Josiah?”

I entirely forgot for the moment that she had been a talkin’ about me, for truly abuse heaped upon my pardner seems ten times as hard to bear up under as if it was heaped upon me.

Josiah whispered to me: “That is right, Samantha! give it to her!” and, upheld by duty and that dear man, I went on, and says I:

“My friends, those I love and who love me, are sacred to me. Their well-being and their interest is as dear to me as my own. I love to have others praise them, prize them as I do; and I should jest as soon think of goin’ round tryin’ to rake and scrape sunthin’ to say aginst myself as aginst them.”

Agin I paused for breath, and agin Josiah whispered:

“That is right, Samantha! give it to her!”

Worshipin’ that man as I do, his words was far more inspirin’ and stimulatin’ to me than root beer. Agin I went on, and says I:

“Maybe it hain’t exactly accordin’ to Scripture, but there is somethin’ respectable in open enmity—in beginnin’ your remarks about anybody honestly, in this way: ‘Now I detest and despise that man, and I am goin’ to try to relieve my mind by talkin’ about him jest as bad as I can;’ and then proceed and tear him to pieces in a straightforward, manly way. I don’t s’pose such a course would be upheld by the ’postles. But there is a element of boldness and courage in it amountin’ almost to grandeur, when compared to this kind of talk: ‘I think everything in the world of that man. I think he is jest as good as he can be, and he hain’t got a better friend in the world than I am;’ and then go on, and say all you can to injure him.

“Why, a pirate runs up his skeleton and cross-bars when he is goin’ to rob and pillage. I think, Alzina Ann, if I was in your place I would make a great effort, and try and be as noble and magnanimous as a pirate.”

Alzina Ann looked like a white hollyhawk that had been withered by a untimely frost. But Cassandra looked tickled (she hadn’t forgot her sufferin’s, and the sufferin’s of Nathan Spooner). And my Josiah looked proud and triumphant in mean. And he told me in confidence, a goin’ home (and I wouldn’t wish it spoke of agin, for folks might think it was foolish in me to tell such little admirin’ speeches that a companion will make in moments of harmony and confidence). But he said that he hadn’t seen me look so good to him as I did when I stood there in the winder, not for much as thirteen years. Says he:

“Samantha, you looked almost perfectly beautiful.”

That man worships the ground I walk on, and I do hisen.

THE LORDS OF CREATION.

Josiah Allen is awful tickled to think he is a man. He has said so to me, time and agin. And I don’t wonder a mite at it. Men are first-rate creeters, and considerable good-lookin’. I have always said so. And they have such glorious chances to be noble and grand, and to work for the true and the right, that I don’t wonder a mite that Josiah feels just as he duz feel.

And when Josiah tells me how highly tickled he is he is a man—when he says it in a sort of a pensive and dreamy way, kinder miselanious like—I don’t resent it in him but on the contrary approve of it in him, highly. But once in a while he will get to feelin’ kind o’ cross and uppish, and say it to me in a sort of a twittin’ way, and boastin’.

Mebby he will begin by readin’ out loud to me sunthin’ against wimmen’s rights, in the World or almanac, or some other high-toned periodical; sometimes it will be awful cuttin’ arguments aginst wimmen. And after he gets through readin’ it he will speak out in such a sort of a humiliatin’ way about how awful tickled he is, he is a man, so he can vote, and help keep the glorious old state of New York on its firm basis of nobility, morality, and wise economy.

Why, says he to me the other afternoon (feelin’ fractious was the cause of his sayin’ it at the time), says he: “Wimmen are dretful simple creeters; gossipin’, weak, weak-minded, frivolous bein’s; extravagant, given to foolish display. They don’t mind the cost of things if they can only make a big show. So different from men, they be. Why,” says he proudly and boastfully, “you never in your life ketched a man gossipin’ over their neighbors’ affairs. You never see ’em meddlin’ the least mite with scandal and evil talkin’. Men are economical, sound-minded. They spend only jest what they need, what is useful—nothin’ more, not a cent more. Why,” says he, “take it with wimmen’s foolish extravagance and love of display, what would the glorious old state of New York come to if it was sot under her rain? And they are so weak, too,—wimmen be. Why, old Error would take ’em by the nose” (Josiah, I think, is a practicin’ allegory. He uses flowery rhetoricks and simelys as much agin as he used to use ’em.) And he repeated agin, with a haughty look: “Old Error would take ’em by the nose, as it were, and lead ’em into all sorts of indiscretions, and weakness, and wickedness, before they knew it.

“Why, if we men of New York state had a woman’s incapability of grapplin’ with wrong, and overthrowin’ of it: if we had her love of scandal and gossip; if we had her extravagance and love of display, where would the glorious old state of New York be to-day? Where would her morals be? Where would her finankle and money affairs be?”

And Josiah leaned back in his chair, and crossed his legs over each other, as satisfied and contented a crossin’ as I ever see, and says agin:

“If I was ever proud and tickled about anything in my life, Samantha Allen, I am tickled to think I am a man.”

He had been readin’ a witherin’ piece out of the almanac to me—an awful deep, skareful piece aginst wimmen’s suffrage. And feelin’ cross and fractious, he did look so awful overbearin’ and humiliatin’ onto me, on account of my bein’ a woman, that I sprunted right up and freed my mind to him. I am very close-mouthed naturally, and say but very little, but I can’t stand everything.

While he was talkin’ I had been a fixin’ a new tow mop that I had been a spinnin’ into my patented mop-stick, and had jest got it done. And I riz right up and pinted with it at a picture of the new capitol at Albany that hung over the sink. It was a noble and commandin’ gesture (though hard to the wrist). It impressed him dretfully, I could see it did. I had that sort of a lofty way with me as I gestured, and went on in awful tones to say:

A MONUMENT OF MEN’S ECONOMY.

A MONUMENT OF MEN’S ECONOMY.

“When you look at that buildin’, Josiah Allen, no wonder you talk about wimmen’s extravagance and foolish love of display, and the econimy and firm common sense of the male voters of the state of New York, and their wise expenditure of public money. When you and a passel of other men get together and vote to build a house costin’ nine or ten millions of dollars to make laws in so small that wimmen might well be excused for thinkin’ they was made in a wood-shed or behind a barn-door.”

Says I, lowerin’ down my mop-stick, for truly my arm was weary—gesturin’ in eloquence with a mop-stick is awful fatiguin’—says I, “As long as that monument of man’s wisdom and econimy stands there, no man need to be afraid that a woman will ever dast to speak about wantin’ to have any voice in public affairs, any voice in the expenditure of her own property and income tax. No, she won’t dast to do it, for man’s thrifty, prudent common sense and superior econimy has been shown in that buildin’ to a extent that is fairly skareful.”

It is a damper onto anybody when they have been a talkin’ sarcastical and ironical, to have to come out and explain what you are a doin’. But I see that I had got to, for ever sense I had lowered my mop-stick and axent, Josiah had looked chirker and chirker, and now he sot there, lookin’ down at his almanac, as satisfied and important as a gander walkin’ along in front of nineteen new goslin’s. He thought I was a praisin’ men. And says I, comin’ out plain, “Look up here, Josiah Allen, and let me wither you with my glance! I am a talkin’ sarcastical, and would wish to be so understood!”

But I was so excited that before I had fairly got out of that ironical tone, I fell into it agin deeper than ever (though entirely unbeknown to me), and says I:

“As to woman’s love of gossip and scandal, and man’s utter aversion to it, let your mind fall back four years, Josiah Allen, if you think it is strong enough to bear the fall.”

And I went on in a still more ironicler tone. I don’t know as I ever see a more ironicler axent in my hull life than mine was as I went on, and says:

“How sweet it must be for men to look back and reflect on it, that while wimmen gloated over the details of that scandalous gossip, not a man throughout the nation ever gave it a thought. And while female wimmen, crazy and eager-eyed, stood in knots at their clubs and on street corners holdin’ each other by the bunnet-strings a talkin’ it over, and rushed eagerly to the post-office to try to get the latest details, how sweet to think that the manly editor all over the land stood up in man’s noble strength and purity, and with a firm eye on the public morals and the welfare of the young and innocent, and happily ignorant, refused to gratify woman’s rampent curiosity, and said nothing of the matter, not a word, in editorial or news column; but all through those long months filled up their pages with little moral essays, and cuttin’ articles on their hatred of gossip and scandal. And when, with unsatisfied, itchin’ ears, wives would question their husbands concernin’ the chief actors in the drama, their pure-minded husbands would rebuke them and say, ‘Cease, woman, to trouble me. We know them not. We have as yet spake no word upon the subject, and we will not be led into speakin’ of it by any woman, not even the wife of our youth’”[a]youth’”]

ON THE RAGGED EDGE.

Josiah looked meachener and meachener, till, as I got through, it seemed as if he had got to the very bounds of meach. He knew well how many times that old mare had gone to Jonesville for the last World, long before its time, so in hopes it would be a little ahead of its time, so he could get the latest gossip and scandal, and get ahead of old Gowdey, who took the Times, and old Cypher, who took the Sun. He knew jest how that post-office was fairly blocked up with men, pantin’ and sweaty with runnin’, every time the other mails come in. And he knew well, Josiah Allen did, how he and seven or eight other old Methodist brethren got to talkin’ about it so engaged out under the meetin’-house shed, one day, that they forgot themselves, and never come into meetin’ at all. And we wimmen sisters had to go out there to find ’em, after the meetin’ was over. He remembered it, Josiah Allen did, I see that by his mean.

UNDER THE MEETING-HOUSE SHED.

He didn’t say a word, but sot there smit and conscience-struck. And then I dropped my ironical tone, and took up my awful one, that I use a talkin’ on principle. I took up my very heaviest and awfulest one, as I resumed and continued on.

“I would talk if I was in your place, Josiah Allen, about wimmen’s ruinin’ old New York State if they voted. I would soar off into simelys if I was in your place, and talk about their bein’ led by the nose into wickedness—and grow eloquent over their weakness and inability to grapple with error—when ten hundred thousand male voters of the state stand with their hands in their pockets, or whittlin’ shingles, or tradin’ jack-knives, or readin’ almanacs, and etcetery, and let an evil go right on in their midst that would have disgraced old Sodom.

“Why, it is a wonder to me that the pure waters of old Oneida don’t fairly groan as they wash up on the shores that they can’t cleanse from this impurity, but would if they could, I know. She don’t approve of it, that old lake don’t—she don’t approve of anything of that kind, no more than I do. She and I and the other wimmen of the state would make short work of such iniquities if we had our say.

“But there them ten hundred thousand male voters stand, calm and happy, all round the Community, in rows and clusters; porin’ over almanacs, and whistlin’ new and various whistles (Josiah had broke out into a very curious whistle) and contemplate the sin with composure and contentment.

“And[“And] superintendents of Sabbath-schools and Young Men’s Christian Associations will make excursions to admire them and their iniquity, to imbibe bad thoughts and principles unconsciously, but certainly, as one inevitably must when they behold a crime masked in beauty, in garments of peace and order and industry. And railroad managers will carry the young, the easily-impressed, and the innocent at half price, so eager, seemin’ly, that they should behold sin wreathin’ itself in flowers, guilt arrayin’ itself in festal robes to lure the unwary footsteps.”

“Wall,” says Josiah, “I guess I’ll go out and milk.”

And I told him he had better.

AN EXERTION AFTER PLEASURE.

Wall, the very next mornin’ Josiah got up with a new idee in his head. And he broached it to me to the breakfast table. They have been havin’ sights of pleasure exertions here to Jonesville lately. Every week a’most they would go off on a exertion after pleasure, and Josiah was all up on end to go too.

That man is a well-principled man as I ever see, but if he had his head he would be worse than any young man I ever see to foller up picnics and 4th of Julys and camp-meetin’s and all pleasure exertions. But I don’t encourage him in it. I have said to him time and again: “There is a time for everything, Josiah Allen, and after anybody has lost all their teeth and every mite of hair on the top of their head, it is time for ’em to stop goin’ to pleasure exertions.”

But good land! I might jest as well talk to the wind! If that man should get to be as old as Mr. Methusler, and be goin’ on a thousand years old, he would prick up his ears if he should hear of a exertion. All summer long that man has beset me to go to ’em, for he wouldn’t go without me. Old Bunker Hill himself hain’t any sounder in principle than Josiah Allen, and I have had to work head-work to make excuses and quell him down. But last week they was goin’ to have one out on the lake, on a island, and that man sot his foot down that go he would.

We was to the breakfast-table a talkin’ it over, and says I:

“I shan’t go, for I am afraid of big water, anyway.”

Says Josiah: “You are jest as liable to be killed in one place as another.”

Says I, with a almost frigid air, as I passed him his coffee: “Mebby I shall be drounded on dry land, Josiah Allen, but I don’t believe it.”

Says he, in a complainin’ tone: “I can’t get you started onto a exertion for pleasure any way.”

Says I, in a almost eloquent way: “I don’t believe in makin’ such exertions after pleasure. As I have told you time and agin, I don’t believe in chasin’ of her up. Let her come of her own free will. You can’t ketch her by chasin’ after her no more than you can fetch up a shower in a drowth by goin’ out doors and runnin’ after a cloud up in the heavens above you. Sit down and be patient, and when it gets ready the refreshin’ rain-drops will begin to fall without none of your help. And it is jest so with pleasure, Josiah Allen; you may chase her up over all the oceans and big mountains of the earth, and she will keep ahead of you all the time; but set down and not fatigue yourself[yourself] a thinkin’ about her, and like as not she will come right into your house unbeknown to you.”

“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll have another griddle-cake, Samantha.”

And as he took it, and poured the maple-syrup over it, he added gently, but firmly:

“I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have you present at it, because it seems jest to me as if I should fall overboard durin’ the day.”

Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin’ could stir me up like that one speech. For though I hain’t no hand to coo, and don’t encourage him in bein’ spoony at all, he knows that I am wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.

Wall, the day before the exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a errant, and I asked him if he was goin’ to the exertion; and he said he would like to go, but he dassent.

“Dassent!” says I. “Why dassent you?”

“Why,” says he, “how would the rest of the wimmen round Jonesville feel if I should pick out one woman and wait on her?” Says he bitterly: “I hain’t perfect, but I hain’t such a cold-blooded rascal as not to have any regard for wimmen’s feelin’s. I hain’t no heart to spile all the comfort of the day for ten or a dozen wimmen.”

“Why,” says I, in a dry tone, “one woman would be happy accordin’ to your tell.”

“Yes, one woman happy, and ten or fifteen gauled—bruised in the tenderest place.”

“On their heads?” says I enquirin’ly.

“No,” says he, “their hearts. All the girls have probable had more or less hopes that I would invite ’em—make a choice of ’em. But when the blow was struck, when I had passed ’em by and invited some other, some happier woman, how would them slighted ones feel? How do you s’pose they would enjoy the day, seein’ me with another woman, and they droopin’ round without me? That is the reason, Josiah Allen’s wife, that I dassen’t go. It hain’t the keepin’ of my horse through the day that stops me. For I could carry a quart of oats and a little jag of hay in the bottom of the buggy. If I had concluded to pick out a girl and go, I had got it all fixed out in my mind how I would manage. I had thought it over, while I was ondecided, and duty was a strugglin’ with me. But I was made to see where the right way for me lay, and I am goin’ to foller it. Joe Purday is goin’ to have my horse, and give me seven shillin’s for the use of it and its keepin’. He come to hire it just before I made up my mind that I hadn’t ort to go.

“Of course it is a cross to me. But I am willin’ to bear crosses for the fair sect. Why,” says he, a comin’ out in a open, generous way, “I would be willin’, if necessary for the general good of the fair sect—I would be willin’ to sacrifice ten cents for ’em, or pretty nigh that, I wish so well to ’em. I hain’t that enemy to ’em that they think I am. I can’t marry ’em all, Heaven knows I can’t, but I wish ’em well.”

“Wall,” says I, “I guess my dish-water is hot; it must be pretty near bilin’ by this time.”

And he took the hint and started off. I see it wouldn’t do no good to argue with him, that wimmen didn’t worship him. For when a feller once gets it into his head that female wimmen are all after him, you might jest as well dispute the wind as argue with him. You can’t convince him nor the wind—neither of ’em—so what’s the use of wastin’ breath on ’em. And I didn’t want to spend a extra breath that day, anyway, knowin’ I had such a hard day’s work in front of me, a finishin’ cookin’ up provisions for the exertion, and gettin’ things done up in the house so I could leave ’em for all day.

We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was 15 miles from Jonesville, and the old mare bein’ so slow, we had got to start an hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first on’t, that I had jest as lives set up all night, as to be routed out at two o’clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin’ that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that we would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did. So we went to bed the sun an hour high. And I was truly tired enough to lay down, for I had worked dretful hard that day, almost beyond my strength. But we hadn’t more’n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop at the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin’. Elder Bamber and his family, and Deacon Dobbins’es folks.

ROUTED OUT.

Josiah vowed that he wouldn’t stir one step out of that bed that night. But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin’ on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I hain’t deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on, before they came in, I wouldn’t tell ’em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn’t took my night-cap off. They looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin’. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin’. But when Josiah come out of the bedroom with what little hair he has got standin’ out in every direction, no two hairs a layin’ the same way, and one of his galluses a hangin’ most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told ’em. I thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’es folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’; so they never went home till after ten o’clock.

“MURDER WILL OUT.”

It was most eleven when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin’ into a drowse, I heerd the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that rousted Josiah up, and he thought he heerd the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a marchin’[marchin’] round most all night.

And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin’, and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated, and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that Josiah was a drowndin’, and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin’ for him. It started me so, that I jist ketched holt of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, “What does ail you, Samantha? I haint been asleep before, to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is.”

And then he got out of bed again, and went and looked at the clock. It was half past one, and he said “He didn’t believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn’t miss that for nothin’.”

“Exertion!” says I, in a awful cold tone. “I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell.”

SAMANTHA’S DREAM.

But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a goin’ to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black gingham and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up. So, jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.

And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons I had been a makin’ for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin’ up a milatary company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red stripe down the sides—a kind of a uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to ’em, and says he:

“I will wear ’em, Samantha; they look so dressy.”

Says I: “They hain’t hardly done. I was goin’ to stitch that red stripe on the left leg on again. They hain’t finished as they ort to be, and I would not wear ’em. It looks vain in you.”

Says he: “I will wear ’em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once.”

I didn’t contend with him. Thinks I: we are makin’ fools of ourselves by goin’ at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself, by wearin’ them blue pantaloons, I won’t stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto ’em, so I felt that I had got to wash ’em, anyway, before Thomas J. took ’em to wear. So he put ’em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of ’em. The basket wouldn’t hold ’em all, so Josiah had to put a bottle of red ross-berry jell into the pocket of his dress-coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons and knives and forks, in his pantaloons and breast-pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land! he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him to, he felt so neat about goin’, and boasted so on what a splendid exertion it was goin’ to be.

We got to the lake about eight o’clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep’ a comin’, and before ten o’clock we all got there.

The young folks made up their minds they would stay and eat their dinner in a grove on the mainland. But the majority of the old folks thought it was best to go and set our tables where we laid out to in the first place. Josiah seemed to be the most rampant of any of the company about goin’. He said he shouldn’t eat a mouthful if he didn’t eat it on that island. He said, what was the use of goin’ to a pleasure exertion at all if you didn’t try to take all the pleasure you could. So about twenty old fools of us sot sail for the island.

FACING TROUBLE.

I had made up my mind from the first on’t to face trouble, so it didn’t put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins, in gettin’ into the boat, stepped onto my new lawn dress, and tore a hole in it as big as my two hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin’ felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when, jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off and blew it away out onto the lake. He had made up his mind to look so pretty that day that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat down onto him; and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have seemed more shady.

BOUND FOR THE ISLAND.

But I did the best I could by him. I stood by him and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin’ it on, I see there was sunthin’ more than mortification ailed him. The lake was rough and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginnin’ to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad, too. Oh! the wretchedness of that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness in so short a time as I did on that pleasure exertion to that island. I s’pose our bein’ up all night a’most made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.

I sot right down on a stun and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After a while I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little. Though it was tejus work to walk, anyway, for we had landed on a sand-bar, and the sand was so deep it was all we could do to wade through it, and it was as hot as hot ashes ever was.

Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The butter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies and tarts and delicate cake and cookies looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of the company’s did.

But we did the best we could, and the chicken and cold meat bein’ more solid had held together quite well, so there was some pieces of it considerable hull, though it was all very wet and soppy. But we separated ’em out as well as we could, and begun to make preparations to eat. We didn’t feel so animated about eatin’ as we should if we hadn’t been so sick to our stomachs. But we felt as if we must hurry, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the way the sun scalded.

ON THE BEACH.

There wasn’t a man or a woman there but what the presperation and sweat jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy-lookin’ set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn’t one of us but what had the rheumatiz more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.

After we got the fire started, I histed a umberell and sot down under it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.

Wall, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, where is Josiah? I hadn’t seen him since we had got there. I riz up and asked the company almost wildly if they had seen my companion, Josiah.

They said, “no, they hadn’t.”

But Celestine Wilkin’s little girl, who had come with her grandpa and grandma Gowdy, spoke up, and says she:

“I seen him goin’ off towards the woods. He acted dretful strange, too; he seemed to be a walkin’ off sideways.”

“Had the sufferin’s he had undergone made him delerious?” says I to myself; and then I started off on the run towards the woods, and old Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdy, and Sister Bamber, and Deacon Dobbins’es wife all rushed after me.

Oh, the agony of them two or three minutes! my mind so distracted with fourbodin’s, and the presperation and sweat a pourin’ down. But all of a sudden, on the edge of the woods, we found him. Miss Gowdy weighin’ a little less than me, mebby 100 pounds or so, had got a little ahead of me. He sot backed up against a tree, in a awful cramped position, with his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable. But when Miss Gowdy hollered out:

“Oh, here you be. We have been skairt about you. What is the matter?”

He smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he:

“Oh, I thought I would come out here and meditate a spell. It was always a real treat to me to meditate.”

A DISCOURAGED EXCURSIONIST.

Just then I come up a pantin’ for breath, and as the wimmen all turned to face me, Josiah scowled at me, and shook his fist at them four wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions of his hands towards ’em. But the minute they turned round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin’.

Says I, “What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you off here for?”

“I am a meditatin’, Samantha.”

Says I, “Do you come down and jine the company this minute, Josiah Allen. You was in a awful takin’ to come with ’em, and what will they think to see you act so?”

The wimmen happened to be a lookin’ the other way for a minute, and he looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest motions towards ’em; but the minute they looked at him he would pretend to smile, that deathly smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, we’re goin’ to get dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain.”

“Oh, wall,” says he, “a little rain, more or less, hain’t a goin’ to hender a man from meditatin’.”

I was wore out, and says I, “Do you stop meditatin’ this minute, Josiah Allen!”

Says he, “I won’t stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain’t a goin’ to break it up.”

Jest at that minute they called to me from the shore to come that minute to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But oh! the gloom of my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions and looks of Josiah wore on me. Had the sufferin’s of the night, added to the trials of the day, made him crazy? I thought more’n as likely as not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days.

And then, oh how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the smoke so into my face that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And then a perfect swarm of yellow wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick as we laid ’em down, so you couldn’t touch a thing without runnin’ a chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time! the distress of that pleasure exertion! But I kep’ to work, and when we had got dinner most ready, I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there, and her Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would try to dig one to give him. So we started up the hill again. He set in the same position, all huddled up, with his leg under him, as uncomfortable a lookin’ creeter as I ever see. But when we both stood in front of him, he pretended to look careless and happy, and smiled that sick smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, dinner is ready.”

“Oh! I hain’t hungry,” says he. “The table will probable be full. I had jest as lieves wait.”

“Table full!” says I. “You know jest as well as I do that we are eatin’ on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute.”

“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet, “we can’t get along without you.”

“Oh!” says he, with that ghastly smile, a pretendin’ to joke, “I have got plenty to eat here—I can eat muskeeters.”

The air was black with ’em, I couldn’t deny it.

“The muskeeters will eat you, more likely,” says I. “Look at your face and hands; they are all covered with ’em.”

“Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don’t begrech ’em. I hain’t small enough, nor mean enough, I hope, to begrech ’em one good meal.”

Miss Bobbet started off in search of her wild turnip, and after she had got out of sight Josiah whispered to me with a savage look, and a tone sharp as a sharp axe:

“Can’t you bring forty or fifty more wimmen up here? You couldn’t come here a minute, could you, without a lot of other wimmen tight to your heels?”

I begun to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet had got her wild turnip and some spignut, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then Josiah told me all about why he had gone off by himself alone, and why he had been a settin’ in such a curious a position all the time since we had come in sight of him.

A DESPERATE SITUATION.

A DESPERATE SITUATION..

It seems he had sot down on that bottle of rass-berry jell. That red stripe on the side wasn’t hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn’t fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin’ at ’em to try to wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein’ sewed on a machine, that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he had walked off sideways towards the woods for. But Josiah Allen’s wife hain’t one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned ’em up as well as I could, and I didn’t say a word to hurt his feelin’s, only I jest said this to him, as I was a fixin’ em: I fastened my grey eye firmly and almost sternly onto him, and says I:

“Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?” Says I, “You was determined to come.”

“Throw that in my face agin, will you? What if I was? There goes a pin into my leg! I should think I had suffered enough without your stabbin’ of me with pins.”

“Wall then, stand still, and not be a caperin’ round so. How do you s’pose I can do anything with you a tousin’ round so?”

“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”

I fixed ’em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and there they was all covered with jell, too. What to do I didn’t know. But finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up corner-ways as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind, and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he wouldn’t, and I told him if he wouldn’t that he must make his own excuses to the company about wearin’ the shawl. So he told ’em he always loved to wear summer shawls; he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink all the time he was a sayin’ it. They all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin’ as if he had stole sheep—and meachin’er—and he never took a minute’s comfort, nor I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the shore, and so was I. And jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain began to pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time. My lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bonnet. And I says to Josiah:

“This bonnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy some new ones.”

“Wall! wall! who said you wouldn’t?” he snapped out.

But it wore on him. Oh! how the rain poured down. Josiah havin’ nothin’ but a handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a apron to put on a gettin’ dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on his head. But says he, firmly:

“I hain’t proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin’ out with a pink apron on for a hat.”

“Wall then,” says I, “get as wet as sop if you had ruther.”

I didn’t say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down; the wind howled at us; the old mare went slow; the rheumatiz laid holt of both of us; and the thought of the new bonnet and dress was a wearin’ on Josiah, I knew.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

There wasn’t a house for the first seven miles, and after we got there I thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had got to get home to milk, anyway, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as thirteen miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward, with the rain drippin’ offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his blue pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:

“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”

THE END OF THE EXERTION.

He give the old mare a awful cut, and says he: “I’d like to know what you want to be so agrevatin’ for.”

I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud-puddle, I says to him:

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

And I’ll bet he will. I hain’t afraid to bet a ten cent bill that that man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a pleasure exertion.

A VISIT TO THE CHILDREN.

It was a fair and lovely forenoon, and I thought we would go and spend the day with the childern. Kitty Smith had gone the day before to visit a aunt on her mother’s side to Log London. She was a layin’ out to stay 3 or 4 weeks, and I declare, it seemed lonesome as a dog—and lonesomer. And I told Josiah that I guessed we would go to Jonesville and visit the childern, for we hadn’t been there to stay all day with ’em for a number of weeks. He sort o’ hung back, and said he didn’t know how to spend the time. But I only says, decided like and firm, and in a solemn and warnin’ way:

“You can do as you are a mind to, Josiah Allen, and as your conscience will let you. But croup is round, that I know, and I worried last night a good deal about little Samantha Joe.”

Says he: “I will hitch up the old mare this minute, Samantha, and do you throw your things on as quick as you can.” And he started for the barn almost on the run.

My natural nature is very truthful and transparent,—almost like rain-water,—and little figurative expressions like these are painful to me—very. But every woman who has a man to deal with for above twenty years will know that they have to use ’em in order to move men as men ort to be moved.

MOVING JOSIAH.

I won’t come right out and lie for nobody—man or beast. Croup was round promiscus in Jonesville, and I had worried about little Samantha Joe. But my conscience told me, as I tied up my back hair, and hooked up my dress, that I had talked in a sort of a parable way. And it smote me; not so hard as it had smote; but hardish.

And if there ever was a old tyrant on the face of the earth, my conscience is one. It won’t let me do nothin’ the least mite out of the way without poundin’ me almost to death. Sometimes I get fairly tuckered out with it.

Wall, I had jest finished hookin’ up my dress, and was a pinnin’ on my collar at the lookin’-glass, when, happenin’ to throw one of the eyes of my spectacles out of the window, I see Kellup Cobb a drivin’ up; and he hitched the hearse to the front gate, and come in.

He looked quite well for him. His hair and whiskers was a good, dark, tan color, bearin’ a little on the orange. Quite a becomin’ color to him, he bein’ so saller.

He inquired where Kitty was. And then he wanted to know most the first thing he said, and his mean looked anxious as he said it, “If her health was a keepin’ up?”

“Why, yes,” says I, “why shouldn’t it?”

“Wall,” says he, “I was obleeged to go away on business, and couldn’t get here last week, and I didn’t know how she would take it. I should have wrote to her,” says he, “but not havin’ quite made up my mind whether I would marry her or not, I thought it would be cruel to her to pay her such a close attention as a letter would be. It wuzn’t the postage that I minded. Three cents wouldn’t have stood in the way of my writin’ to her, if I had made up my mind full and complete.

“But,” says he, a knittin’ up his forward hard, “them two old reasons that did stand in the way of my marryin’ stands there now—stands there a headin’ of me off. It hain’t so much because she is a poor girl that I hesitate. No, that wouldn’t influence me much, for she is sound and healthy, good to work, and would pay her way. No, it is them wimmen! What will be done with the rest of the wimmen that I shall have to disapinte?

“But,” says he, lookin’ gloomy into the oven, “I have jest about made up my mind that I will marry her, whether or no, and leave the event to Providence. If I do, they’ll have to stand it somehow. They hadn’t ort to expect, and if they used a mite of reason they wouldn’t expect, that a man would sacrifice himself always, and keep single forever, ruther than hurt their feelin’s.”

Says he, lookin’ as bitter and gloomy into that oven as a oven was ever looked into, “Even if ten or a dozen of ’em die off, the law can’t touch me for it, for if ever a man has been careful, I have been. Look at my clothes, now,” says he, lookin’ down on himself with a sort of a self-righteous, admirin’ sort of a look, “I wore these old clothes to-day jest out of solid principle and goodness towards wimmen. It wuzn’t to be savin’, and because it looked like rain. No, I knew I had got to be round amongst wimmen a good deal, to-day, a settlin’ up accounts, and so I wore this old overcoat of father’s. I have got a brand new one, but I wouldn’t wear it round amongst ’em.

DRESSED FOR THE OCCASION.

“I am on my guard, and they can’t come back on me for damages. They have only got themselves to blame if they are ondone. They might have realized that they couldn’t all have got me. And I have jest about made up my mind that I will run the resk and marry her. She is to Log London, you say. It happens jest right,” says he, a brightenin’ up.

“There is a funeral down that way, to-morrow, not more than thirteen or fourteen miles from there, and I will go round that way on my way back, and call and see her.”

I declare his talk sickened me so that I was fairly sick to my stomach. It was worse than thoroughwort or lobelia, and so I told Josiah afterwards. But I didn’t say a word back to him, for I knew I might jest as well try to convince the wind right in a whirlwind that it hadn’t better blow, as to convince him that he was a fool.

But, as he got up to go, I told him that I had a little mite of business of my own with him. You see our new minister, Elder Bamber, is a likely feller as ever drawed the breath of life, and hard-workin’—couldn’t get a cent of his pay from the meetin’-house. They had got into a kind of a quarrel, the men had, and wouldn’t pay what they had signed. And I proposed to the women, the female sisters, that we should try to get him up a present of 50 dollars to last ’em through the storm—the meetin’-house storm. For they was fairly sufferin’ for provisions, and clothes, and stuff. And as Kellup was a member of the same meetin’-house, and talked and sung powerful in conference meetin’s, I thought it wouldn’t be no more than right for me to tackle him, and get him to pay a little sunthin’ towards it. So I tackled him.

“Wall, Sister Allen,” says he, in that hypocritical, sneakin’ way of hisen (he was always powerful at repeatin’ Scriptural texts), “I can say with Peter, ‘Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I will give unto thee.’”

“Wall, what is it?” says I. “What are you goin’ to give?”

Says he, “I will work for the cause. If religion is worth anything,” says he, a rollin’ up the whites of his eyes, “it is worth workin’ for—it is worth makin’ sacrifices for.”

“So I think,” says I, in a very dry tone. “And I want a half a dollar out of you.”

“No!” says he, kinder puttin’ his hand over his pocket, as if he was afraid a cent would drop out of it. “No! I will do better than that. To-night is our conference meetin’, and I will talk powerful on the subject.”

Says I, coldly: “Wind is a powerful element, but it hain’t a goin’ to blow comfort into the Elder’s household, nor meat and flour into his empty buttery-shelves, nor fire-wood into his wood-box. Song and oritery are good in their place, but they hain’t goin’ to feed the starvin’ or clothe the naked.” Says I, in more reasonable tones: “As I said, wind is good in its place—I hain’t a word to say aginst it—but jest at the present time money is goin’ to do the Elder more good than the same amount of wind can.” And says I, in the same firm but mild tone: “I want a half a dollar out of you.” Says I: “The Elder is fairly sufferin’ for things to eat and drink and wear. And you know,” says I, “that if ever there was a good, earnest, Christian man, it is Elder Bamber. He is a Christian from the top of his head to the sole of his boots. He don’t wear his religion on the top of his head for a hat, and take it off Sunday nights. It goes clear through him, and works out from the inside.”

“Yes,” says Kellup, a clutchin’ his pocket with a firmer grip, “he is a worthy man, and I should think the thought of his noble and lofty mission would be meat and drink to him. It probable is. It would be to me—and clothin’. Oh!” says he, a rollin’ up his eyes still further in his head, “oh! the thought of savin’ souls; what a comfort that must be to the Elder; what a rich food for him.”

Says I, in colder tones than I had used yet, for I was fairly wore out with him: “The Elder can’t eat souls, and if he could he would starve to death on such souls as your’n, if he eat one every five minutes.”

He didn’t say nothin’ more, but onhitched his hearse and started off. I don’t know but he was mad, and don’t care. But though I didn’t get a cent from him or his father, I raised 50 dollars with my own hands and the might of my shoulder-blades, and sent it to him in a letter marked, “From friends of religion and the Elder.”

Wall, jest as Josiah driv up with the old mare, a hull load of company driv up from the other way—come to spend the day. I was disappinted, but I didn’t murmur. I took ’em as a dispensation, killed a fat duck, and made considerable of a fuss; done well by ’em. They come from a distance, and had to start for home the sun 2 hours high. And I told Josiah it was so pleasant I guessed we would go to Jonesville then, and he (havin’ that babe on his mind) consented to at once and immediately. So we sot off. About half a mile this side of Jonesville we met Thomas J. and Maggie jest a settin’ off for a ride. We stopped our 2 teams and visited a spell back and forth. I wouldn’t let ’em go back home, as they both offered and insisted on, but made an appintment to take dinner with ’em the next day, Providence and the weather permittin’. And then we drove on to Whitfield’s. And I don’t never want to see a prettier sight than I see as we driv up.

A ROADSIDE VISIT.

There Tirzah Ann sot out on the portico, all dressed up in a cool mull dress. It was one I had bought her before she was married, but it was washed and done up clean and fresh, and looked as good as new. It was pure white, with little bunches of blue forget-me-nots on it, and she had a bunch of the same posys and some pink rose-buds in her hair, and on the bosom of her frock. There is a hull bed of ’em in the yard. She is a master hand for dressin’ up and lookin’ pretty, but at the same time is very equinomical, and a first-rate housekeeper. She looked the very picture of health and enjoyment—plump and rosy, and happy as a queen; and she was a queen. Queen of her husband’s heart; and settin’ up on that pure and lofty throne of constant and deathless love, she looked first-rate, and felt so.

A HAPPY HOME.

It had been a very warm day, nearly hot, and Whitfield I s’pose had come home kinder tired. So he had stretched himself out at full length on the grass in front of the portico, and there he lay with his hands under his head, a laughin’, and a lookin’ up into Tirzah Ann’s face as radiant and lovin’ as if she was the sun and he a sun-flower. But that simely, though very poetical and figurative, don’t half express the good looks, and health, and rest, and happiness on both their faces, as they looked at each other, and then at that babe.

That most beautifulest and intelligentest of childern was a toddlin’ round, first up to one of ’em and then the other, with her bright eyes a dancin’, and her cheeks red as roses. You see their yard is so large and shady, and the little thing havin’ got so it can run round alone, is out in the yard a playin’ most all the time, and it is dretful good for her. And she enjoys it the best that ever was, and Tirzah Ann enjoys it, too, for after she gets her work done up, all she has to do is to set in the door and watch the little thing a playin’ round, and bein’ perfectly happy. The minute she ketched sight of the old mare and me and her grandpa, she run down to the gate as fast as her little feet could carry her. She had a little pink dress on, and pink stockin’s, and white shoes, and a white ruffled apron, with her pretty, shining hair a hangin’ down in curls over it, and she did, jest as sure as I live and breathe—she did look almost too beautiful for earth. I guess she got a pretty good kissin’ from Josiah and me, and then Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come a hurryin’ down to the gate, glad enough to see us, as they always be.

LITTLE SAMANTHA JOE.

Josiah, of course, had to take that beautiful child for a little ride, and Whitfield said he guessed he would go, too. But I got out and went in, and as we sot there on the stoop, Tirzah Ann up and told me what she and Whitfield was a goin’ to do. They was goin’ off for the summer for a rest and change. And I thought from the first minute she spoke of it that it was foolish in her. Now rests are as likely things as ever was; so are changes.

But I have said, and I say still, that I had ruther lay down to home, as the poet says, “on my own delightful feather-bed,” with a fan and a newspaper, and take a rest, than dress up and travel off 2 or 300 milds through the burnin’ sun, with achin’ body, wet with presperation and sweat, to take it. It seems to me that I would get more rest out of the former than out of the more latter course and proceedin’. Howsumever, everybody to their own mind.

Likewise with changes: I have said, and I say still, that changes are likely and respectable, if you can get holt of ’em; but how can you?

Havin’ such powerful and eloquent emotions as I have, havin’ such hefty principles a performin’ inside of my mind, enjoyin’ such idees, and faiths, and aspirations, and longin’s, and hopes, and despairs, and everything—I s’pose that is what makes me think that what is goin’ on round me, the outside of me, hain’t of so much consequence. I seem to live inside of myself (as it were) more than I do on the outside. And so it don’t seem of so much consequence what the lay of the land round me may happen to be, whether it is sort o’ hilly and mountainous or more level-like; or whether steam-cars may be a goin’ by me (on the outside of me), or boats a sailin’ round me, or milk-wagons.

You see the real change, the real rest, would have to be on the inside, and not on the outside. Nobody, no matter how much their weight may be by the steel-yards, can carry round such grand, hefty principles as I carry round without gettin’ tired; or enjoy the lofty hopes, and desires, and aspirations that I enjoy, and meditate on all the sad, and mysterious, and puzzlin’ conundrums of the old world as I meditate on ’em, without gettin’ fairly tuckered out.

Great hearts enjoy greatly and suffer greatly. And so sometimes, when heart-tired and brain-weary, if I could quell down them soarin’ emotions and make ’em lay still for a spell, and shet up my heart like a buro-draw, and hang up the key, and onscrew my head and lay it onto the manteltry-piece, then I could go off and enjoy a change that would be refreshin’ and truly delightful. But as it is, from Jonesville clear to the Antipithies, the puzzlin’ perplexities, the woes, and the cares of the old world foller right on after us tight as our shadders. Our pure and soarin’ desires, our blind mistakes, and deep despairs; our longin’s, strivin’s, memories, heartaches; all the joys and burdens of a soul, has to be carried by us up the steepest mountains or down into the lowest vallies. The same emotions that was a performin’ inside of our minds down in the Yo Semity, will be a performin’ jest the same up on the Pyramids.

The same questionin’ eyes, sort o’ glad and sort o’ sorrowful, that looked out over New York Harbor will look out over the Bay of Naples—and then beyond ’em both, out into a deeper, more mysterious ocean, the boundless sea that lays beyond everything, and before everything, and round everything, that great, misty sea of the Unknown, the Hereafter; tryin’ to see what we hain’t never seen, and wonderin’ when we shall see it, and how? and where? and wherefore? and if things be so? and why?

Tryin’ to hear the murmur of them waves that we know are a washin’ up round us on every side, that nobody hain’t never heard, but we know are there; the mighty Past, the mysterious Future. Tryin’ to ketch a glimpse of them shadowy sails that are floatin’ in and out forever more, with a freight of immortal souls, bearin’ them here, and away. We know we have sailed on ’em once, and have got to again—and can’t ketch no glimpse on ’em—can’t know nothin’ about ’em—sealed baby lips, silent, dead lips, never tellin’ nothin’ about ’em. Each soul has got to embark and sail out alone, out into the silence and the shadows—sail out into the mysterious Beyond.

JOSIAH STILL.

We can’t get away from ourselves, and get a real change, nohow, unless we knock our heads in and make idiots and lunys of ourselves. Movin’ our bodies round here and there is only a shadow of a change, a mockery, as if I should dress up my Josiah in soldier coats or baby clothes. There he is inside of ’em, clear Josiah, no change in him, only a little difference in his outside circumstances.

Standin’ as we do on a narrow belt of land, which is the Present, and them endless seas a beatin’ round us on every side of us, bottomless, shoreless, ageless—and we a not seein’ either on ’em; under them awful, and lofty, and curious circumstances, what difference does it really make to us whether we are a layin’ down or a standin’ up—whether we are on a hill, or down in a valley—whether a lot on us get together in cities and villages, like aunts on a aunt-hill; or whether we are more alone, like storks or ostridges?

This is a very deep and curious subject. I have talked eloquent on it, I know, and my readers know. But I could go on and filosifize on it jest as powerful and deep for hours and hours. But I have already episoded too far, and to resoom and continue on. I told Tirzah Ann that I thought it was foolish in her.

And she said, “It was very genteel to go away from home for the summer.” She said, “Miss Skidmore was goin’.” She is the other lawyer’s wife to Jonesville, and Tirzah Ann said she was bound to not come in behind her. She said, “Miss Skidmore said that nobody who made any pretensions to bein’ genteel stayed to home durin’ the heated term.”

“What do they go away for, mostly?” says I, in a cool tone, for I didn’t over and above like the plan.

“Oh! for health and—”

“But,” says I, “hain’t you and Whitfield enjoyin’ good health?”

My Wayward Pardner; or, My Trials with Josiah, America, the Widow Bump, and Etcetery

MY WAYWARD PARDNER;OR,MY TRIALSWITHJosiah, America, The Widow Bump,AND ETCETERY.