FOR FIVE DAYS HE WUZ SHET UP IN HIS ROOM AND KEP’ ON BREAD AND WATER.

Frontispiece.

SAMANTHA
ON
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

BY

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE

(MARIETTA HOLLEY)

Author of “Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition,” “Around the
World with Josiah Allen’s Wife,” “Samantha at Saratoga,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CHARLES GRUNWALD

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1909, by

G. W. Dillingham Company

Samantha on Children’s Rights

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

SAMANTHA ON CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

Jack has got a middlin’ round face, with eyes of dark blue. A sort of mornin’ glory blue, and at times they are big, that is when he is wonderin’ over sunthin’, or has found out sunthin’. And at times they will be sort o’ half shet up, like mornin’ glories when the sun is too hot. Then is the time when he has been wilted by Hamen and his wife. The fresh, vigorous desire for knowledge born in him, onbeknown to himself, jest as the freshness of the mornin’ glories wuz born in them, withered and too hardly sot down on by the searchin’ rays of misapprehension, ridicule, etc., etc.

When he wuz a little bit of a fellow he would always shet his eyes when he wuz scolded, for half an hour at a time, and walk round with ’em shet. It seemed as if he wuz some disgusted with the world, and wanted to lose sight on’t for a spell. Now he about half shets ’em when he is mortified.

His hair is curly at the ends, it is brown, some like the deep shinin’ brown you have seen in trout brooks, and where the curls kinder crinkle up a streak of gold runs through ’em. His forward is broad and pretty middlin’ white, and high enough, plenty high enough, and the hair hangs down in little short curls over it the most of the time.

Tamer Ann, that’s his Ma, don’t like it, she wants it brushed back tight to show his intellect, and nags at Jack because he don’t keep it back. Sez she in a very cross tone:

“Folks will think you hain’t got any intellect at all if they see your hair all over your forward.”

And I sez, “I wouldn’t worry, Tamer Ann, if the intellect is there it will work out, hair or no hair, and if it hain’t there no amount of plasterin’ the hair back will show it off—I’ve seen it tried.” Sez I in a milder tone, seein’ she looked kinder mad:

“I’ve seen hair brushed back straight from the forward so’s to give a free pass to the intellect, and left long on the neck to entice it out, but it wouldn’t appear, for the reason it wuzn’t there. Don’t you worry about Jack, Tamer Ann, you’ll find his intellect will push its way through them curls—I hain’t a mite afraid on’t.

“And at the same time, Jack,” sez I, for Duty is my companion and I foller her blindly, “you must try to mind your Ma and keep the curls back.”

Jack laughed and run his hand through ’em and put ’em back. Jack always minds me, or, that is, most always.

Now I don’t always mind the Higher Teacher, I don’t always set the stitches right in the great sampler that is hung up before me from day to day. It is a true remark that wuz once made at a conference meetin’ that “We often leave ondone the things that ort to be done, and do the things that we hadn’t ort.” Then why should I be hard on Jack when occasionally, very occasionally, mind you, he don’t do exactly as he ort, or duz as he ortn’t.

You see our Heavenly Father tells us what to do, He has told us once for all in the divine book, and then He wrops himself in the Everlastin’ Silence and leaves us to our own convictions, our own sense of duty to Him. He makes us afraid to disobey Him. His love constrains us, our sense of duty holds us (a good deal of the time) and we try (some of the time) to do right for the Right’s sake, and because of the completeness and constancy of the love and tender pity broodin’ over us.

Now, I have often wondered what we would do if our Heavenly Father nagged at us as some parents do at their children, if every time we make a miss-step, or a mistake, owin’ to the blindness of our ignorance, or our waywardness, if He kep’ naggin’ at us, and bringin’ us up short, and threatenin’ us with punishment, and twitched us about and pulled our ears, and sot us down in corners, and shet us up in dark closets, and sent us to bed without our supperses, and told us to, “Shet up instantly!” and etcetery. I wondered how long we would keep our love and reverence for Him.

Now, a father and mother are to their children the controlling power, the visible Deity of their lives. They stand in the High Place in their souls. Let ’em tremble and quail if they don’t hold that high place reverently, thoughtfully, prayerfully. The making or the marring of a life, a endless, immortal life, is in their hands, let ’em tremble at the thought.

Jack’s mouth is a good natered one more’n half the time, most all the time, when he is down on the farm with Josiah and me (he loves to be there). It is quite a big mouth, but none too big, not at all, with red lips, the upper one kinder short, and the ends curl up in a dretful sort of a laughin’, roguish way. But them curls can droop right down and the lips quiver like a baby’s—I’ve seen ’em. That is when he is nagged at. Tamer Ann nags at Jack more’n half the time.

Jack loves his mother, and that is why the naggin’s reach right through the little blue jacket and touches his heart. And the tremblin’ onhappiness of the heart makes the blue eyes shet about half up in a forlorn way, and the red lips quiver. I’ve seen ’em. Why, good land! Jack hain’t much more than a baby anyway, only about six and a half years old. He’s a stout little feller, and most always wears a dark blue cloth suit with a little sailor hat sot kinder back on his curls if he puts it on himself. And I don’t want to see a better lookin’ boy than Jack is. His father is my cousin on my own side.

Hamen Archibald Smith, old Elder Archibald Smith’s boy. Hamen is well off, he owns a big farm and a shingle mill up in Zoar, about seven miles from Jonesville on the old State Road. Hamen’s wife is a female he got acquainted with while he wuz away to school (Hamen is high learnt). His father sent him away for upwards of seven months to a high school, and then he got acquainted with Tamer Ann Bodley and married her. She wuz from a high family, she herself is over six feet high and spindlin’ in figger. She wuz to school to the same place. She had been there over nine weeks when Hamen got acquainted with her.

Their love wuz sudden and voyalent, and they married at the expiration of the term and left school and sot up housekeepin’, both of ’em bein’ high learnt, and havin’ traveled. Why, they went over forty milds on their weddin’ tower. And the high school where they got acquainted wuz upwards of thirty milds from Zoar.

Havin’ had all these advantages and bein’ forehanded, they naterally put on some airs, and wuz looked up to. They did make a handsome, high headed couple, I’ll say that for ’em. Hamen wuz about a inch or a inch and a half taller than she wuz.

Well, how time duz run along to be sure. It don’t seem like a year hardly sence we got the invitation to the weddin’ party Uncle Archibald gin to the bride and groom at the old Smith house out to Piller Pint. And now Hamen’s oldest child, Anna, is goin’ on nineteen years old. How time duz pass away! Why, I declare for’t, if it wuzn’t for these great tall livin’ mildstuns springin’ up all along life’s journey we could hardly believe our old family Bibles, and would deny our ages.

But these livin’ mildstuns can’t be gone by, they stand up straight and tall, and we have to stop and read ’em, and then we see for ourselves how fur we have come on the journey and how fast we are approachin’ the great Stoppin’ Place for the Night. Anna Smith is a good lookin’ mildstun. She is plump and fresh and sweet lookin’. I like Anna and Anna likes me. Her brother, next younger than herself, is named Cicero. Her Ma named him after some big man, old Captain Cicero, it seems to me it wuz, anyway he wuz a big talker and died some time ago.

Cicero Smith is now about fifteen years old, he is dull complected, kinder frosty and onwholesome lookin’, with great big round eyes, kinder pale and wild lookin’, some like gooseberries. His hair is thin and strings down the side of his face like little wisps of pale yeller straw, only of course some finer. His hands always felt kinder clammy, and he takes after his Ma in figger, tall and scraggly and spindlin’.

I never took to him at all nor he to me, he always wuz a indifferent actin’ chap even in his cradle. He’d turn over in his cradle when he wuz a infant and look at the rungs in the back side on’t when I would try to git his attention, and I hain’t never been able to git it sence. Jest as quick as he wuz old enough to read he jest took to dime novels. His mother encouraged it, she said it nourished a love for readin’, and would make him literary. He and his mother, I spoze, have read more’n twenty cords of ’em if they wuz corded up and measured with a yard stick, and most every one on ’em yeller covered and harrowin’.

I have told Tamer Ann that they wuzn’t good for her or Cicero to devour so much. But good land! I couldn’t move her a inch. She kep’ on readin’ ’em and givin’ ’em to him to read, and the more blood curdliner they wuz the more they doted on ’em. Why, I should have thought their blood would have turned to ice in their veins, and their skin got thick as a elephant’s hide with goose pimples caused by the horrow of ’em; why, their names wuz enough to skair anybody to death, let alone readin’ ’em. Anna never took to ’em, she seemed to take after the Smiths more, so I think, and Jack of course hain’t old enough, and I don’t believe he’ll ever love ’em anyway.

Hamen’s brother lived at their house when Jack wuz born, and he’s made it his home with ’em ever sence. His name is John Zebulen Smith, named after old Grandpa Smith.

And as he wuz always called John, why, they called little John Jack, when he wuz a baby, to keep him from gittin’ mixed up with his uncle and bein’ took for him, so he has always gone by the name of Jack. And Jack from the first on’t has been a favorite of mine, a great favorite. And I always felt so safe with him; I knew he wouldn’t die from bein’ too good, as so many little Sabbath school heroes do.

And yet he wuz always a noble child, truthful as the day wuz long. He would scorn to tell a lie, he wuz too proud to. If he had done anything he would own up to it, most every time he would. And he had naterally a religious mind, I believed, though sometimes Josiah would laugh the idee to scorn when Jack would git into one of his scrapes. He wuz kinder lazy some of the time, and opposition, onreasonable opposition, made him mad, and he would contend to the last minute when he got to goin’. And he had been fooled by Hamenses folks so much that he had got into the habit of keepin’ still and studyin’ out things for himself. The fools! they would tell him such stories, lies, a purpose to keep him wonderin’ and to hear him talk, that he had got sort o’ embittered and tried to rely on himself to find out strange things. It wuz pitiful as anything I ever see, and sometimes I thought pitifuler.

Now, spozin’ he wanted to find out some particular thing so dretfully it seemed as if he couldn’t live a minute without knowin’ about it, he would ask Hamen and Hamen would tell him the greatest story you ever hearn, and Jack would listen to it at first, and talk about it, curous, I’ll admit, but not curous at all if it wuz true.

And then Hamen and his brother would laugh like two idiots to see Jack’s wonderin’ looks, and shamed and mortified and everything. And then he would go to Tamer Ann, but Tamer would most likely have some new dime novel that she’d just commenced, and would be so wropped up in the joys and sorrows of the heroine, and would be cryin’ over her lots of times, so she couldn’t see Jack through her tears, and she would have to wipe her eyes when Jack disturbed her, and tell him all choked down by her emotions to run away, that his Ma wuz too busy to answer him, or else she would have some new distemper that day, and tell Jack to run away for his noise wuz killin’ her.

Well, what wuz the poor little feller to do? Everything wuz new to him, he had so many things that he wanted to find out, what could he do? Wall, there wuz only one thing he could do, and that wuz to try to find ’em out for himself. Tamer Ann bein’ a good woman at the bottom of her heart (but the goodness bein’ all covered up with nonsense, dime novels, fancy distempers, etc.), she sent Jack to Sunday school.

And everything there wuz new to him. Tamer Ann had, I spoze, been willin’, but had never had the time to teach Jack the Bible. Havin’ so many heroines, pirates, etc., to drive along in front of her mind, she naterally hadn’t any room for the apostles and prophets. The procession of lovely bein’s and hoary villains wuz big, and the thoroughfare small (Tamer’s mind I mean). And when a woman is huntin’ round for new fancy distempers, what time has she to tell a child about the Babe of Bethlehem?

No, Jack didn’t know a thing about the Bible, and the female Sunday school teacher he went to wuz a Born Baptist, she wuzn’t as you may say a woman, a female citizen, or human bein’, she wuz jest Baptist, plain Baptist.

And so the food poor little Jack had put before him at that Sabbath school wuz hard, sound food. Good doctrine, but tough, fearful tough. Well, Jack accepted it jest as he did every new thing, and then, as his first move always wuz, he went to investigatin’ it himself.

She told him, with no explanation, that if any one prayed in faith their prayers would be answered. It wuz a new idee to Jack, and he wuz agitated over it. He asked his father that night if it wuz so, and told Hamen about the Lamb appearin’ to Abraham, and sez Jack:

“If I had faith would my prayers be answered?”

“Yes,” sez Hamen, “if you should pray to have it rain down candy, down it would come.”

Sez Jack, “Would the lamb appear?” That seemed to be uppermost in his mind.

“Yes,” sez Hamen, “the lamb would appear, and mebby a hull drove of ’em.”

And then Hamen looked at John and winked, and they both snickered, the fools! Well, Jack see that they wuz makin’ fun of him, and he kinder meached away with his mornin’ glory blue eyes most shot up. Poor little creeter! little, lonesome, abused creeter!

And when he got over his mortification a little he resolved to investigate for himself. So he went out in the kitchen and built up a fire in the stove, took off all the griddles, and piled on the wood as nigh as Abraham did as he could in a cook stove, accordin’ to a picter the Born Baptist had shown him. He got a good hot fire goin’, and then he took a book, a costly book that Hamen had gin to Jack, thinkin’ that though it wuz pretty old for him now, he would grow up to it. It wuz full of costly engravin’s, and wuz the thing that Jack loved best of all his possessions.

So he laid that book on the hot griddles, and then knelt down and prayed for God not to burn it up. He lifted his voice loud in prayer. Tamer Ann, who heard him, thought that he wuz preachin’, as he often did.

So she didn’t interfere, and she wuz at that very minute mistrustin’ she had got a new distemper. She had bumped her knee gittin’ down to look under the bed after a dime novel, “The Wild Princess of the Enchanted Forest,” and wuz some in hopes that she had got the sinevetus. But pretty soon she smelt a smudge, and she run out and there wuz the valuable book all burnt and shriveled up, and poor little Jack kneelin’ there with the tears runnin’ down his cheeks in copious astorents and he a moanin’ to himself, and groanin’ out:

“Oh, the Lord might a done it if He had wanted to!” and “Oh, the lamb didn’t come!” and “Oh, He didn’t save my book!” And so on and so on.

Well, Tamer Ann didn’t take the poor little mourner and seeker after truth to her heart and wipe away his tears and tell him all about it, all she could tell, all any of us can tell, which is little enough, Heaven knows. No, she jest whipped him severely. And when he tried to tell her what he did it for, how the teacher had told him that it wuz so, she told him to stop instantly and to not say another word to her about it, but to go to bed without his supper for his naughtiness. And poor little Jack had to meach off to bed and lay there with his little mind workin’ on and workin’ on, his hungry stomach makin’ his brain all the more active.

Tamer Ann might whip his tongue still, but she couldn’t stop his mind from workin’. No, the one that set that machinery to goin’ wuz the only one who could stop it. As he had told his Ma once, “You can make me keep my tongue still, but you can’t stop my thinker.” No, Tamer Ann couldn’t whip that still.

Well, the poor little creeter lay and pondered over what could have caused the failure of his plans. And he finally made up his mind that his sacrifice wuzn’t costly enough.

He loved the book the best of anything he owned, but the B. B. had told him that he must offer up what he loved best of anything in the world. And he remembered, too, in the story of Abraham it wuz a livin’ sacrifice. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Why, it must be his mother, of course. For, by that mystery of love born in the deep silence and perils of maternity, Jack loved his mother the best of all, and Tamer loved him (in her way).

Well, from that time Tamer Ann wuz doomed in Jack’s eyes, set apart as a costly oblation to be offered up on the altar of sacrifice, and he begun to watch her so mysterious like, and kinder prowl round her in such a strange way that they all noticed it. He went to Sabbath school agin in the meantime, and wuz agin fed on the sound, hard food that would almost have cracked the teeth of a adult, but which poor little Jack wuz expected to chew on and digest (poor little creeter!)

And agin the subject wuz Faith, and agin the story of Abraham wuz brung up, and agin they wuz admonished and adjured to sacrifice what they loved the best of all, if they would be rewarded, and see the lamb of sacrifice, snow white and glorious, appear at their right hand.

Jack’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his plans seemed nearer fulfilment. He wanted to do right and he wanted the lamb. He thought he could make a pen for it back of the woodshed. But, above all, the fervor of a martyr had been waked up in his ardent young soul. He felt lifted up and inspired. He would obey the Lord. He would do his duty regardless of his own feelings. He would sacrifice his best beloved.

That evenin’ Tamer wuz settin’ peaceful readin’ “Lost Eudora of the Gulch; or, The Becalmed Elephant,” when she heard a movement behind her and she looked round and there Jack wuz applyin’ a match to a string that wuz tied round her belt and wuz trailin’ along the carpet. He wuz jest as pale as death and wuz cryin’, but looked resolved. He wuz settin’ fire to his mother, sacrificin’ his best beloved, according to the commandment of the B. B.

Well, Jack looked so woe-be-gone and agitated, and the string looped into the belt and layin’ down on the floor like a train laid to a gunpowder plot looked so curous, that Jack wuz questioned, and it all came out. Well, I spoze that there never wuz a child whipped harder than that child wuz. He bore the marks for days and days. Tamer has got a dretful temper, everybody knows that, I hain’t tellin’ any news.

And for five days he wuz shet up in his room and kep’ on bread and water, and not one word said to him in all that time of comfort and sympathy or enlightenment. But they whipped the idee of sacrifice entirely out of him, and faith. For the next time the subject of faith come up in the Sunday school, and the B. B. wuz holdin’ forth all the beauties of faith, and the sureness of its rewards, Jack’s little voice piped out:

“There hain’t a word of truth in it; for my folks say so, and I know that there hain’t, for I’ve tried it for myself.”

Oh, the poor little creeter! not knowin’ one word of the divine faith of which the story he heard wuz the symbol. Of how when the dearest and best is offered up on the altar of a divine renunciation, God sends His peace and His rest into our lives like snow white lambs, and all sacrifices seem easy for His sake who gave us His best. Poor little Jack! not a word of this, not a word of common sense even, nothin’ but whippin’s and tellin’s to “shet up instantly!”

Poor little creeter!

CHAPTER II

My son, Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Maggie, have got a little daughter, it wuz very pleasin’ to Josiah and me, and weighed over nine pounds. It is now most ten months old, and is, with the exception of my other grandchildren, the most beautiful child that wuz ever seen in Jonesville, some foolish folks would think I wuz prejudiced in its favor, but it is the prevailin’ opinion all over Jonesville, it has been talked to Thomas Jefferson and Maggie and Josiah and me repeatedly, so we have got to believe it, for what we know ourselves and the neighbors know to be a fact must be so.

Its name is Snow, after the little one that went home and left them. You know Maggie’s name wuz Snow, she is Maggie Snow that wuz, and I wuz in favor of the child bein’ named after her, in fact, as it may be remembered, I named the child, it wuz left to me.

“Mother,” sez Thomas J., the first time I went there after the first little Snow came and I see the baby layin’ on Maggie’s arm:

“Mother,” sez he, and, though there wuz a smile on his lips, there wuz tears in his voice as he said it, “nobody else shall name my little girl but you.”

“No,” spoke out my daughter, Maggie, smilin’ sweet from her pillow, “you must name it, Mother.”

The children like me, nobody can dispute that, not even my worst enemy, if I had one, but then nobody would believe him, anyway, for he would be a perfect liar. But, as I wuz sayin’, I looked down on ’em, Maggie’s face looked white and sweet out of the muslins and laces round her, the bed wuz white as snow, and so wuz she, and the baby wuz white. And Maggie’s soul wuz white, I knew, white as snow, and so wuz Thomas Jefferson’s, his morals are sound, extremely sound and light colored, and the baby’s, God bless it! I knew wuz like the newly driven snow fallin’ down onto the peaceful earth that blessed day, and so, sez I kinder soft:

“We’ll call the baby Snow.”

And I bent down and kissed Maggie, and Thomas Jefferson kissed us both, and the thing wuz done, their little girl wuz named Snow. And I said, “Try to bring her up so’s the name will be appropriate to her.”

And they both on ’em said they would, and they did. Oh, what a beautiful child that wuz, but it melted away like its namesake in a April day, drawn up to its native heaven by the warm sun of God’s love, and when this baby come to fill its place I wanted it called Snow, and they all did, and that’s its name, she is a very beautiful child, and they are bringin’ her up beautiful. Her behavior for a child ten months of age is the most exemplary I ever see (with the exception of my other grandchildren), it is a perfect pattern to other children to see that child behave.

I despise now, and always have despised, the idee of grandparents bein’ so took up with their grandchildren that they can’t see their faults, it is dretful to witness such folly. But, as I have said to Josiah and to others, “What are you goin’ to do when there hain’t any faults to see? How be you a-goin’ to see ’em?” Why, there hain’t any reason in tryin’ to see things that hain’t there. If Delight and Snow and my other grandchildren ever have any faults I shall be the first one to see ’em, the very first one, and so I have told Josiah and the neighbors.

This little Snow is very white complected, and her eyes are jest the softened shade of the deep velvet blue of the pansy, and her hair is kinder yellowish, and curls in loose rings and waves all over her head, all round her white forward and satin smooth neck. She has got the same sweet smile on her lips that her Ma has, and little angel Snow had, but the look in her eyes, though they hain’t the same color, is like my boy, Thomas Jefferson’s, they look kinder cunning and cute some of the time jest like his, and then deep and tender jest like hisen. Thomas Jefferson is deep, it has been gin up that he is, it is known now all over Jonesville and out as fur as Loontown and all the other adjacent villages, that Thomas J. is deep.

I knew it when he wuz a child, I found it out first, but now everybody knows it, why the bizness that boy gits is perfectly oncommon, folks bring their lawsuits to him from as fur as way beyend Toad Holler and the old State Road, and all round Zoar, and Loontown, and Jonesville, why milds and milds they’ll fetch ’em ruther than have anybody else, and the land is perfectly full of lawyers, too, painfully full. He and Tom Willis, his confidential clerk, have more than they can do all the time, they have to employ one or two boys, they are makin’ money fast.

Well, I spozed that seein’ Thomas J. wuz doin’ so well, and Maggie’s father havin’ left her a handsome property of her own (the Judge died of quinsy, lamented some years ago), I spozed, seein’ she wuz abundantly able and its bein’ so fashionable, that Maggie would have a nurse for her little girl. But the day the child wuz a month old I spent the day with ’em, and Maggie told me she wuzn’t goin’ to. She looked kinder delicate as she sot there holdin’ little Snow, her cheeks wuz about as white as the dress she had on, and I sez, “It is goin’ to be quite a care for you, daughter.”

“Care!” And as she looked up in my face I wuz most struck with the look in her big eyes, it wuz a look of such tenderness, such rapture, such anxiety, such wonder, and most everything else; I declare for it I never see such a look in my life unless it wuz in the face of the Madonna hangin’ right up over her head. Thomas J. bought it and gin it to her a few months before, and it hung right at the foot of her bed. The Virgin mother and her child.

It wuz a beautiful face, Thomas J. thought it favored Maggie, and I don’t know but it did, it did jest that minute, anyway, she had the same look in her eyes that Mary had. Well, if you’ll believe it right while we wuz talkin’ about that baby, Miss Green Smythe come in to see Thomas Jefferson, she is tryin’ to git some divorces, and she wants Thomas J. to undertake the job, she is dretful good to Maggie and flatters Thomas Jefferson up, but Thomas J. won’t take the case, unless he sees he is on the right side.

Thomas Jefferson Allen has took his Ma’s advice; he has never, never took holt of a case that he didn’t think honestly and firmly he wuz on the right side on’t. He has got the name of bein’ a honest lawyer, and they say folks come milds and milds jest to look on him, they consider him such a curosity. That’s jest why he gits so much custom, folks would ruther see him than a circus, he bein’ such a rariety, and then when they see him they like him, they can’t help it, and so he gits their custom.

I told Thomas J. when he wuz young to do right for the right’s sake, sez I, “Thomas J., I despise that old proverb, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ I don’t want you to do anything out of policy,” sez I, “do right for the right’s sake, for the sake of God’s truth and your own soul. You can’t like yourself, nor God can’t like you if you do a mean, shabby, contemptible act. Do jest as near right as you can, Thomas Jefferson Allen, and leave success or failure with Him who sees into your soul and your future clear to the end, if there is a end, which I don’t spoze there is. You had better be a failure outside than inside.” Sez I, “Let the one who can see inside of you look down into a clean soul, and even if you are covered with rags outside your Ma will be satisfied.”

So I would say to Thomas J. from day to day and from year to year in his school days. And when he went into the law, sez I, “Thomas Jefferson, it may be my lot to see you torn by wild horses and layin’ on a guillontine, but,” sez I, “though that would kill your Ma, it would kill her quicker to see and hear that you had got up in cold blood and wuz tryin’ to prove that a lie wuz the truth, and that the truth wuz a lie, usin’ all the intellect and power the God of truth give to prove a untruth, to go against Him, against your conscience, against your soul.”

Sez I, “Cases can be plastered over with all the thick plaster you can lay on ’em about duty to clients, expediency, etc., etc. But if a man is guilty he ort to be punished, and if he is innocent he hadn’t ort to be punished, and if you ever take the part of the guilty against the innocent, if you git up under God’s pure daylight and try to prove that the innocent is guilty, try and prove a lie, your Ma will not live long to see it go on,” sez I, “for mortification would set in powerful and so deep that it will soon end her days.”

Thomas Jefferson hearn to me, he wuz a honest boy by nature, and my teachin’s have struck in deep. He is a honest lawyer, and as I say folks come milds and milds jest to look at him. As it has turned out he is a success outside as well as inside.

And Miss Green Smythe wants him to take her case dretfully. Good land! she’s been in the law for years, her children have turned out real bad, and she’s turned out sort o’ curous herself. She is a great society woman, and has enormous success in that direction; why, she has been, so I have been told and believe, to nineteen parties in one night, she gives immense receptions, and has got diamonds as big as eggs almost (bird’s eggs, I cannot lie, I do not mean hen’s eggs). Yes, she has had great success in that way, but she has had dretful poor luck with her children.

She has got a husband somewhere, I spoze. I believe that I hearn once of somebody who had seen Mr. Green Smythe one day settin’ on the back doorstep of her city house. But she always has two or three young men danglin’ round, and she never sez a word about her husband. Somebody said to me one day that it seemed kinder queer that nobody ever see Mr. Smythe, but I sez:

“Oh, she most probable knew where he wuz; she most probable knew that he wuz settin’ out there at the back door.”

I will stand up for my sect when I can, but I don’t approve of her acts not at all; if I had a husband I should want one, and if I didn’t have a husband I shouldn’t want one, and I should want it fixed so I should know jest how it wuz.

But as I say, her children have turned out dretful, and most everybody thinks that it wuz the way they wuz brung up that made ’em turn out so. She left the hull care of ’em to hired nurses and servants, and they wuz mean, some of ’em, and neglected ’em sometimes, and sometimes learnt ’em by precept and example to be as mean as they wuz.

Why, a woman told me, and a likely woman, too, though I won’t mention any names, as I am afraid she wouldn’t like it if I did, but I will say that I always could depend on every word that Alvira Sampson said.

Well, she told me she called Miss Green Smythe’s attention to the way her children wuz bein’ dealt with by her help, and she said all the answer Miss Green Smythe made wuz to look kinder dreamily at her and wonder whether she had better have yellow or pink candles in her reception room at her next party; she wuz gittin’ up a Charity Ball for motherless children. And I told Alviry that Miss Green Smythe had better include her own children in the charity, for they wuz jest about the same as motherless.

And this certain woman said she tried to draw her attention agin to the needs of her own offspring, and agin Miss Green Smythe looked dreamily up and sez, “I am so ondecided whether to wear pale rose colored chiffon or cloth of gold on the night of the party.” And then that certain woman said she gin up the idee of gittin’ her mind onto her own children’s welfare, she didn’t say another word to her about it, and I believe her, for Alvira won’t lie.

So Miss Green Smythe wuz left with a anxious contemplation of the color of the light that wuz goin’ to softly gild the heads of her guests as they talked of the cruel needs of the motherless, and, bein’ took up with this, she hadn’t time to worry about the evil glare of vile and corrupt words and ways, deceit and lies, and worse, that wuz fallin’ on the heads of her own children.

But to resoom forwards agin. Maggie and I wuz settin’ there calm and peaceful, and saw the colored nigger’s countenance lookin’ round dretful clever from his high seat.

Miss Green Smythe swep’ up the neat gravel walk to the door, and in a few minutes entered the room. She is a kinder good natured little woman, but dretful wore out and haggard lookin’ under the embellishments she uses to cover up the ravages of time and care and fashionable ambition and worry. She always dresses in the very height of fashion, but she has too many feathers and flowers and danglin’ ends of ribbon to suit me.

I never took any fancy to her, though I spoze I ort to feel complimented on her comin’ clear from New York to git Thomas Jefferson to try her lawsuit. Her present husband is a distant, a very distant, relation of ourn. But I don’t spoze that makes any difference about her employin’ Thomas J., I spoze it is his smartness that draws her. She is spendin’ the summer at a summer hotel not fur off, she and her family, and she is tryin’ to git some divorces for herself and one of her children. She don’t want a divorce from Smith, Mr. Green Smythe gives her rope enough. I guess she feels pretty foot loose, ’tennyrate nobody ever sees him, though they know there is a husband somewhere in the background grubbin’ away to make money. They say he is a sad and humble sperited man, who sets a good deal on their back doorstep at Newport and New York, when he sets anywhere, a modest, bald headed man, with iron gray mustache and sad eyes. They say he don’t seem at home in the palatial front rooms and boodoors, and is kinder trompled on by the high headed servants in livery. But he, knowin’, I spoze, that he could turn ’em all out, neck and crop and leathered legs, if he wanted to, bears it pretty well, and sets out there and reads the daily papers. And sometimes I have hearn holds an old degariotype in his hand, and will look at it a long time, of a pretty young country girl that he loved when he wuz young and poor, and prized ambition and wealth a good deal more than he duz now. They say he looks at that a sight, and some letters writ by “Alice” and some little sprigs of old fashioned runnin’ myrtle that has opened its blue flowers for many summers over a grave on a country hillside.

They commenced to bloom about a year after he married the rich widder Green, whose money put with his made him rich as a Jew. She had three husbands, Miss Green Smythe had, before she married Smith; Smith then but Smythe now. Her first husband, Sam Warn, he don’t count much in her thoughts, so I’ve hearn, bein’ young and poor, and havin’ married him for love, so called, and he her. He died in a few years, died from overwork, everybody said. He wuz tryin’ to work over hours to pay for a melodeon for his wife and a pair of bracelets; she wuz ambitious then in her young and poor days, ambitious as a dog. He died leavin’ her nothin’ but the twins, Eudora Francesca and Medora Francina.

Her next husband wuz old Green, he wuz goin’ on eighty when she married him, and he died in less than a year, leavin’ her with over two millions. Her next husband, Emery Tweedle, father of Algernon and Angenora, wuz much younger than herself, and I didn’t wonder at that so much as some did, thinkin’ that she wanted to sort o’ even up the ages of her pardners, and he wuzn’t nigh as much younger than her as Green wuz older, and I always believed (theoretically) that sass for the goose and sass for the gander might as well be about the same age.

Howsumever, they didn’t live happy, he throwin’ her downstairs the third year of their union and throwin’ a cut glass pitcher on top of her. The occasion bein’ that she found him tryin’ to help the pretty parlor maid carry upstairs the pitcher of ice water she had rung for.

She wuz a real pretty parlor maid, and Miss Tweedle by this time, havin’ run so hard after fashion, had got kinder worn out lookin’ and winded in the race, as you may say, with lots of small wrinkles showin’ round the eyes and nose, and real scrawny where her figger wuzn’t veneered and upholstered for company, and the parlor maid had a plump figger, and complexion like strawberries and cream, but wuzn’t considered likely. But ’tennyrate that fall precipitated affairs, and havin’ got up with little Eudora Francesca’s help, Miss Tweedle’s first move wuz to sue for a divorce.

Her back wuz hurt considerable, and so wuz her pride, but her heart not at all, so it wuz spozed, for she married him in the first place, not for love, but because he could sing bass good, she had a high terible voice, and their voices went well together. He wuz poor, and she made the first advances, so they said, bein’ anxious to secure his bass.

And didn’t it turn out queer as a dog that when she married for bass she got such a sight of it, she got more than she bargained for. She had never made any inquiries about him, and found out, when it wuz too late, that his voice wuzn’t the only base thing about him. He wuz real mean and tried to throw her out of the second story winder before they had been married two weeks. That wuz because she wouldn’t deed all her property to him. But she knew enough to hang onto her property, and he, bein’ so poor, hung onto her off and on for a little over two years. They got along somehow, and when she and affairs wuz finally precipitated, they had two children, which the law give to her, about a year and a half old. And about two months after the seperation she had another child, Angelia Genevieve, but she didn’t live only a year or so, havin’ crep’ up and fell into the bathtub, and wuz drowned, her Ma bein’ at a masked ball at the time.

Well, she got a Western divorce and married Mr. Ebenezer Smith, and spozed that the Tweedle eppisode wuz over. But after lettin’ her alone for years, Tweedle, bein’ base clear to his toes, and havin’ run through his property and had reverses, wuz botherin’ Miss Green Smythe, and demandin’ money of her. He said there wuz some legal error in the divorce papers, and he wuz threatenin’ her bad.

Well, she wuz in a hard place and I felt sorry for her. And then her girls had had sights of trouble, too, the two girls, Eudora Francesca and Medora Francina Warn, that wuz their right name, but their Ma thought that Green Smythe sounded fur more genteel, so she called ’em by that name, they have had dretful bad luck. Eudora’s nurse wuz a good faithful creeter (that wuz after her Ma had married old Green, good land! she nussed ’em herself till then). But as I was sayin’, Eudora’s nurse wuz a valuable woman but had one fault; she would drink once in a while, and it wuz when she had one of her drunken fits that she dropped the little girl onto the marble hearth and hurt her spine, she suffered dretful and went to a private hospital the year her Ma wuz in Europe for the fifteenth time, the nurse stayin’ with her and cryin’ over her lots of times, they say, for she had a good heart.

Well, she stayed there for years till she got to be a young woman, while Miss Green Smythe took Medora Francina round with her considerable. She had a great-aunt on her Pa’s side, Karen Happuck Warn, who wuz as rich as Creshus, her husband havin’ made his money in a coal mine discovered on his rocky old farm up in Maine.

Well, this old lady bein’ left without chick or child of her own, what should Miss Green Smythe do but take Medora Francina up there visitin’! And I spoze she done it from pure ambition and wantin’ to advance her child’s interests, she told her aunt that Medora’s name wuz Karen Happuck Warn, and she called her all the time she wuz there Karen Happuck. Well, that tickled the old lady dretfully, and she seemed to like Medora first rate, and her Ma left her there most a year, while she went off, I believe it wuz to Algeria that time, or Cairo or somewhere.

The Warns wuz dretful religious folks, and Medora wuz under better influences that year than she ever wuz before or since, I spoze, and she enjoyed herself first rate, and realized the beauty of a good honest life, of duty and labor and simple pleasures and domestic happiness. She fell in love up there with a handsome young lumberman, Hatevil White, and would have liked to married him, he wuz a distant, a very distant relation to old Miss Warn, though she didn’t have much to do with him then.

Well, they fell in love with each other, and I guess it would made a match, but Miss Green Smythe couldn’t bear to have Medora marry a common Mr. and a lumberman at that, she hankered after a title in her family, so she took her home to New York and there she met her titled man. You know that in one of the big hotels there you can always see a hull row of ’em settin’ in the hall, lookin’ out for rich wives; they write their letters from that hotel and hang round there, but sleep, it is spozed, in some hall bedroom downtown, and eat where they can, but they are real lucky in findin’ pardners, and there Medora found hern. He wuz quite good lookin’, and, owin’ to his title, a great pet amongst the four hundred. Why, they all wanted to marry him, the hull four hundred, or all of ’em that hadn’t got some husbands, mebby three hundred or so. But Medora carried off the prize, her Ma wanted the title in the family, and he wanted Medora’s money; she wuz spozed then, besides her own money, to be the heiress of her aunt.

But he turned out, as so many titled men do that hang round that 400 in New York, to be a imposter. He wuzn’t a Baron, he wuz formerly a valley, or that is what they call it, to a real titled man, and from him he had got the ways of high life, good dressin’, flowery, flattering language, drinkin’, billiard playin’, etc., etc. Well, he spent Medora’s money, and broke her heart, and I believe a few of her bones; he wuz a low brute, and I don’t blame her for wantin’ a divorce.

She left the sham Baron after her bones wuz sot and went up to Maine agin, and some say she made overtoors to that Hatevil White, but he wuz true to his name and wouldn’t marry the fickle creeter who had deceived him once. And then by that time (men’s hearts are so elastic) he had got in love with a pretty young school teacher, and married her the next year after these overtoors, and her aunt, having found out how she wuz deceived in regard to Medora’s name, left her hull property when she died to this distant relation, Hatevil White.

So poor Medora Francina felt that her Ma had ondone her for the second time. She has got a high temper, and her tongue is the worst scourge Miss Green Smythe has to stand, they fight perfectly fearful, so they say. Well, to resoom backwards a spell. About the time Medora wuz married Eudora’s disease seemed to take another form, it kinder went to her head, but she appeared well enough, and could walk round as well as anybody. So, as she wuz very beautiful, the handsomest one in the family, her mother took her home and had teachers and learnt her what she could and made of her. And it wuz the next winter after she went home to live that she ran away with the coachman.

Her mother had to go to Europe agin that winter, ’twas the twenty-fourth time, I believe; but, ’tennyrate, she wuz there. But she left Eudora in the care of a very accomplished and fashionable French governess. Miss Green Smythe didn’t have time to learn much about this governess, she wuz so busy gittin’ her trueso ready for her journey, and in givin’ a big fancy ball before she sailed, so she couldn’t take the time to find out much about this woman, and she wuz dretful romantick and kinder mean, and Eudora wuz completely under her influence.

The governess thought this coachman wuz a Marquiz in disguise, son of a long line of Earls, he said he wuz, when questioned about it. But he wuzn’t no such thing; his Pa wuz in the peanut line on the Bowery. The governess would have gladly married him herself, but she wuz older and kinder humbly, so he proposed to Eudora, and they run away and wuz married. There wuz no need of their runnin’ away, there wuz no one to interfere with ’em, for Mr. Green Smythe out on the back steps wouldn’t have noticed what wuz goin’ on. But the governess thought it would be so much more romantick to depart by midnight sarahuptishusly, so I spoze she helped rig up a rope ladder by which Medora descended to her coachman.

Well, he didn’t use her well, it wuzn’t hereditary in his family to use wimmen well, they generally struck at ’em with their fists, instead of polite tongue abuse when they offended ’em, and take it with her ill usage and the wild clamor her Ma made when she discovered the marriage, the poor awakening wits of Eudora Francesca fled utterly. The coachman wuz bought off with a small sum of ready money, and Eudora wuz taken back to the asylum for good and all.

Well, as I say, the two little Tweedle children, boy and girl, are queer little creeters, they are about eight or nine years old now, and are with their Ma to Jonesville for the summer, with a nurse for each one. The baby, the only child of Mr. Smith, is not with its Ma to Jonesville, he is at another private asylum, not fur from the one that Eudora Francesca is in; it is an asylum for idiots and a sort of school to try to teach ’em what they can be taught.

And that he is there isn’t the fault of any nurse. No, I should say it riz higher in profession and wuz the fault of the medical fraternity. All the year before he wuz born Miss Green Smythe wuz very delicate, but bein’ so fashionable, she considered it necessary to wear a tight, a very tight cosset till the very day the baby wuz born, and her doctor never said a word agin it, so fur as I know, but realizin’ how delicate she wuz and that her strength must be kep’ up in some way, he ordered her to take stimulants, and she drinked, and she drinked, and she drinked. Why, I spoze from what I’ve hearn that she jest took barrels of wine and champagne and brandy. She never went half way in anything, not even Hottentots, of which more hereafter. And the stimulants bein’ ordered she drinked continually. And when the boy wuz born it wuz a perfect idiot. Her fashionable doctor who ordered the stimulants said it wuz a “melancholy dispensation of Providence.”

The doctor who attended Mr. Green Smythe, and an old friend of hisen, said it wuz “a melancholy judgment on fools.” He wuz a quick tempered man, but honest and high learnt, and he wuz mad at the fashionable doctor and Miss Green Smythe, too. Well, it cured her of drinkin’, anyway; she had always wanted a boy dretfully, and when the only one she had ever had wuz born a idiot it mortified her most to death, and she could never bear the sight of it, and had never laid her eyes on it since it wuz took to the private asylum.

A pretty lookin’ child, too, they said it wuz, only not knowin’ anything. They said about this time Ebenezer Smith’s hair changed from iron gray to pretty near white, for he loved the baby, his only child and heir to all his millions. And he kep’ lookin’ and watchin’ for some signs of sense in it for a long time. And the only reason he gin his consent to have it go to the asylum wuz that he didn’t know but they might help it to some spark of reason. He read his old letters more than ever, they said, out on the back steps, and looked more at Alice’s face in the old velvet covered case, and then he would look away from that sweet, fresh face off onto the sky or ocean as the case might be, either in New York or Newport, he would look off for some time and wuz spozed to be thinkin’ of a good many things.

Well, it wuz to get a divorce for Medora and see to her own Tweedle bizness that Miss Green Smythe had come to Jonesville. She had employed a big New York lawyer, but he hadn’t been very successful, and she wanted Thomas J.’s help. Tweedle had once lived in this vicinity for some time, and she wanted Thomas J. to try and collect evidence for her and help her. But he will walk round the subject on every side and look at it sharp before he tackles it.

I spoze it is a great compliment to have such rich folks as the Green Smythes so anxious to secure his services. But that won’t make any difference to our son, he won’t touch it unless he thinks she is in the right on’t. He follers these two old rules that his Ma laid down before him when he first set out to be a lawyer. Sez I, “Always, Thomas Jefferson, foller them two rules, and you will be sure to come out right in the end:

“First rule, ‘Be sure you are in the right on’t,’” then,

“Second rule, ‘Go ahead.’”

As I sez to him impressive, “You will be sure to come out right if you foller them two rules. Mebby you won’t always win your case before earthly judges, though I believe you will be more apt to. But that hain’t the important thing, my son,” I would say, “the important thing is to win your case before the Great Judge that is above all. Why,” sez I, “wouldn’t you ruther win a case before the Supreme Court in Washington, D. C., than before a Jonesville jury?”

And he would say, “Why, yes, of course.”

“Well,” sez I, “wouldn’t you ruther win the case before the Great Judge that sets as high above them Supreme Judges as Heaven is above the earth?”

I tell you them simelys sunk into Thomas J.’s heart; he follers them rules day by day. As I said more formerly, he is inquirin’ round about Miss Green Smythe’s case, and if he makes up his mind that she and Medora are in the right on’t he will help ’em (and thereby ensure her success), and if she hain’t in the right on’t he won’t touch the case with a pair of tongs or leather mittens.

Well, to stop retrospectin’ and resoom backwards a little. Miss Green Smythe greeted me and Maggie with considerable warmth, about as warm as hot dish water, while our greetin’s to her wuzn’t any warmer than new milk. Maggie wuz holdin’ Snow in her arms when Miss Green Smythe wuz ushered in, leadin’ a pug dog by a ribbon, and one of her danglers wuz out in the carriage lookin’ at the house through a eye glass. Miss Green Smythe made a great flutter and excitement in comin’ in, and made a sight of Maggie and me, but we didn’t seem fluttered or excited by her, nor we didn’t make any more of her than we did of any of the neighbors, though we used her well, and she sot down and took her pug into her lap, for Maggie’s cat riz up her back that high at the sight of it that I thought it would break into, and I got up and let her out.

I knew what the call wuz for, it wuz to molify Thomas J. and make him willin’ to take her case in hand. Well, she wuz dretful good to Maggie, over good, I thought; she called her lots of kinder foolish names, “Petteet Ongey,” and “belle amey,” and lots of other trash. Maggie’s name hain’t Amy, nor never wuz.

Maggie took it all in good part and sot there smilin’ and holdin’ little Snow close to her heart. Miss Green Smythe didn’t notice the baby at all, no more than as if it wuz a rag babe. But she begun to talk about a big entertainment she wuz goin’ to have and wanted us to come to, and she called it a real curous name, it sounded some like Fate Sham Peter.

I guess it wuzn’t exactly that, for it sounded so curous to me I sez to her, sez I, “I spoze Peter is all for fashion and outside gildin’ and sham, and that’s how he got his name?” And I sez, “Is Peter any relation of yourn?” And then she explained it out to me as well as she could.

But I sez, “I guess I’ll call it Sham Peter, for that is nigh enough to distinguish it from other Peter’s and other shams, and that is the main thing.”

She acted as if she didn’t like it, and answered my questions kinder short and uppish. I never took to her, for I had hearn all these things I have sot down about her babies and husbands and danglers and everything, and I spozed like as not I should have to give her a piece of my mind before she left; I spozed that I might have to onbeknown to me.

Well, Maggie excused herself from goin’ on account of little Snow, she said she didn’t go out much to evening parties for they took her strength so, and she felt that she needed all her strength to take care of her baby. “Take care of your baby!” Miss Green Smythe fairly screamed out the words, she wuz that horrow struck. “You take care of your baby? Why, my dear Mrs. Allen, I could not have understood you aright, you take care of your baby yourself!”

“Yes,” sez Maggie quietly, “I take most of the care of my child myself, and I intend to do so.”

Miss Green Smythe held up both of her hands in horrow and leaned back in her chair, “Well, that is something I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t heard it myself, that you are goin’ to take care of your own child,” and the idee seemed to upset her so that she hurried off earlier, I believe, than she would otherwise. But before she went she did git me to promise to attend a reception she wuz goin’ to give before long; Maggie said she believed it would do me good to git out and have a little change.

CHAPTER III

If there ever wuz a girl in the world that I loved, no kin to me, it wuz Marion Martin. She lived nigh enough so I knew her hull history from A to Z, specially Z. It wuzn’t the beauty of her face nor her sweet disposition, though they wuz attractive, but it wuz her real self, the beauty and patience and duty of her hull life that made up her charm to me.

Her Ma died when she wuz fourteen, leavin’ two twins jest of a age, three singles, and a Pa with a weak tottlin’ backbone that had to be propped up by somebody, and when Miss Martin laid down the job Marion took it up. She wuz real sweet lookin’, her eyes wuz soft as soft brown velvet, and her hair about the same color, only with a sort of golden light when the sun shone on it, a clear white and pink complexion, a good plump little figger, always dressed in a neat quiet way, and pretty manners, so gentle and lovely that I always felt when I see her like startin’ up that old him:

“Sister thou art mild and lovely,

Gentle as a summer breeze.”

But didn’t always, knowin’ it would make talk. But I had noticed that she begun to look wan and peaked. I knowed that she had a lover, a good actin’ and lookin’ chap, that I liked first rate myself. He had been payin’ attention to her for over two years, and I wondered if the skein of true love that had seemed to run so smooth from the reel of life had got a snarl in it. I mistrusted it had, but wouldn’t say anything to force her confidence, thinkin’ that if she wanted me to know about it she had the use of her tongue, and had always confided in me from the time she used to show me her doll’s broken legs and arms with tears.

Marion wuz well educated and always the most helpful little thing about the house. She wuz one of the wimmen who would make a barn look homelike, a good cook, a real little household fairy, and Laurence Marsh had always seemed to appreciate these qualities in her. Her Pa wuz well to do, so Marion had enough to do with, but the care of the family all come on her, her Pa, the two twins, and three singles makin’ quite a burden for her soft little shoulders to bear. But she seemed to be strengthened for it some way, I guess the Lord helped her. She had jined the church when she wuz fourteen and wuz a Christian, everybody knew. She kep’ the house in perfect order, with the help of one stout German girl, makin’ mistakes at first but gittin’ the better of ’em as time went on, takin’ the best of care of the baby girls, kept an eye on the three unruly boys, kep’ ’em to home nights jest by lovin’ ’em and makin’ home a pleasanter place than they could find anywhere else, injected courage and hope into her Pa’s feeble will in jest the same way by her love and cheerful, patient ways.

She studied music chiefly so the boys could have some one to play for ’em—they had good voices and loved to sing—studied all the health books and books of household science so she could take the right care of her babies, and her home improved every year, so that now, when she wuz nineteen, I told Josiah that Marion Martin wuz jest as perfect as human bein’s can be. You know folks can’t be quite perfect, or else they would flop their wings and fly upwards. And oh, how Marion loved her baby girls, two plump, curly haired little cherubs, and how they loved her, and how her Pa and the boys leaned on her! And I could see, if nobody else could, how her heart wuz sot on Dr. Laurence Marsh, and I didn’t blame her, for he wuz as fine a young chap as there wuz in the country. He wuzn’t dependent on his profession, he had plenty of money of his own, that fell onto him from his Ma. And he’d paid her so much attention that I spozed he would offer her his heart and hand, though I thought mebby he wuz held back by the thought of how necessary she wuz in her own home. But it had come to me, and come straight—Elam Parson’s widder told it to Deacon Bissel’s aunt, and she told it to Betsy Bobbett’s stepdaughter, and she told Tirzah Ann, and she told me; it come straight—that Marion’s Pa had been seen over to Loontown three different times to the Widder Lummises, and I said to myself the Lord had planned to lead Marion out of the kinder stuny path of Duty into the rosy, love-lit path of Happiness, and I felt well over it.

But who can know anything for certain in this oncertain world? One day, when I had just been congratulatin’ myself while I washed my breakfast dishes about the apparently happy future waitin’ my favorite (Miss Bobbett had been in to borry some tea and told me she see the Widder Lummis in the store the day before buyin’ a hull piece of Lonsdale cambric. And I can put two and two together as well as the best. So I wuz washin’ away with a real warm glow of happiness—my dish water wuz pretty hot, but that wuzn’t it entirely), Josiah come in and said he wuz goin’ right by Marion’s on bizness, and I could ride over and stay there whilst he wuz gone. He wanted to go right away, but he wuz belated by the harness breakin’ after we got started, so it wuz after the middle of the forenoon before we got there.

Marion wuz dretful glad to see me and visey versey, yes, indeed! it wuz versey on my part, but I thought she looked wan, wanner than I had ever seen her look. The hired girl had gone home on a visit, and her Pa had took the two little girls and the boys out ridin’, so Marion wuz alone. And as I looked round and see the perfect order and beauty of her home, and my nose took in the odor of the good dinner, started early, so’s to be done good (it wuz a stuffed fowl she wuz roastin’ and cookin’ some vegetables that needed slow cookin’), and as I looked at her, a perfect picture with her satin brown hair, her pretty blue print dress, with white collar and cuffs and white apron with a rose stuck in her belt, I thought to myself the man that gits you will git a prize. But I wuz rousted from my admirin’ thought after I had been there a little while by Marion sayin’ in a pensive way:

“Do you think I could write poetry, Aunt Samantha?”

“Poetry?” sez I. “I d’no whether you could or not.” But as I looked round agin I sez mildly, “Mebby you couldn’t write it, Marion, but you could live it, and you do now in my opinion.”

“Live poetry!” sez she wonderin’ly.

“Yes,” sez I, “livin’ poetry is full as beautiful and necessary as to write it, and a good deal more of a rarity.”

I knew her hull life had run along better and smoother than any blank verse I had ever seen, better than any Eppicac or Owed; it had been a full, sweet, harmonious poem of love and order and duty. But she sez agin sadly:

“I can’t live poetry; I can only do common things. I can’t read Greek or write poems, or carve statutes, or paint beautiful pictures.”

Her sweet eyes looked mournful. I wanted to chirk her up. So I sez, as my nose agin took in a whiff of the delicious food, “Folks can worry along for quite a spell without knowin’ Greek, when they can understand and do justice to a well cooked meal of vittles.” And sez I, as my eye roamed round the clean, sweet interior, “There is such a thing as livin’ a beautiful picture, and moulding immortal statutes” (I meant the dear, good actin’ little twins), “and in my idee you’ve done it, and I know somebody else that thinks so, too.”

“Oh, no, he don’t! he don’t!” And suddenly she knelt down by my side and almost buried her pretty head in my shoulder and busted into tears. And so it all come out, for all the world tellin’ me about it jest as she did when the sawdust flowed from her doll’s legs.

It seemed that Laurence Marsh had been away to a relative’s visitin’, and went to some charity doin’s and had there met a young widder visitin’ in the place, a poetess and artist and sculptor; she read a Greek poem dressed in Greek costoom, and some of her pictures and statuettes wuz on sale. He got introduced to her. She made the world and all of him, and I see how it wuz—men are weak and easy flattered and don’t know when they’re well off—the bright, pure star that had lit his life so long didn’t seem so valuable and shinin’ as the dashin’ glitter of this newly discovered meteor (metafor). The widder had writ to him and he had writ to her, and his talk since then had been full of her, and I see how it wuz, he wuz kinder waverin’ back and forth, though I mistrusted, and as good as told Marion so, that his love for her wuz as firm as ever, it wuz only his fancy that had been touched.

Well, if you’ll believe it, that very afternoon after I’d got home, who should come in but Laurence Marsh, he brought some legal papers he had been fixin’ for Josiah—and I treated him quite cool, about as cool as spring water, I should judge, for I didn’t like the idee of his usin’ Marion as he had, though of course he wuzn’t engaged to her, and had a right to pick and choose. And, for all the world, if he didn’t go to work and confide in me. It duz beat all how folks do open their hearts to me; I spoze it is my oncommon good looks that makes ’em, and my noble mean, mebby, and if you’ll believe it, and though I hadn’t no idee I should, I did feel kinder sorry for him before he got through. He appreciated Marion, I see, to the very extent of appreciation, but his fancy had been touched, the romance in his nater had responded to Miss Piddockses romance.

“Miss Piddock?” sez I, “she that wuz Evangeline Allen?”

“Her name is Evangeline; so suited to her,” sez he.

“A widder with three children?” sez I.

“Yes, three beautiful little cherubs; I love them already from their mother’s description.”

“Why,” sez I, “Miss Piddock is related to Josiah on his own side, and we’ve been layin’ out to go and see her, but sunthin’ has hendered. She lived out West, and has only moved back a year or so ago. We’ve writ back and forth; and Josiah and I got it all planned to stop and see her,” sez I; “I, too, have been greatly took with her writings.” His handsome face grew earnest, he has perfect confidence in me, and sez he:

“I can trust you, after you have been there will you tell me what you think of her? Will you?” And sez he, “I feel that you will love her, adore her; for if she is so lovely away among strangers what a jewel she will be in the precious setting of her own beautiful home! She has described it to me, and I have loved Nestle Down jest from her description.”

I sez coolly, “Josiah and I hain’t goin’ to be sent out like spies to discover the land; why don’t you go yourself?”

“She don’t want me to visit her,” sez he; “she is so sensitive, so delicate, she has some reason I do not understand, and my duties to the hospital tie me here until my vacation, which seems an age. But my life’s happiness depends upon my decision,” sez he.

Well, I didn’t give no promises nor refuse ’em. What made me more lienitent to Laurence Marsh wuz that I, too, had such feelin’s of deep respect for Evangeline Piddock. I, too, had read with a beatin’ heart some of her poems on the beauty and sacredness of home and domestic happiness, her glorification of Mother Love and Duty, and at a relative’s I had seen some of her pictures and statuettes in stun, beautiful as a dream—she wuz truly a disciple of Art and Beauty and a Creator. And then—I heard his ardent words, I see the light in his eyes. And oh, the joys and pains and the dreams of youth, the raptures and the agonies! I could look back and feel ’em agin in memory. The impatience with Destiny, the hopes, the uncertainty, the roads that branch off in so many different ways before the hasty impatient feet. Setting at rest at eventide in the long cool shadows, don’t let us forget the blazing skies, the heart beats, the ardent hopes, the ambitions, the perplexing cares of the forenoon.

Well, if you’ll believe it, the very next Sunday after that Marion’s Pa married the Widder Lummis, stood up after meetin’ and married her in a good, sensible, middle-aged way, and brung her home, and Josiah and I wuz invited there the next week a-visitin’. We’re highly thought on in Jonesville.

I found Marion’s stepma quite a good lookin’ woman, full of animal sperits and dressed handsome; she seemed good enough to Marion on the outside, but I could see that home wuzn’t what it had been to Marion in any way; her new Ma wanted to go ahead and be mistress, and thought she had a right to, and she didn’t keep the house as Marion did; things wuzn’t dirty, but if the house resembled any poem at all it wuz a poem of Disorder and Tumult. She wanted the two boys and the twins to like her, and she humored ’em, gin ’em candy and indigestible stuff that Marion never approved of, but they did highly, and they seemed kinder weaned from Marion and took up with their good natered, indulgent new Ma. And of course Marion’s Pa, as wuz nateral, wuz all engrossed in his new wife; she wuz healthy, handsome, and a good cook. Poor Marion! in the new anthem they wuz all jinin’ in there didn’t seem to be any part for her voice. She looked like a mournin’ dove; my heart ached for her.

Towards night I see her leanin’ up against the west winder of the parlor lookin’ out sadly, and, though the settin’ sun wuz on her face, it couldn’t lighten the shadder on it. I went up to her and laid my hand on her shoulder, and I see then that her eyes had been fixed on the pretty cottage Dr. Marsh had jest bought, the prettiest place in Jonesville, a sort of a stun gray house settin’ back in its green trees with a big lawn like velvet in front, all dotted with flowering shrubs and handsome trees. But I never let on that I knew what she wuz lookin’ at. But I sez, as I laid my hand tenderly on her shoulder:

“Dear, I shan’t see you agin for some time, as we’re goin’ to make a few visits, if I can get Josiah started.”

She lifted her big sad eyes to mine, they wuz full of tears, and she didn’t need to say a word. Her tragedy wuz writ there, the loss of everything she had loved and held dearest in her life; she didn’t need to speak, I read it all, it wuz coarse print to me, I didn’t need specs. And she read what she see in my eyes, the deep love and sympathy I wouldn’t profane by puttin’ into words. No, I jest bent down and kissed her and she me, and, havin’ passed the compliments with the new Miss Martin, we went home, and the next day we started on our tower.

Well, as we approached Pennell Hill, the abode of Evangeline Allen Piddock, I looked anxiously at myself and pardner and picked off some specks of lint from his coat collar and my mantilly and anxiously smoothed the creases of my umbrell and tried to fold it up closter and more genteel, but I could not, it would bag, but I felt a or in approachin’ her home, for I had studied her poems a sight and almost worshipped ’em, and through them the writer, you know sunthin’ as it reads, “Up through Nater to Nater’s God.” So I had looked up through her glorious poems of Love and Home and Childhood and Beauty, her divine poems and statutes, up to the author, and my soul had knelt to her, and thinkses I, I am now on the eve of enterin’ a home more perfect and beautiful than my eyes have ever beheld, presided over by a perfect angel. Of course I didn’t spoze she had wings or a halo, knowin’ a woman couldn’t git around sweepin’ and dustin’ worth a cent with white feather wings, and knowin’ the halo would more’n as likely as not drop off when she wuz smoothin’ rugs or pickin’ posies to ornament her mantelry piece. But I expected to see a woman perfected as I had never seen her before in every way. And I not only paid attention to the outside of our two frames, but I tried to pick out the very finest soul garment I had by me, to clothe my sperit in, knowin’ then that it wuz hardly worthy of her.

AND THEN ALL THREE ON ’EM YELLED OUT: “RUBBER NECK! RUBBER NECK!”

Page [49].

But my meditations wuz broke in on about a mild from Pennell Hill by seein’ a strange lookin’ group of children ahead on us; they wuz bareheaded and clad in ragged dirty garments, and their faces and hands and feet wuz as near to Nater’s heart as dirt could make ’em.

Their manners, too, wuz sassy, and grotesque in the extreme, for when we stopped and I asked ’em politely if they could tell us where Miss Evangeline Piddock lived, the oldest one sung out:

“What do you want with her? You can’t see her anyway, she’s abed!”

“No,” sez another of ’em, “she won’t look at you, you’re too homely.” And still another stuck a grimy forefinger on the side of a smudgy nose and sez, “What are you givin’ us?” And then all three on ’em yelled out, “Rubber neck! Rubber neck!” Some sort of a slang word, I spoze—and then they kicked up their dirty heels and run and jumped over a fence, and one boy turned two or three summersets, while the other ones kicked at us. Worse lookin’ children I never see, nor worse actin’ ones, not in my hull durin’ life; I felt stirred up and mad clear to my bones as they disappeared over a hill. And I sez to Josiah:

“I should think that the ennoblin’ influence of Evangeline Allen Piddock would have elevated even neighborin’ children and kep’ ’em from bein’ perfect savages like these.”

And Josiah sez, “I’d love to try the ennoblin’ influence of a good birch gad on ’em,” and I didn’t blame him, not a mite. Anon we approached a shamblin’, run-down lookin’ place, the house with the paint all off in spots and the picket fence dilapidated, the pickets and rails hangin’ loose, and weeds runnin’ loose over the yard, and Josiah sez, “We might inquire here where Evangeline lives.”

I sez, “She wouldn’t have anything to do with folks that live in such a lookin’ place, but it wouldn’t do any hurt to inquire.”

So Josiah approached the rickety piazza, and carefully stepped up on the broken doorstep and rapped, the door-bell hangin’ down broke. He rapped agin and yet agin, and the third time the door wuz opened and a female appeared clad in a long flowing robe of sage green, and her kinder yellow hair hangin’ loose, only banded in a Greek sort of a way with a dirty ribbin and the robe wuz dirty and two or three holes in it.

Sez Josiah, “Mom, can you tell me where she that wuz Evangeline Allen lives, Miss Piddock that now is?”

And then the female struck a sort of a graceful attitude and sez, “I am Evangeline Allen Piddock.”

You could have knocked me down with a hair-pin, and my poor Josiah wuz also struck almost sensible, and sez he, “Well, we’ve come!” And the female looked down on him, still holdin’ that graceful attitude. But I broke the deadlock that ensued by callin’ out from the democrat, I wuz only a little ways off:

“Miss Piddock, let me introduce Josiah to you.”

She come forward eagerly and sez with effusion, “Is this Cousin Josiah Allen?” And she shook his hands warmly. “And is this my dear Cousin Samantha?” sez she, approachin’ the vehicle and holdin’ my hand in both of hers. “Descend from your equipage!” sez she. “Welcome, dear cousins, to Nestle Down!”

“Thank you, Evangeline,” sez I, as I slowly backed out of the democrat and alighted down. But my soul wildly questioned me, “Where, where shall we nestle down?” For I couldn’t see any place. And after we got our things off and wuz visitin’ my soul still kep’ up this questionin’, “When, when shall I nestle down? And where?” For the outside of the house wuzn’t a circumstance to the inside; everything that could be out of place wuz, and everything that could be dirty lived up to its full privileges in that respect. The hired girl, a shiftless critter, I could see, wuz sick with nooraligy, but appeared with a mussy, faded out, calico wrapper and a yeller flannel tied round her face, and inquired what she should git for supper. Evangeline wuz at that minute describing to me a statute she had in her mind to sculp, but she left off and gin the girl some orders, and then kep’ on with her talk.

She sez, “My mind revels in the heroic, the romantic, it spreads its wings and flies away from the Present and the Real into the Beautiful, the Ideal.”

And I thought to myself I didn’t blame the soul for wantin’ to git away somewhere, but knew that it ort to be right there up and a-doin’ sunthin’ to make matters different.

Well, after a long interval we wuz called out to the supper table. There wuz a crumpled, soiled tablecloth hangin’ onevenly on a broken legged table, propped up by a book on one side. I looked at the book, and I see that it wuz “The Search for the Beautiful,” and I knowed that it could never find it there. Some showy decorated dishes, nicked and cracked, held our repast—thick slices of heavy indigestible bread; some cake fallen as flat as Babylon (you know the him states “Babylon is fallen to rise no more”), some dyspeptic lookin’, watery potatoes and cold livid slices of tough beef; some canned berries that had worked, the only stiddy workers I judged that had been round; some tea made with luke-warm water. Such wuz our fare enlivened by the presence of three of the worst actin’, worst lookin’ children I ever see in my life, clamberin’, disputin’, sassy little demons, reachin’ acrost the table for everything they wanted, sassin’ their Ma and makin’ up faces at us sarahuptishously, but I ketched ’em at it. The girl with the nooraligy waited on the table; her dress hadn’t been changed, but a mussy lookin’ muslin cap wuz perched on top of the yeller flannel and a equally crumpled, soiled, white muslin apron surmounted her dress, but, style bein’ maintained by these two objects, Evangeline seemed to be content.

She wuz the only serene, happy one at the table, and she led the conversation upward into fields of Poesy with a fine disregard to her surroundin’s that wuz wonderful in the extreme. Her talk wuz beautiful and inspirin’, and in spite of myself I found myself anon or oftener led up some distance into happier spears of fancy and imagination. But a howl from some of the little demons would bring me down agin, and a look at my dear pardner’s face of agony would plunge me, too, into gloom. Eat he could not; I myself, such is woman’s heroism and self-sacrifice, and feelin’ that I must make up for his arrearages, eat more than wuz for my good, which I paid for dearly afterwards, and knowed I must; dyspepsia claimed me for its victim, and I suffered turribly, but of this more anon and bimeby.

After supper we returned into the parlor, the children with variegated faces and hands, caused by berry juice and butter, swarmin’ over us and everything in the room, so I see plain the reason that every single thing wuz nasty and broken in the house and outside. They wuz oncomfortable as could be, every one on ’em had the stomach ache; and why shouldn’t they! The acid in their veins made ’em demoniac in their ways. Not one mouthful had they eat that wuz proper for children to eat, nor for any one else unless their stomach wuz made of iron or gutty-perchy. And I didn’t believe they ever took a bath unless they fell into the water, which they often did. The girl had gin their face and hands a hasty wipe with a wet towel, and their hair, which wuz shingled, wuz as frowsy and onclean as shingles would admit of.

Evangeline wuz good natered, and she had the faculty, Heaven knows how she could exercise it, of bein’ perfectly oblivious to her surroundin’s, and soarin’ up to the pure Heavens, whilst her body wuz down in a state worse than savages. Yes, so I calmly admitted to myself, for savages roamed the free wild forest, and clean spots could be found amongst the wild green woods, but here in vain would you seek for one. Her poems and statutes wuz beautiful, and she had piles on ’em, some done, some only jest begun; she wuz workin’ now on a statute of Sikey, beautiful as a poem in marble could be, and as we wuz lookin’ at it she sez, liftin’ her large, fine eyes heavenward:

“Oh, to create, to be a creator of beauty in poem or picture or statute, it seems to make one a partner with the Deity.”

“Yes,” sez I, “there is a good deal of sense in that, and I fully appreciate beauty wherever I see it.”

But, bein’ gored by Duty, sez I, “How would it work to make your own children, of which you are the author, works of art and beauty, care for them, work at them some as you do at your own stun figgers, cuttin’ off the rough edges, prunin’ and cuttin’ so the soul will show through the human, and they havin’ the advantage over your statutes that the good work you expend on them is liable to go on to the end of time, carryin’ out your lofty ideals in other lives—how would it work, Evangeline, and makin’ your own home as nigh as you can like the ideal one you dote on—wouldn’t it be better for you?”

She said it wouldn’t work at all; the care of home and children hampered her and held her down; she preferred pure, unadulterated art, onmingled with duties.

But I sez, “Wouldn’t the time to decide that question been before you volunteered to assume these cares; but after you have done so how would it work to do the very best you could with them, finish the work you have begun in as artistic and perfect a way as you can?”

I was cautious, I didn’t come out as I wanted to, so I sez, “How would it work?”

But she sez agin, “It wouldn’t work at all.” Sez she, “To describe the beauty of home and love, and child life in marble and poem and picture, she had to be severed entirely from all low and ignoble cares.”

“Low and ignoble!” sez I, for that kinder madded me. “No work a woman can do is more noble and elevatin’ than to make a beautiful home where lovely children rise up to call her blessed. Such a work is copyin’ below as nigh as mortals can the work divine; for isn’t Heaven depictered as our everlastin’ home, and God the Father as lovin’ and carin’ for His children with everlastin’ love, countin’ the hairs of their heads even, He takes such clost care of ’em?”

“He don’t order us to be shingled, either,” spoke up Josiah. “He don’t begretch the work of countin’ our hair.”

I wunk at him to be calm, for oh! how cross his axent wuz, but knowin’ that famine wuz the cause of it I didn’t contend, but resoomed:

“See how our Father beautifies and ornaments our home, Evangeline, with the glories of spring and summer, fills it with the perfume of flowers, the song of birds, hangs above us His dark blue mantilly studded with stars, and from the least little mosses in hid-away nooks up to the everlastin’ march of the planets, every single thing is perfect and in order. His tireless love and care never ceases, but surrounds us every moment in the home He makes and keeps up for us below,” sez I. “If a woman prefers to keep aloof from the cares and responsibilities of wifehood and parenthood, let her do so, but havin’ assumed ’em let her realize their duty and dignity, for,” sez I, “to create a true home, Evangeline, is worthy of all a woman’s efforts, and in such a cause even brooms and dish-cloths take on a sacred meaning.”

But she said that mops and dish-cloths and such things wuz fetters that she could not brook. And at that moment the three little imps all fell into the room demandin’ with shrieks and kicks sunthin’ or ruther that their Ma couldn’t pay any attention to, as she wuz absorbed in contemplating a slight thickness in a minute part of the butterfly’s wing on Sikey’s shoulder, and her mind wuz all took up in thinkin’ how could she prune it off without destroying the wing, it wuz so fragile and yet so highly necessary to be done. So havin’ howled round her for a spell and tugged at her Greek robe, so I see plain how the dirt and rents come on it, they hailed the passin’ figger of the hired girl in the hall and precipitated themselves onto her, havin’ previously kicked at the panels of the door so it almost parted asunder, so I could see plain how in a year’s time everything wuz in ruins outside and inside Nestle Down, and how impracticable it wuz that any ordinary person could by any possibility ever nestle down there, but Josiah here broke in agin:

“Evangeline, how long did your husband live?”

Sez she, liftin’ a torn lace handkerchief to her eyes, and leanin’ up against one of her statutes a good deal as I’ve seen Grief in a monument in a mournin’ piece, “He lingered along for years, but he wuz sick all the time, he had acute dyspepsia.”

“I thought so,” said Josiah, “I almost knowed it!”

Agin I wunk at him to keep still, but his arms wuz folded over his empty stomach with a expression of agony on him, and he answered my sithe with a deep groan, and knowin’ that I had better remove him to once, I proposed that we should retire. But Evangeline wuz describing a most magnificent sunset which she proposed to immortalize in a poem, and in spite of the gripin’ in my stomach, which had begun fearful, I couldn’t help bein’ carried away some distance by her eloquent language.

Well, at my second or third request we retired and went to bed. Our room wuz a big empty lookin’ one, the girl havin’ lately started to clean it, but prevented by nooraligy, the carpet nails hadn’t been took out only on two sides, and the children had been playin’ under it, I judged by the humps and hummocks under it. Josiah drawed out from under it a sled, an old boot-jack, and a Noah’s Ark that he had stubbed his foot aginst, and I tripped and most fell over a basket-ball and a crokay mallet. The washstand had been used by them, I thought, for headquarters for the enemy, for some stuns wuz piled up on it, a broken old hammer, a leather covered ball, and some marbles.

The lamp hadn’t been washed for weeks, I judged, by the mournin’ chimbly and gummed-up wick, and there wuz mebby a spunful of kerseen in the dirty bottom of the lamp. The bed wuz awful; the children had used it also as a receptacle for different things. We drawed out of it a old sponge, a dead rat, crumbs of bread and butter, and a pair of old shoes.

The girl who showed us up said the children had played there all the day before, it bein’ rainy, but she guessed we would find everything all right. Not a mite of water in the broken nosed pitcher, not a particle of soap, but an old apple core reposed in the dirty soap dish.

Well, I fixed things as well as I could, and we pulled the soiled, torn lace coverlet over us and sought the repose of sleep, but in vain, awful pains in my stomach attested to the voyalation of nater’s laws. Josiah wore out, and, groanin’ to the last, fell asleep, for which I wuz thankful, the oil burnt out to once, leavin’ a souvenir of smoke to add to the vile collection of smells, so I lay there in the dark amidst the musty odors and suffered, suffered dretful in body and sperit.

Amidst the gripin’ of colic I compared this home to the home Marion had composed like a rare poem of beauty, and I bethought how much more desirable is real practical duty and beauty than the gauzy fabric wrought of imagination, or ’tennyrate how necessary it wuz not to choose two masters. If one loved Art well enough to wed it and leave father and mother for its sake, well and good, but after chosin’ love and home and children, how necessary and beautiful it wuz to tend to them first of all, and then pay devotion to Art afterwards.

Well, I couldn’t allegore much, I wuz in too much pain, dyspepsia lay holt of me turribly. But amidst its twinges I remember wishin’ that Laurence Marsh could compare as I had the two homes and lives composed by Marion and Evangeline.

And then a worse twinge of pain brung this thought, a doctor I ought to have. A woman should be allowed to choose her own doctor. I said to myself I will send for Doctor Laurence Marsh in the mornin’, which I did. Josiah bein’ skairt telephoned to him to come to once. He come on the cars, arrivin’ at about ten A. M.

I guess I had better hang up a curtain between the reader and Laurence Marsh as he stood in that home confronted by Evangeline Allen Piddock and her household. I hadn’t told her who I had sent for, not havin’ seen her that mornin’, so he see ’em all in a state of nater as it were.

Yes, I will hold up a thick, heavy curtain with Josiah’s help, for I don’t want the reader to see Laurence Marshes face as he looked about him in the parlor and up by my bedside—such a bedside! His face, as he measured out the medicine, wuz, as Mr. Byron sez, “a scroll on which unutterable thoughts wuz traced.” But, amidst all his perturbations of mind and wrecks of airy castles and dreams, nothin’ could prevent him from bein’ a good doctor, though owin’ to a urgent hurry, a case of life and death, he said, he had to return to Jonesville immegiately, which he did.

But I felt so much better after takin’ the tablets twice every half hour that we started home a little after leven.

It seemed to me that home never seemed so good, so dear, and so clean to me in my hull life before, and what added to my perfect enjoyment, jest as we set down to a delicious supper, cooked by my own hands, one of the singles brought over a note to me from Marion. It wuz a invitation to her weddin’, which wuz to take place the next week.

CHAPTER IV.

What Maggie said about her makin’ a change kinder staid with me. Great is the power of suggestion. She suggested it to me, and I passed on the influence to my pardner.

I sez, “We’ve worked hard, and why not rest off and take a little comfort?”

“Comfort! Who ever took any comfort a-visitin’! Bound up in your best clothes settin’ round and talkin’ polite.”

“Your clothes don’t bind you, Josiah, and you know I always seek comfort first, hopin’ mebby good lookin’ things may be added unto me. And as for politeness, you don’t strain yourself much that way, and I’d love to see some of these friends we owe visits to.”

He sez, “Don’t you want to go to Nestle Down agin?” And I sez, “No, I did all the nestlin’ I wanted to once.”

Well, it wuz a number of days before he gin his consent, but finally he did, and we sot off, and our first visit wuz to Alcander and Fidelia Pogram’s.

We had been owin’ ’em visits for some time. They’re movin’ planets, and revolve round considerable, and always have. We are stars, Josiah and me, that are more fixed in our orbits. It wuz on one of Alcanderses revolutions (with of course his satellite Fidelia a-revolvin’ round him) that they lived neighbor to us for over two years, and I got real attached to Fidelia. She is a conscientious, painstaking woman, and her husband is well off, and naterally good-natered and well-meanin’. But when they wuz first married Fidelia made a Molok of him, and burnt incense before him day and night, burnin’ up on that altar all her own preferences and desires, all her chances of recreation and rest, all her own ideals, her own loves.

Never tryin’ to lift herself up and look abroad into the sunlight, and foller it outdoors into happiness—no; she jest sot crouched before that altar till her eyes got dim with the smoke of her sacrifice and she couldn’t straighten up. And the cloud of incense she wuz offerin’ up to him from day to day wuz so heavy between ’em that he’d lost sight of her; and bein’ at his feet, instead of by his side where she belonged, he couldn’t see her very well, and she seemed to be quite a distance away from him. She had made over by such doin’s his naterally generous disposition into a selfish, overbearin’ one. He wuz about as innocent as a babe of the way it wuz done, and she, too. But, take it all in all, she had made about the worst botch of married life that I had ever seen made, and she all the time jest as conscientious and religious as old Job or Zekiel or any of ’em; and he, too, thought that he wuz jest as good as Obadiah or Jonah or Enoch. And, what made it seem still worse to me, she wuz bringin’ up her girl in the same way.

Elinor wuz goin’ on twenty-one, and had a bo, Louis Arnold by name. Her Ma had told me about it the year before, and I had noticed that Elinor looked real rosy and sweet. That wuz in the first days of courtship, and I could see that the spell wuz upon her. The earth wuz glorified; the heavens bent down clost to her; she and Louis wuz a-walkin’ through Eden. But the next time I see Elinor she looked considerable faded and anxious-eyed; for all the world her eyes looked like her Ma’s—lovin’ and faithful as a dog’s, and as anxious lookin’ as a dog’s when it has been doin’ sunthin’ and expects a whippin’. I had hearn from a neighbor that Louis wuz of late growin’ cool in his attentions to Elinor. And I felt bad, for I mistrusted how it wuz done. She had sot him up on such a hite that he looked down on her. Good land! with her poster, he had to look down if he see her at all. The neighbor said that it wuz spozed that Elinor wuz goin’ into a decline, and sez she: “That Louis Arnold is a villian. He paid her attention for a year and won her love, and wuz as good as engaged to her, and she doin’ everything under the sun to keep his love, and then he grew cool and drawed off. He is a villian!” she repeated.

“Well, mebby there is blame on both sides.”

And agin she sez, “Elinor did everything to hold him, and duz yet, for she still hopes to keep him.”

And I sez, “Mebby she did too much.”

And the neighbor glared at me, and sez coldly, “I don’t understand you.”

And I sez, “No, I spoze not.” And I didn’t explain furder, nor she didn’t.

And this neighbor, bein’ a sharp-eyed-and-nosed woman, who evidently loved scandal, sez, “Have you hearn anything more about Fidelia’s troubles?”

And I sez, “No.”

And she sez, “Poor creeter! she is passin’ through the waters.”

And I sez: “What waters? Has she fell into the creek, or has her suller overflowed?”

And then she sez, right out, “Her hired girl gits more of her husband’s attention than she duz. Folks talk a sight!” sez she.

And I sez, coolly, “They generally do; they mostly make out not to lose the use of their tongues by tyin’ ’em to their teeth.”

And I wouldn’t ask a word more; but she went on: “Everybody sez Minnie acts more like the mistress of the house than Fidelia duz, dressed up and loiterin’ round; though they do say that she is faithful and honest; but Fidelia duz the hardest of the work herself, and folks say that Minnie eats with them, and if anything is wanted Fidelia gits up and gits it, and Minnie sits like a lady.”

“Well,” sez I, “most probable that is Fidelia’s fault. She wouldn’t do it unless she wuz a fool!” sez I.

“And some one told me,” sez the neighbor, “that hearn it from one that wuz knowin’ to it, that Alcander had been known to pay Minnie compliments on her good looks and pretty dresses and find fault with Fidelia.”

“Well,” sez I, “that is nothin’ but human man-nater; they will always find fault with their wives in preference to other wimmen; they’re built in jest that way, and mebby they can’t help it. I spoze mebby they think that they’re complimentin’ ’em, payin’ attention to ’em; men are so queer.”

And agin she looked real meanin’, and sez, “Well, folks talk a sight.”

And I sez agin, “They most generally do.”

Well, Fidelia Pogram wuz dretful glad to see me, and so wuz Elinor. Alcander, owin’ to the course of treatment he had had, acted some hauty, bein’ I wuz a woman—Fidelia’s fault, every mite on’t. Alcander wuz warm-hearted when he wuz married, and liked wimmen jest as well as he did men—and better, too, his wife bein’ a woman. Well, I see in a minute that Elinor looked bad, holler-eyed, pale, wan, and some stoopin’ in the shoulders (but of that more anon). Well, they hurried round and got a good supper. Fidelia is a splendid cook and duz all the cookin’, for Alcander likes her cookin’ better than he duz anybody else’s; and Fidelia, bein’ so anxious to please him, duz it all, every mite; and he thinks that Fidelia duz up his shirt bosoms better, and so she irons all the fine clothes; and Alcander finds a sight of fault if the house hain’t kep’ jest so; and, Minnie not bein’ a nateral housekeeper, Fidelia jest slaves round all the time, cleanin’ and pickin’ up, and looks fagged out and tired and worn all the time, and the hired girl pert and rosy; and Alcander paid her a compliment on her good looks, and wished right before me that Fidelia could look more like Minnie, and Minnie bridled up and looked tickled, and Fidelia’s head drooped like a droopin’ dove’s. And I don’t know when I have been madder, both as a friend and as a woman.

And I spoke right up, and sez, “Mebby if Minnie had been in the kitchen over a hot stove, and br’iled the steak and creamed the potatoes and made the coffee, and if Fidelia had been out on the piazza part of the time, mebby she would have looked more fresh.” I had seen Minnie there half of the time she wuz a-settin’ the table, a-leanin’ over the railin’, actin’ lazy and uppish.

“But,” sez Alcander coolly, “Fidelia prefers to do the cookin’.”

“Yes,” sez Fidelia faintly—for she wuz wore out—“yes, I prefer to.”

“Well,” sez I, “if you do, it is the least we can do, who enjoys your delicious supper, to be thankful to you, and sorry that you have wore yourself out for our enjoyment.” Fidelia’s cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened at the unusual thing of a word of praise bein’ gin to her; and the hired girl looked mad and black; and Alcander looked on with perfect wonder at the turn things had took, and spoke quite soft to Fidelia, and she brightened up still more.

Sez he, “Nobody can cook a steak equal to Fidelia.”

And my Josiah looked real tempersome, and as if he wuz a-goin’ in to combat for my rights as a stak’ist. But I spoke right up and sez:

“That is so, Alcander. Fidelia is one of the most splendid cooks in the county, and you must be proud of her, and do all you can to make her rest and recreate between meals, jest out of gratitude to the one that furnishes such delicious food.”

He looked kinder cheap; and Fidelia looked troubled, for she mistrusted that there wuz a shadder of blame bein’ cast onto Alcander; but I changed the subject, like a good mistress of ticktacks.

“I spoze, Elinor, you have read the last great book of——?” and I named a book very upliftin’, and beloved by young wimmen.

“No,” she said; she hadn’t much time for readin’, she wuz so busy makin’ Christmas gifts.

Sez Fidelia, proudly, “Elinor has hem-stitched twenty-two fine linen han’kerchiefs for the aunts and cousins on both sides, and made home-made lace to trim them with out of one-hundred-and-twenty thread.”

And I sez, “I don’t know that there wuz any thread so fine.”

“Yes,” sez Fidelia; “it looks like a cobweb; and out of that same thread she has made twenty yards of that lace to trim underclothes for her two sister-in-laws.”

“Isn’t it bad for her eyes, Fidelia?” sez I, lookin’ at the worn, red eyelids of Elinor.

“Yes,” sez Fidelia, “it wuz very hard on her; but she wanted to do it, for she thought they would prize ’em higher; and then,” sez Fidelia, “she has made two dozen doilies for Louis’ mother out of that same thread.”

“How long did it take you to do it?” sez I dryly.

“Oh,” sez she, “I had them for work all summer; I begun ’em the 1st of June, so I could be sure to get them done for Christmas. I think that I could have done them in two months if I had worked all the time.”

And I sez to myself, all these long golden summer hours, sweet with bird-song, fragrant with flowers and beauty, she had sot over her one-hundred-and-twenty thread patiently weavin’ cobwebs, hopin’ mebby to ketch Happiness in it; but ’tennyrate doin’ this slow work, stitch by stitch, and lettin’ all the beauty and glory of summer and life go by. For I begun to see plainer than ever why Louis Arnold wuz a defaulter in the bank of love.

“Afterwards in her room,” sez Fidelia, “I want you to see the slippers she has embroidered for Louis—I never see the beat of it; they are so fine you can’t tell where the stitches are put; each one took her three weeks of stiddy work; they are a design of pink roses on a sky-blue ground.”

Sez I, “She could have bought a pair for five dollars that would have done jest as well, and I would have loved to have seen some of the pink roses on her cheeks, and some of the bright sky-blue in her eyes. They used to look like bits of the sky peeping out of rosy clouds.” (Them wuz her cheeks in metafor.) “But they look faded now, Fidelia,” sez I—“dretful faded and wore out.”

“Yes,” sez she, “she has injured her eyesight this summer—injured it a sight. She has sot up till midnight, night after night, workin’, for fear she wouldn’t git ’em done in time. And then,” sez she, bustin’ out into a confidential tone, “she has cried a good deal. Oh, Samantha,” sez she, “you don’t know how much that girl is a-sufferin’. There she is, jest the same as engaged, and she jest as faithful as the north star to the pole, and he growin’ cool all the time and indifferent.”

“Well,” sez I, “the stiddy faithfulness of the star can’t be changed, Fidelia, nor the coldness of the north pole, for it is the nater of that pole to be frigid, and we can’t do anything to warm it up. But,” sez I, “as for this matter of Elinor and Louis Arnold, I believe my soul that I could make a change in their doin’s if I had my way.”

“Oh, dear Samantha! Could you, could you?” sez Fidelia, a-wipin’ up her tears and lookin’ some brighter.

“But,” sez I, sort of lookin’ off mentally some distance, “it hain’t no ways likely that she would do what I would want her to.”

“Oh, she would!” sez Fidelia.

“I would, I would!” cried Elinor, advancin’ from behind the porchair. “Forgive me; I wuz behind the curtain a-catchin’ the last daylight on these slippers, and I overheard your talk. I will do jest as you say, for my heart is breakin’, Aunt Samantha,” sez she. They always auntied and uncled us, our children did, Fidelia’s and mine. “I will do jest what you tell me to,” sez she, standin’ before me, tears streamin’ down her white cheeks, her work-box in one hand, and the oncompleted slipper a-danglin’ in the other.