OFF INTO SIDE PATHS.
Wall, the upshot of the matter wuz Al Faizi stayed right there for
weeks. He seemed to have plenty of money, and I d’no what arrangement
he and Josiah did make about his board, but I know that Josiah acted
after that interview with him in the back yard real clever to him, and
didn’t say a word more aginst the idee of his not bein’ there.
(Josiah is clost.)
As for me, I would have scorned to have took a cent from him, feelin’
that I got more’n my pay out of his noble but strange conversation.
But Josiah is the head of the family (or he calls himself so).
And mebby he is some of the time.
But suffice it to say, Al Faizi jest stayed and made it his home with
us, and peered round, and took journeys, and tried to find out things
about our laws and customs.
Thomas Jefferson loved to talk with him the best that ever wuz. And
Al Faizi would make excursions to different places round, a-walkin’
mostly, a-seein’ how the people lived, and a-watchin’ their manners
and customs, and in writin’ down lots of things in some books he had
with him, takin’ notes, I spozed, and learnin’ all he could. One book
that he used to carry round with him and make notes in wuz as queer a
lookin’ book as I ever see.
With sunthin’ on the cover that looked some like a cross and some like
a star.
There wuz some precious stuns on it that flashed. If it wuz held up
in some lights it looked like a cross, and then agin the light would
fall on’t and make it look like a star. And the gleamin’ stuns would
sparkle and flash out sometimes like a sharp sword, and anon soft, like
a lambient light.
It wuz a queer-lookin’ book; and he said, when I atted him about it,
that he brought it from a country fur away.
And agin he made that gester towards the East, that might mean
Loontown, and might mean Ingy and Hindoosten--and sech.
After that first talk with me, in which he seemed to open his heart,
and tell what wuz in his mind, as you may say, about our country, he
didn’t seem to talk so very much.
He seemed to be one of the kind who do up their talkin’ all to one
time, as it were, and git through with it.
Of course he asked questions a sight, for he seemed to want to find out
all he could. And he would anon or oftener make a remark, but to talk
diffuse and at length, he hardly ever did. But he took down lots of
notes in that little book, for I see him.
I enjoyed havin’ him there dretful well, and done well by him in
cookin’, etcetery and etcetery.
But the excitement when he first walked into the Jonesville
meetin’-house with Josiah and me wuz nearly rampant. I felt queer and
kinder sheepish, to be walkin’ out with a man with a long dress, and
turban on, and sandals. And I kinder meached along, and wuz glad to git
to our pew and set down as quick as I could. But Josiah looked round
him with a dignified and almost supercilious mean. He felt hauty, and
acted so, to think that we had a heathen with us and that the other
members of the meetin’-house didn’t have one.
But if I felt meachin’ over one heathen, or, that is, if I felt
embarrassed a-showin’ him off before the bretheren and sistern, what
would I felt if Josiah had had his way about comin’ to meetin’ that day?
Little did them bretheren and sistern know what I’d been through that
mornin’.
Josiah wore his gay dressin’-gown down to breakfast, which I bore
well, although it wuz strange--strange to have two men with dresses on
a-settin’ on each side of me to the table--I who had always been ust to
plain vests and pantaloons and coats on the more opposite sex.
But I bore up under it well, and didn’t say nothin’ aginst it, and
poured out the coffee and passed the buckwheat cakes and briled chicken
and etc. with a calm face.
But when church-time come, and Ury brought the mair and democrat up
to the door, and I got up on to the back seat, when I turned and see
Josiah Allen come out with that rep dressin’-gown on, trimmed with
bright red, and them bright tossels a-hangin’ down in front, and a plug
hat on, you could have knocked me down with a pin feather.
And sez I sternly, “What duz this mean, Josiah Allen?”
Sez he, “I am a-goin’ to wear this to meetin’, Samantha.”
“To meetin’?” sez I almost mekanically.
“Yes,” sez he; “I am a-doin’ it out of compliments to Fazer; he would
feel queer to be the only man there with a dress on, and so I thought I
would keep him company; and,” sez he, a-fingerin’ the tossels lovin’ly,
“this costoom is very dressy and becomin’ to me, and I’d jest as leave
as not let old Bobbett and Deacon Garvin see me appearin’ in it,” sez
he.
“Do you go and take that off this minute, Josiah Allen! Why, they’d
call you a idiot and as crazy as a loon!”
Sez he, a-puttin’ his right foot forward and standin’ braced up on it,
sez he, “I shall wear this dress to meetin’ to-day!”
Sez I, “You won’t wear it, Josiah Allen!”
Sez he, “You know you are always lecturin’ me on bein’ polite. You know
you told me a story about a woman who broke a china teacup a purpose
because one of her visitors happened to break hern. You praised her up
to me; and now I am actin’ out of almost pure politeness, and you want
to break it up, but you can’t,” sez he, and he proceeded to git into
the democrat.
Ury wuz a-standin’ with his hands on his sides, convulsed with
laughter, and even the mair seemed to recognize sunthin’ strange, for
she whinnered loudly.
Sez I in frigid axents, “Even the old mair is a whinnerin’, she is so
disgusted with your doin’s, Josiah Allen.”
“The old mair is whinnerin’ for the colt!” sez he, and agin he put his
foot on the lowest step.
[Illustration: Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out.”]
“Wall,” sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, with dignity, “I’ll git out
and stay to home. I will not go to church and see my pardner took up
for wearin’ female’s clothin’.”
He paused with his foot on the step, and a shade of doubt swept over
his liniment.
“Do you spoze they would?” sez he.
“Of course they would!” sez I; “twilight would see you a-moulderin’ in
a cell in Loontown.”
“I couldn’t moulder much in half a day!” sez he.
But I see that I wuz about to conquer. He paused a minute in deep
thought, and then he turned away; but as he went up the steps slowly,
I hearn him say--“Dum it all, I never try to show off in politeness or
anything but what sunthin’ breaks it up!”
But anon he come down clothed in his good honorable black kerseymeer
suit, and Al Faizi soon follered him in his Oriental garb, and we
proceeded to meetin’.
As I say, the excitement wuz nearly rampant as we went in. And I spoze
nothin’ hendered the female wimmen and men from bein’ fairly prostrated
and overcome by their feelin’s, only this fact, that the winter
before a Hindoo in full costoom had lectured before the Jonesville
meetin’-house, so that memory kinder broke the blow some. And then some
on ’em had been to the World’s Fair, and seen quantities of heathens
and sech there.
So no casuality wuz reported, though feather fans wuz waved wildly, and
more caraway wuz consoomed, I dare presoom to say, than would have been
in a month of Sundays in ordinary times.
But while the wonder and curosity waxed rampant all round, Al Faizi sot
silent and motionless as the dead, with his soft, brilliant eyes fixed
on the minister’s face, eager to ketch every word that fell from his
lips--a-tryin’ to hear the echo of the Great Voice speak to him through
the minister’s words, so I honestly believe.
For I think that a honester, sincerer, well-meanin’er creeter never
lived and breathed than he wuz; and as days went on I see nothin’ to
break up my opinion of him.
Politer he wuz than any female, or minister, I ever see fur or near.
Afraid of makin’ trouble to a marked extent, eager and anxious to learn
everything he could about everything--all our laws, and customs, and
habits, and ways of thinkin’--and tellin’ his views in a simple way of
honest frankness, that almost took my breath away--anxious to learn,
and anxious to teach what he knew of the truth.
Though, as I said, after that first bust of talk with me he seemed
inclined to not talk so much, but learn all he could. It wuz as if he
had his say out in that first interview. Dretful interestin’ creeter to
have round, he wuz--sech a contrast to the inhabitants of Jonesville,
Deacon Garvin and the Dankses, etc.
He didn’t stay to our house all the time, as I said, but would take
pilgrimages round and come back, and make it his home there.
Wall, it wuz jest about this time that a contoggler come to our
house to contoggle a little for me. I wanted some skirts, and some
underwaists, and some of Josiah’s old clothes contoggled.
You know, it stood to reason that we couldn’t have all new things for
our voyage, and so I had to have some of our old clothes fixed up. You
see, things will git kinder run down once in awhile--holes and rips in
dresses, trimmin’ offen mantillys, tabs to new line, and pantaloons to
hem over round the bottom, and vests to line new, and backs to put into
’em, and etcetery and etcetery.
And, then, you’ll outgrow some of your things, and have to let ’em
out; or else they’ll outgrow you, and you’ll have to take ’em in, or
sunthin’.
Sech cases as these don’t call for a dressmaker or a tailoress. No, at
sech times a contoggler is needed. And I’ve made a stiddy practice for
years of hirin’ a woman to come to the house every little while for a
day or two at a time, and have my clothes and Josiah’s all contoggled
up good.
This contoggler I had now wuz a old friend of mine, who had made it her
home with me for some time in the past, and now bein’ a-keepin’ house
happy not fur away, had sech a warm feelin’ for me in her heart, that
she always come and contoggled for me when I needed a contoggler.
She had a dretful interestin’ story. Mebby you’d like to hear it?
I hate to have a woman meander off into side paths too much, but if the
public are real sot and determined on hearin’ me rehearse her history,
why I will do it. For it is ever my desire to please.
It must be now about three years sence I had my first interview with
my contoggler. And I see about the first minute that she wuz a likely
creeter--I could see it in her face.
She wuz a perfect stranger to me, though she had lived in Jonesville
some five months prior and before I see her.
And Maggie, my son’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, wife, hearn of her through
her mother’s second cousin’s wife’s sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey. And Miss
Ikey said that she seemed to be one of the best wimmen she ever laid
eyes on, and that it would be a real charity to give her work, as she
wuz a stranger in the place, without much of anything to git along
with, and seemed to be a deep mourner about sunthin’. Though what it
wuz she didn’t know, for ever sence she had come to Jonesville she had
made a stiddy practice of mindin’ her own bizness and workin’ when she
got work.
She had come to Jonesville kinder sudden like, and she had hired her
board to Miss Lemuel Ikey’s son’s widow, who kep’ a small--a very small
boardin’-house, bein’ put to it for things herself though, likely.
I told Maggie to ask her mother to ask her second cousin’s wife to ask
her sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey, to ask her son’s wife what the young
woman could do.
And the word come back to me straight, or as straight as could be
expected, comin’ through five wimmen who lived on different roads.
“That she wuzn’t a dressmaker, or a mantilly maker, or a tailoress. But
she stood ready to do what she could, and needed work dretfully, and
would be awful thankful for it.”
Then feelin’ deeply sorry for her, and wantin’ to befriend her, I sent
word back in the same way--“To know if she could wash, or iron, or do
fancy cookin’. Or could she make hard or soft soap? Or feather flowers?
Or knit striped mittens? Or pick geese? Or paint on plaks? Or do
paperin’?”
And the answer come back, meanderin’ along through the five--“That she
wuzn’t strong enough, or didn’t know how to do any one of these, but
she stood ready to do all she could do, and needed work the worst kind.”
Then I tackled the matter myself, as I might better have done in the
first place, and went over to see her, bein’ willin’ to give her
help in the best way any one can give it, by helpin’ folks to help
themselves.
I went over quite early in the mornin’, bein’ on my way for a all-day’s
visit to Tirzah Ann’s.
But I found the woman up and dressed up slick, or as slick as she could
be with sech old clothes on.
And I liked her the minute I laid eyes on her.
Her face, though not over than above handsome, wuz sweet-lookin’, the
sweetness a-shinin’ out through her big, sad eyes, like the light in
the western skies a-shinin’ out through a rift in heavy clouds.
Very pale complected she wuz, though I couldn’t tell whether the
paleness wuz caused by trouble, or whether she wuz made so. And the
same with her delicate little figger. I didn’t know whether that
frajile appearance wuz nateral, or whether Grief had tackled her with
his cold, heavy chisel, and had wasted the little figger until it
looked more like a child’s than a woman’s.
And in her pretty brown hair, that kinder waved round her white
forward, wuz a good many white threads.
Of course I couldn’t tell but what white hair run through her
family--it duz in some. And I had hearn it said that white hair in
the young wuz a sign of early piety, and of course I couldn’t set up
aginst that idee in my mind.
But them white hairs over her pale young face looked to me as if they
wuz made by Sorrow’s frosty hand, that had rested down too heavy on her
young head.
She met me with a sweet smile, but a dretful sad one, too, when Miss
Ikey introduced me.
[Illustration: She met me with a sweet smile.]
But when I told my errent she brightened up some. But after settin’
down with her for more’n a quarter of a hour, a-questionin’ her in as
delicate a way as I could and get at the truth, I found that every
single thing that she could do wuz to contoggle.
So I hired her as a contoggler, and took her home with me that night on
my way home from Tirzah Ann’s as sech, and kep’ her there three weeks
right along.
I see plain that she could do that sort of work by the first look that
I cast onto her dress, which wuz black, and old and rusty, but all
contoggled up good, mended neat and smooth, and so I see, when she got
ready to go with me, wuz her mantilly, and her bunnet; both on ’em wuz
old and worn, but both on ’em showed plain signs of contogglin’.
She wuz a pitiful-lookin’ little creeter under her black bunnet, and
pitiful-lookin’ when the bunnet wuz hung up in our front bedroom, and
she kep’ on bein’ so from day to day, as pale and delicate-lookin’ as a
posey that has growed in the shade--the deep shade.
And though she kep’ to work good, and didn’t complain, I see from day
to day the mark that Sufferin’ writes on the forwards of them that
pass through the valleys and dark places where She dwells. (I don’t
know whether Sufferin’ ort to be depictered as a male or a female, but
kinder think that it is a She.)
But to resoom. I didn’t say nothin’ to make her think I pitied her, or
anything, only kep’ a cheerful face and nourishin’ provisions before
her from day to day, and not too much hard work.
I thought I’d love to see her little peekéd face git a little mite of
color in it, and her sad blue eyes a brighter, happier look.
But I couldn’t. She would work faithful--contoggle as I have never seen
any livin’ woman contoggle, much as I have witnessed contogglin’.
And I don’t mean any disrespect to other contogglers I have had when
I say this--no, they did the best they could. But Miss Clark (that
wuz the name she gin--Annie Clark), she had a nateral gift in this
direction.
She worked as stiddy as a clock, and as patient, and patienter, for
that will bust out and strike every now and then. But she sot resigned,
and meek, and still over rents and jagged holes in garments, and rainy
days and everything.
Calm in thunder storms, and calm in sunshine, and sad, sad as death
through ’em all, and most as still.
And I sot demute and see it go on as long as I could, a-feelin’ that
yearnin’ sort of pity for her that we can’t help feelin’ for all dumb
creeters when they are in pain, deeper than we feel for talkative
agony--yes, I always feel a deeper pity and a more pitiful one for
sech, and can’t help it.
And so one day, when I wuz a-settin’ at my knittin’ in the
settin’-room, and she a-settin’ by me sad and still, a-contogglin’ on a
summer coat of my Josiah’s, I watched the patient, white face and the
slim, patient, white fingers a-workin’ on patiently, and I stood it as
long as I could; and then I spoke out kinder sudden, being took, as it
were, by the side of myself, and almost spoke my thoughts out loud,
onbeknown to me, and sez I:
“My dear!” (She wuzn’t more’n twenty-two at the outside.)
“My dear! I wish you would tell me what makes you so unhappy; I’d love
to help you if I could.”
She dropped her work, looked up in my face sort o’ wonderin’, yet
searchin’.
I guess that she see that I wuz sincere, and that I pitied her
dretfully. Her lips begun to tremble. She dropped her work down onto
the floor, and come and knelt right down by me and put her head in my
lap and busted out a-cryin’.
You know the deeper the water is, and the thicker the ice closes over
it, the greater the upheaval and overflow when the ice breaks up.
She sobbed and she sobbed; and I smoothed back her hair, and kinder
patted her head, and babied her, and let her cry all she wanted to.
My gingham apron wuz new, but it wuz fast color and would wash, and I
felt that the tears would do her good.
I myself didn’t cry, though the tears run down my face some. But I
thought I wouldn’t give way and cry.
And this, the follerin’, is the story, told short by me, and terse,
terser than she told it, fur. For her sobs and tears and her anguished
looks all punctuated it, and lengthened it out, and my little groans
and sithes, which I groaned and sithed entirely onbeknown to myself.
But anyway it wuz a pitiful story.
She had at a early age fell in love voyalent with a young man, and he
visey versey and the same. They wuz dretful in love with each other, as
fur as I could make out, and both on ’em likely and well meanin’, and
well behaved with one exception.
He drinked some. But she thought, as so many female wimmen do, that he
would stop it when they wuz married.
Oh! that high rock that looms up in front of prospective brides, and on
which they hit their heads and their hearts, and are so oft destroyed.
They imagine that the marriage ceremony is a-goin’ in some strange way
to strike in and make over all the faults and vices of their young
pardners and turn ’em into virtues.
Curous, curous, that they should think so, but they do, and I spoze
they will keep on a-thinkin’ so. Mebby it is some of the visions that
come in the first delerium of love, and they are kinder crazy like for
a spell. But tenny rate they most always have this idee, specially if
love, like the measles, breaks out in ’em hard, and they have it in the
old-fashioned way.
Wall, as I wuz a-sayin’, and to resoom and proceed.
Annie thought he would stop drinkin’ after they wuz married. He said
he would. And he did for quite a spell. And they wuz as happy as if
they had rented a part of the Garden of Eden, and wuz a-workin’ it on
shares.
Then his brother-in-law moved into the place, and opened a cider-mill
and a saloon--manafactered and sold cider brandy, furnished all the
saloons round him with it, took it off by the load on Saturdays, and
kep’ his saloon wide open, so’s all the boys and men in the vicinity
could have the hull of Sunday to git crazy drunk in, while he wuz
a-passin’ round the contribution-box in the meetin’-house.
For he wuz a strict church-goer, the brother-in-law wuz, and felt that
he wuz a sample to foller.
Wall, Ellick Gurley follered him--follered him to his sorrer. The
brother-in-law employed him in his soul slaughter-house--for so I can’t
help callin’ the bizness of drunkard-makin’. I can’t help it, and I
don’t want to help it.
And so, under his influence, Ellick Gurley wuz led down the soft,
slippery pathway of cider drunkenness, with the holler images of Safety
and old Custom a-standin’ up on the stairway a-lightin’ him down it.
Ellick first neglected his work, while his face turned first a pink,
and then a bloated, purplish red.
Then he begun to be cross to his wife and abusive to little Rob, the
beautiful little angel that had flown to them out of the sweet shadows
of Eden, where they had dwelt the first married years of their life.
Finally, he got to be quarrelsome. Annie wuz afraid of him. And all
of his money and all of hern went to buy that cider brandy (it makes
the ugliest, most dangerous kind of a drunk, they say, of any kind of
liquor, and I believe it from what I have seen myself, and from what
Annie told me of her husband’s treatment of her and little Rob).
[Illustration: Finally, he got to be quarrelsome.]
And at last she begun to suffer for food and clothin’ for herself and
the child.
And as the drink demon riz up in Ellick’s crazy brain, and grew more
clamorous in its demands, and he weaker to contend aginst it, Ellick
sold all of the household stuff he could git holt of to appease this
dretful power that had got holt of him, body and soul.
Annie took in all the work she could do, did washin’ for the neighbors,
who ust to envy her her happiness and prosperity--rubbed and hung out
the heavy garments with tremblin’ fingers--sewed with her achin’ head
a-bendin’ over the long seams, and her tear-filled eyes dimmed with the
pain of unavailin’ agony.
But heartaches and abuse made her weak form weaker and weaker, and then
there wuz but little work to do, if she had been as strong as Sampson;
so, bein’ fairly drove to it by Agony, and Fear, and Starvation, them
three furies a-drivin’ her, as you may say, harnessed up three abreast
behind her, a-goadin’ her weak, cowerin’ form with their fire-tipped
lashes, she appealed to the brother-in-law.
She told him, what he knew before, that she and little Robbie were
starvin’, and she wuz afraid of her life, and she urged him to not sell
Ellick any more of the poison that wuz a-destroyin’ him.
He wuz to meetin’ when she went. He wuz dretful particular about his
religious observances.
No Hindoos wuz ever stricter about burnin’ their widders on the funeral
pyre of the departed than he wuz a-follerin’ up what he called his
religion.
(Religion, sweet, pure sperit, how could she stand it, to have him
a-burnin’ his incense in front of her? But, then, she has had to stand
a good deal in this old world, and has to yet.)
But, as I wuz a-sayin’, there never wuz a Pharisee in old or modern
times that went ahead of him in cleanin’ the outside of his platters
and religious deep dishes, and makin’ broad the border of his
phylakricy. Why, his phylakricy wuz broader and deeper than you have
any idee on.
But inside of his platters and deep dishes wuz dead men’s bones!
More’n one quarrel, riz up out of his accursed brandy, had led to
bloodshed, besides achin’ and broken hearts without number, and ruined
souls and lives.
And his phylakricy ort to be broad, for it had to be used as a pall
time and agin, and it covered, so he thought, a multitude of sins.
Yes, indeed!
Wall, as I say, he wuz to a church meetin’. There wuz a-goin’ to be a
Association of Religious Bodies for the Amelioration of Human Woe. And
he wuz anxious to be sent as a delegate, so he hung on to the last, and
wuz appinted.
But finally he got home, and Annie tackled him on the subject nearest
her heart, talked to him with tears in her eyes and a voice tremblin’
with the anguished beatin’s of her poor, achin’ heart.
She begged him to not sell her husband any more drink, begged him for
her sake and for the sake of little Rob. For she knew that if the man
had a tender place in his heart it wuz for his little nephew. He did
love him deeply, or as deep as a man like this could love anything
above his money and his reputation as a religious leader.
But he wouldn’t promise, and he acted dretful high-headed and hateful
to her to cover up his meanness, for he felt that if he should refuse
to sell his stuff, it would not only stop his money-makin’, but it
would be like ownin’ up that he had been in the wrong.
And he plumed himself, and carried the idee that cider wuz a healthful
beverage, and very strengthenin’ in janders and sech. Why, he carried
the idee to the world, and mebby in the first place he did to his own
soul, so blindin’ is the spectacles of selfishness that he wore, that
he wuz a-doin’ a charitable work a-keepin’ that old cider-mill and
saloon a-goin’.
So he wouldn’t pay no attention to her pleadin’s, only acted hateful
and cross to her, his guilty conscience makin’ him so, I spoze.
And then, too, he wuz in a hurry, for his church duties wuz a-waitin’
for him, and his barrels of cider wanted doctorin’ with alcohol and
sech.
So he turned onto his heel and left her.
And Annie went home more broken-hearted than ever, for his cold, cruel
sneers and scorn hurt her on the poor heart made sore by her husband’s
brutality.
And Ellick went on worse than ever. And it wuz on that very day that
his brother-in-law (and to make it shorter we will call him B. I.
L.)--it wuz on the very day that the B. I. L. went to New York on his
great Amelioratin’ Human Misery errent, that Ellick, crazy drunk with
cider shampain, struck little Rob sech a blow that it knocked the child
down, and he laid stunted for more’n a hour. And he threatened Annie
that he would take her life, because she interfered between him and the
boy.
He raved round, like the maniac that he wuz. He said that he would
throw her out doors if she didn’t git a good dinner, when there wuzn’t
a mite of food in the house to cook. He raved about the house bein’ so
freezin’ cold, when there wuzn’t a stick of wood nor a lump of coal.
[Illustration: Ellick lay drunk in the office.]
And finally he reeled off to his usual place of resort. And while the
B. I. L. wuz a-raisin’ up in the great meetin’-house, and a-smoothin’
out his phylakricy, and a-layin’ the border of it careful, so’s it
would show off well, and then bustin’ out into sech a speech, on the
duties of church-members to the sinful and the sorrowin’ round ’em--a
speech that riz him up powerful in religious circles--Ellick lay drunk
in the office of his cider-mill.
Little Rob lay like a dead child in a cold, bare room, and a
white-faced, half-starved mother bent over him with big, despairin’,
anxious eyes--bent over him till life come back to his poor, bruised
body; and then as darkness crept over the earth she stole away,
a-carryin’ him in her arms.
She got a ride with a passin’ teamster, got carried fur off, then got
another ride, wuz fed and warmed by pityin’ hearts on the way; so she
come to a place nigh Jonesville, onbeknown to anybody.
When Ellick rousted up out of his drunken sleep he went back to a
desolate, empty house. His surprise, his grief, sobered him. He flew to
the B. I. L., woke him out of a sound sleep filled with visions of his
triumphs.
The B. I. L. wuz in a tryin’ place. He wuz about to be riz up to a
high position in the meetin’-house. If this story got out, it might
and probble would hurt him. Annie must be found and brought back. They
jined forces to try to find her. They sot out that very day, but the
quest wuz a long one.
Annie stayed a spell with the family who took her in first out of the
cold and the darkness.
The man of the house, and the woman, too, wuz relations on the soul
side to the good old Samaritan mentioned in Skripter. They did well by
her.
But little Rob never got over the effects of the cruel blow, and the
fall on the hard floor, and the awful journey through the coldness
of the midnight escape. They all sort o’ underminded his little
constitution, and he wuz took sick a bed.
And bein’ too tired out and hardly dealt with here on earth, he wuz
promoted up to that higher home, where we may be sure that his True
Father, the Helper of all the oppressed and burdened, accepted him
right into His great heart of Love, and wuz good to the little, patient
soul.
Wall, Annie couldn’t tell me much about that time, when she had to let
the child, a part of her own life, go out of her arms, and she wuz left
alone--alone amongst strangers, helpless, despairin’, and poor.
No, she couldn’t talk much about it, not in words, but I understood the
language of her tremblin’ lips and her fallin’ tears.
Wall, when little Rob wuz laid away under the dead grasses and the bare
shade trees of that little country church-yard, Annie couldn’t stay
long in the house where he had been and now wuz not.
His little figger hanted every room, and her agonized Remembrance wuz
a-walkin’ up and down with her. So she heard of a place in Jonesville
where mebby she could git work, and she come there.
But lately news had come to her that her husband and B. I. L. wuz
huntin’ for her.
Ellick really and truly loved his wife and child, so it wuz spozed,
and hunted for Love’s and Anxiety’s sakes.
The B. I. L. hunted ’em so’s to hush up the story; it wuz a-hurtin’ him
dretfully in the eyes of the meetin’-house. And Anger and Selfishness
and Hypocrocy wuz a-holdin’ up their blue-flamed torches to light him
on his hunt.
Wall, Annie wuz in deathly fear that they would find her. She had took
another name--her mother’s maiden name--but she wuz afraid they would
find it out.
She said that she could not live to go through agin what she had gone
through with. And yet when I pinned her right down on the subject (a
calm, religious pinnin’) she owned up that she did love her husband
yet. She cried when she said it.
And I thought to myself that I would cry if I wuz in her place, if I
loved such a thing as that.
But she said, and mebby it wuz so, that he would have been all right if
it hadn’t been for the influence of the B. I. L. and his bein’ gradual
led back into drinkin’ agin by sunthin’ that he thought wouldn’t hurt
him. She said that he never would have touched whiskey agin, havin’
promised and broke off.
But he thought, somehow, that the liquid sech a highly religious man
wuz a-sellin’ under the name of cider must be sort o’ soothin’ to his
insides; but instead of that it set fire to ’em, and his morals and
all, and burnt ’em right up.
Annie showed me Ellick’s picter, and it wuz a good-lookin’ face, or
kinder good; it would have been handsome if it hadn’t been for a sort
of a weak look onto it.
But weak or strong, she loved him. And so I didn’t really know how she
wuz a-comin’ out so fur as her own happiness wuz concerned. Wimmen are
so queer.
But I chirked her up all I could, told her to keep jest as calm as she
could conveniently, and I would take care of her for the present.