THE CHERITY OF THE JONESVILLIANS.
We have been havin’ a pound party here in Jonesville. There wuz a lot
of children left without any father or mother, nobody only an old
grandma to take care of ’em, and she wuz half bent with the rheumatiz,
and had a swelled neck, and lumbago and fits.
They lived in an old tumble-down house jest outside of Jonesville. The
father wuz, I couldn’t deny, a shiftless sort of a chap, good-natured,
always ready to obleege a neighbor, but he hadn’nt no faculty. And I
don’t know, come to think of it, as anybody is any more to blame if
they are born without a faculty, than if they are born with only one
eye. Faculty is one of the things that you can’t buy.
He loved to hunt. That is, he loved to hunt some kinds of things. He
never loved to hunt stiddy, hard work, and foller on the trail of it
till he evertook success and captured it. No, he druther hunt after
catamounts and painters, in woods where catamounts haint mounted, and
painters haint painted sence he wuz born.
He generally killed nothin’ bigger than red squirrels and chipmunks.
The biggest game he ever brought down wuz himself. He shot himself one
cold day in the fall of the year. He wuz gettin’ over a brush fence,
they s’posed the gun hit against somethin’ and went off, for they found
him a layin’ dead at the bottom of the fence.
I always s’posed that the shock of his death comin’ so awful sudden
unto her, killed his wife. She had been sick for a long spell, she had
consumption and dropsy, and so forth, and so forth, for a long time,
and after he wuz brought in dead, she didn’t live a week. She thought
her eyes of him, for no earthly reason as I could ever see. How
strange, how strange a dispensation of Providence it duz seem, that
some women love some men, and vicy versey and the same.
But she did jest about worship him, and she died whisperin’ his name,
and reachin’ out her hands as if she see him jest ahead of her. And I
told Josiah I didn’t know but she did. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if she
did see him, for there is only the veil of mystery between us and the
other world at any time, and she had got so nigh to it, that I s’pose
it got so thin that she could see through it.
Just as you can see through the blue haze that lays before our forest
in Injun summer. Come nigh up to it and you can see the silvery trunks
of the maples and the red sumac leaves, and the bright evergreens, and
the forms of the happy hunters a passin’ along under the glint of the
sunbeams and the soft shadows.
They died in Injun summer. I made a wreath myself of the bright-colored
leaves to lay on their coffins. Dead leaves, dead to all use and
purpose here, and yet with the bright mysterious glow upon them that
put me in mind of some immortal destiny and blossoming beyond our poor
dim vision. Jane Smedley wuz a good woman, and so wuz Jim, good but
shiftless.
But I made the same wreath for her and Jim, and the strange mellow
light lay on both of ’em, makin’ me think in spite of myself of some
happy sunrisin’ that haply may dawn on some future huntin’ ground,
where poor Jim Smedley even, may strike the trail of success and
happiness, hid now from the sight of Samantha, hid from Josiah.
Wall, they died within a week’s time of each other, and left nine
children, the oldest one of ’em not quite fifteen. She, the oldest one,
wuz a good girl, only she had the rickets so that when she walked, she
seemed to walk off all over the house backwards, and sideways, and
every way, but when she sot down, she wuz a good stiddy girl, and
faithful; she took after her mother, and her mother took after her
grandmother, so there wuz three takin’ after each other, one right
after the other.
Jane wuz a good, faithful, hard-workin’ creeter when she wuz well,
brought up her children good as she could, learnt ’em the catechism,
and took in all kinds of work to earn a little somethin’ towards
gettin’ a home for ’em; she and her mother both did, her mother lived
with ’em, and wuz a smart old woman, too, for one that wuz pretty nigh
ninety. And she wuzn’t worrysome much, only about one thing—she wanted
a home, wanted a home dretfully. Some wimmen are so; she had moved
round so much, from one poor old place to another, that she sort o’
hankered after bein’ settled down into a stiddy home.
Wall, there wuz eight children younger than Marvilla, that wuz the
oldest young girl’s name. Eight of ’em, countin’ each pair of twins as
two, as I s’pose they ort. The Town buried the father and mother, which
wuz likely and clever in it, but after that it wouldn’t give only jest
so much a week, which wuz very little, because it said, Town did, that
they could go to the poor-house, they could be supported easier there.
I don’t know as the Town could really be blamed for sayin’ it, and yet
it seemed kinder mean in it, the Town wuz so big, and the children,
most of ’em, wuz so little.
But any way, it wuz jest sot on it, and there wuz the end of it, for
you might jest as well dispute the wind as to dispute the Town when it
gets sot.
Wall, the old grandma said she would die in the streets before she
would go to the poor-house. She had come from a good family in the
first place,
They say she run away and left a good home and got married, and did
dretful poor in the married state. He waz shiftless and didn’t have
nothin’ and didn’t lay up any. And she didn’t keep any of her old
possessions only jest her pride. She kept that, or enough of it to say
that she would die on the road before she would go to the poor-house.
And once I see her cry she wanted a home so bad.
And lots of folks blamed her for it, blamed the old woman awfully. They
said pride wuz so wicked. Wimmen who would run like deers if company
came when they wuzn’t dressed up slick, they would say the minute they
got back into the room, all out of breath with hurryin’ into their best
clothes, they’d say a pantin’ “That old woman ought to be _made_ to go
to the poorhouse, to take the pride out of her, pride wuz so awfully,
dretfully wicked, and it wuz a shame that she wuz so ongrateful as to
want a home of her own.” And then they would set down and rest.
Wall, the family wuz in a sufferin’ state. The Town allowed ’em one
dollar a week. But how wuz ten human beings to live on a dollar a week.
The children worked every chance they got, but they couldn’t earn
enough to keep ’em in shoes, let alone other clothin’ and vittles. And
the old house wuz too cold for ’em to stay in durin’ the cold weather,
it wuz for Grandma Smedley, anyway, if the children could stand it she
couldn’t. And what wuz to be done. A cold winter wuz a cumin’ on, and
it wouldn’t delay a minute because Jim Smedley had got shot, and his
wife had follered him, into, let us hope, a happier huntin’ ground than
he had ever found in earthly forests.
Wall, I proposed to have a pound party for ’em. I said they might have
it to our house if they wanted it, but if they thought they wanted it
in a more central place (our house wuz quite a little to one side), why
we could have it to the schoolhouse.
I proposed to Josiah the first one. He wuz a settin’ by the fire
relapsed into silence. It wuz a cold night outside, but the red
curtains wuz down at our sitting-room winders, shettin’ out the cold
drizzlin’ storm of hail and snow that wuz a deseendin’ onto the earth.
The fire burned up warm and bright, and we sot there in our comfortable
home, with the teakettle singin’ on the stove, and the tea-table set
out cosy and cheerful, for Josiah had been away and I had waited supper
for him.
As I sot there waitin’ for the tea-kettle to bile (and when I say bile,
I mean bile, I don’t, mean simmer) the thought of the Smedleys would
come in. The warm red curtains would keep the storm out, but they
couldn’t keep the thought of the children, and the feeble old
grandmother out of the room. They come right in, through the curtains,
and the firelight, and everything, and sot right down by me and hanted
me.
And what curious creeters thoughts be, haint they? and oncertain, too.
You may make all your plans to get away from ’em. You may shet up your
doors and winders, and set with a veil on and an umbrell up - but good
land! how easy they jest ontackle the doors and windows, with no sounds
of ontacklin’ and come right in by you.
First you know there they be right by the side of you, under your
umbrell, under your veil, under your spectacles, a lookin’ right down
into your soul, and a hantin’ you.
And then agin, when you expect to be hanted by ’em, lay out to, why,
they’ll jest stand off somewhere else, and don’t come nigh you. Don’t
want to. Oncertain creeters, thoughts be, and curious, curious where
they come from, and how.
Why, I got to thinkin’ about it the other day, and I got lost, some
like children settin’ on a log over a creek a ridin’; there they be,
and there the log is, but they don’t seem to be there, they seem to be
a floatin’ down the water.
And there I wuz, a settin’ in my rockin’ chair, and I seemed to be a
floatin’ down deep water, very deep. A thinkin’ and a wonderin’. A
thinkin’ how all through the ages what secrets God had told to man when
the time had come, and the reverent soul below was ready to hear the
low words whispered to his soul, and a wonderin’ what strange
revelation God held now, ready to reveal when the soul below had fitted
itself to hear, and comprehend it.
Ah! such mysteries as He will reveal to us if we will listen. If we
wait for God’s voice. If we did not heed so much the confusing clamor
of the world’s voices about us. Emulation, envy, anger, strife,
jealousy; if we turned our heads away from these discords, and in the
silence which is God’s temple, listened, listened,—who knows the
secrets He would make known to us?
Secrets of the day, secrets of the night, the sunshine, the lightning,
the storm. The white glow of that wonderful light that is not like the
glow of the sun or of the moon, but yet lighteth the world. That
strange light that has a soul - that reads our thoughts, translates our
wishes, overleaps distance, carrying our whispered words after holding
our thoughts for ages, and then unfoldin’ ’em at will. What other
wondrous mysteries lie concealed, wrapped around by that soft pure
flame, mysteries that shall lie hidden until some inspired eye shall be
waiting, looking upward at the moment when God’s hand shall draw back
the shining veil for an instant, and let him read the glowing secret.
Secrets of language! shall some simple power, some symbol be revealed,
and the nations speak together?
Secrets of song! shall some serene, harmonious soul catch the note to
celestial melodies?
Secrets of sight! shall the eyes too dim now, see the faces of the
silent throngs that surround them, “the great cloud of witnesses”?
Secrets of the green pathways that lead up through the blue silent
fields of space - shall we float from star to star?
Secrets of holiness! shall earthly faces wear the pure light of the
immortals?
But oh! who shall be the happy soul that shall be listening when the
time has fully come and He shall reveal His great secret? The happy
soul listening so intently that it shall catch the low, clear whisper.
Listening, maybe, through the sweet twilight shadows for the wonderful
secret, while the silver shallop of the moon is becalmed over the high
northern mountains, as if a fleet of heavenly guests had floated down
through the clear ocean waves of the sky to listen too - to hear the
wonderful heavenly secret revealed to man - and a clear star looks out
over the glowing rose of the western heavens, looking down like God’s
eye, searching his soul, searching if it be worthy of the great trust.
Maybe it will be in the fresh dawning of the day, that the great secret
will grow bright and clear and luminous, as the dawning of the light.
Maybe it will be in the midst of the storm - a mighty voice borne along
by the breath of the wind and the thunder, clamoring and demanding the
hearer to listen.
Oh! if we were only good enough, only pure enough, what might not our
rapt vision discern?
But we know not where or when the time shall be fully come, but who,
who, shall be the happy soul that shall, at the time, be listening?
Oh! how deep, how strange the waters wuz, and how I floated away on
’em, and how I didn’t. For there I wuz a settin in my own rockin’ chair
and there opposite me sot my own Josiah a whittlin’, for the _World_
hadn’t come, and he wuz restless and ill at ease, and time hung heavy
on his hands.
There I sot the same Samantha - and the thought of the Smedleys, the
same old Smedleys, was a hantin’ of me, the same old hant, and I says
to my Josiah, says I: “Josiah, I can’t help thinkin’ about the
Smedleys,” says I. “What do you think about havin’ a pound party for
’em, and will you take holt, and do your part?”
“Good land, Samantha! Are you crazy? Crazy as a loon? What under the
sun do you want to pound the Smedleys for? I should think they had
trouble enough without poundin’ ’em. Why,” says he, “the old woman
couldn’t stand any poundin’ at all, without killin’ her right out and
out, and the childern haint over tough any of ’em. Why, what has got
into you? I never knew you to propose anything of that wicked kind
before. I sha’n’t have anything to do with it. If you want ’em pounded
you must get your own club and do your own poundin’.”
Says I, “I don’t mean poundin’ ’em with a club, but let folks buy a
pound of different things to eat and drink and carry it to ’em, and we
can try and raise a little money to get a warmer horse for ’em to stay
in the coldest of the weather.”
“Oh!” says he, with a relieved look. “That’s a different thing. I am
willin’ to do that. I don’t know about givin’ ’em any money towards
gettin’ ’em a home, but I’ll carry ’em a pound of crackers or a pound
of flour, and help it along all I can.”
Josiah is a clever creeter (though close), and he never made no more
objections towards havin’ it.
Wall, the next day I put on my shawl and hood (a new brown hood knit
out of zephyr worsted, very nice, a present from our daughter Maggie,
our son Thomas Jefferson’s wife), and sallied out to see what the
neighbor’s thought about it.
The first woman I called on wuz Miss Beazley, a new neighbor who had
just moved into the neighborhood. They are rich as they can be, and I
expected at least to get a pound of tea out of her.
She said it wuz a worthy object, and she would love to help it along,
but they had so many expenses of their own to grapple with, that she
didn’t see her way clear to promise to do anything. She said the girls
had got to have some new velvet suits, and some sealskin sacques this
winter, and they had got to new furnish the parlors, and send their
oldest boy to college, and the girls wanted to have some diamond
lockets, and ought to have ’em but she didn’t know whether they could
manage to get them or not, if they did, they had got to scrimp along
every way they could. And then they wuz goin’ to have company from a
distance, and had got to get another girl to wait on ’em. And though
she wished the poor well, she felt that she could not dare to promise a
cent to ’em. She wished the Smedley family well—dretful well—and hoped
I would get lots of things for ’em. But she didn’t really feel as if it
would be safe for her to promise’em a pound of anything, though mebby
she might, by a great effort, raise a pound of flour for ’em, or meal.
Says I dryly (dry as meal ever wuz in its dryest times), “I wouldn’t
give too much. Though,” says I, “A pound of flour would go a good ways
if it is used right.” And I thought to myself that she had better keep
it to make a paste to smooth over things.
Wall, I went from that to Miss Jacob Hess’es, and Miss Jacob Hess
wouldn’t give anything because the old lady wuz disagreeable, old
Grandma Smedley, and I said to Miss Jacob Hess that if the Lord didn’t
send His rain and dew onto anybody only the perfectly agreeable, I
guessed there would be pretty dry times. It wuz my opinion there would
be considerable of a drouth.
There wuz a woman there a visitin’ Miss Hess—she wuz a stranger to me
and I didn’t ask her for anything, but she spoke up of her own accord
and said she would give, and give liberal, only she wuz hampered. She
didn’t say why, or who, or when, but she only sez this that “she wuz
hampered,” and I don’t know to this day what her hamper wuz, or who
hampered her.
And then I went to Ebin Garven’ses, and Miss Ebin Garven wouldn’t help
any because she said “Joe Smedley had been right down lazy, and she
couldn’t call him anything else.”
“But,” says I, “Joe is dead, and why should his children starve because
their pa wasn’t over and above smart when he wuz alive?” But she
wouldn’t give.
Wall, Miss Whymper said she didn’t approve of the _manner_ of giving.
Her face wuz all drawed down into a curious sort of a long expression
that she called religus and I called somethin’ that begins with
“h-y-p-o”—and I don’t mean hypoey, either.
No, she couldn’t give, she said, because she always made a practise of
not lettin’ her right hand know what her left hand give.
And I said, for I wuz kinder took aback, and didn’t think, I said to
her, a glancin’ at her hands which wuz crossed in front of her, that I
didn’t see how she managed it, unless she give when her right hand was
asleep.
And she said she always gave secret.
And I said, “So I have always s’posed—very secret.”
I s’pose my tone was some sarcastic, for she says, “Don’t the Scripter
command us to do so?”
Says I firmly, “I don’t believe the Scripter means to have us stand
round talkin’ Bible, and let the Smedleys starve,” says I. “I s’pose it
means not to boast of our good deeds.”
Says she, “I believe in takin’ the Scripter literal, and if I can’t git
my stuff there entirely unbeknown to my right hand I sha’n’t give.”
“Wall,” says I, gettin’ up and movin’ towards the door, “you must do as
you’re a mind to with fear and tremblin’.”
I said it pretty impressive, for I thought I would let her see I could
quote Scripter as well as she could, if I sot out.
But good land! I knew it wuz a excuse. I knew she wouldn’t give nothin’
not if her right hand had the num palsy, and you could stick a pin into
it—no, she wouldn’t give, not if her right hand was cut off and throwed
away.
Wall, Miss Bombus, old Dr. Bombus’es widow, wouldn’t give—and for all
the world—I went right there from Miss Whymper’ses. Miss Bombus
wouldn’t give because I didn’t put the names in the Jonesville _Augur_
or _Gimlet_, for she said, “Let your good deeds so shine.”
“Why,” says I, “Miss Whymper wouldn’t give because she wanted to give
secreter, and you won’t give because you want to give publicker, and
you both quote Scripter, but it don’t seem to help the Smedleys much.”
She said that probably Miss Whymper was wrestin’ the Scripter to her
own destruction.”
“Wall,” says I, “while you and Miss Whymper are a wrestin’ the
Scripter, what will become of the Smedleys? It don’t seem right to let
them ‘freeze to death, and starve to death, while we are a debatin’ on
the ways of Providence.”
But she didn’t tell, and she wouldn’t give.
A woman wuz there a visitin’, Miss Bombus’es aunt, I think, and she
spoke up and said that she fully approved of her niece Bombus’es
decision. And she said, “As for herself, she never give to any subject
that she hadn’t thoroughly canvassed.”
Says I, “There they all are in that little hut, you can canvass them at
any time. Though,” says I, thoughtfully, “Marvilla might give you some
trouble.” And she asked why.
And I told her she had the rickets so she couldn’t stand still to be
canvassed, but she could probably follow her up and canvass her, if she
tried hard enough. And says I, “There is old Grandma Smedley, over
eighty, and five children under eight, you can canvass them easy.”
Says she, “The Bible says, ‘Search the Sperits.’”
And I was so wore out a seein’ how place after place, for three times a
runnin the Bible was lifted up and held as a shield before stingy
creeters, to ward off the criticism of the world and their own souls,
that I says to myself—loud enough so they could hear me, mebbe, “Why is
it that when anybody wants to do a mean, ungenerous act, they will try
to quote a verse of Scripter to uphold ’em, jest as a wolf will pull a
lock of pure white wool over his wolfish foretop, and try to look
innocent and sheepish.”
I don’t care if they did hear me, I wuz on the step mostly when I
thought it, pretty loud.
Wall, from Miss Bombus’es I went to Miss Petingill’s.
Miss Petingill is a awful high-headed creeter. She come to the door
herself and she said, I must excuse her for answerin’ the door herself.
(I never heard the door say anything and don’t believe she did, it was
jest one of her ways.) But she said I must excuse her as her girl wuz
busy at the time.
She never mistrusted that I knew her hired girl had left, and she wuz
doin’ her work herself. She had ketched off her apron I knew, as she
come through the hall, for I see it a layin’ behind the door, all
covered with flour. And after she had took me into the parlor, and we
had set down, she discovered some spots of flour on her dress, and she
said she “had been pastin’ some flowers into a scrap book to pass away
the time.” But I knew she had been bakin’ for she looked tired, tired
to death almost, and it wuz her bakin’ day. But she would sooner have
had her head took right off than to own up that she had been doin’
housework—why, they say that once when she wuz doin’ her work herself,
and was ketched lookin’ awful, by a strange minister, that she passed
herself off’ for a hired girl and said, “Miss Petingill wasn’t to home,
and when pressed hard she said she hadn’t “the least idee where Miss
Petingill wuz.”
‘Hired’ girl
Jest think on ’t once—and there she wuz herself. The idee!
Wall, the minute I sot down before I begun my business or anything,
Miss Petingill took me to do about puttin’ in Miss Bibbins President of
our Missionary Society for the Relief of Indignent Heathens.
The Bibbins’es are good, very good, but poor.
Says Miss Petingill: “It seems to me as if there might be some other
woman put in, that would have had more influence on the Church.”
Says I, “Haint Miss Bibbins a good Christian sister, and a great
worker?”
“Why yes, she wuz good, good in her place. But,” she said, “the
Petingills hadn’t never associated with the Bibbins’es.”
And I asked her if she s’posed that would make any difference with the
heathen; if the heathen would be apt to think less of Miss Bibbins
because she hadn’t associated with the Petingills?
And she said, she didn’t s’pose “the heathens would ever know it; it
might make some difference to ’em if they did,” she thought, “for it
couldn’t be denied,” she said, “that Miss Bibbins did not move in the
first circles of Jonesville.”
It had been my doin’s a puttin’ Miss Bibbins in and I took it right to
home, she meant to have me, and I asked her if she thought the Lord
would condemn Miss Bibbins on the last day, because she hadn’t moved in
the first circles of Jonesville?
And Miss Petingill tosted her head a little, but had to own up, that
she thought “He wouldn’t.”
“Wall, then,” sez I, “do you s’pose the Lord has any objections to her
working for Him now?”
“Why no, I don’t know as the _Lord_ would object.”
“Wall,” sez I, “we call this work the Lord’s work, and if He is
satisfied with Miss Bibbins, we ort to be.”
But she kinder nestled round, and I see she wuzn’t satisfied, but I
couldn’t stop to argue, and I tackled her then and there about the
Smedleys. I asked her to give a pound, or pounds, as she felt disposed.
But she answered me firmly that she could’t give one cent to the
Smedleys, she wuz principled against it.
And I asked her, “Why?”
And she said, because the old lady wuz proud and wanted a home, and she
thought that pride wuz so wicked, that it ort to be put down.
Wall, Miss Huff, Miss Cephas Huff, wouldn’t give anything because one
of the little Smedleys had lied to her. She wouldn’t encourage lyin’.
And I told her I didn’t believe she would be half so apt to reform him
on an empty stomach, as after he wuz fed up. But she wouldn’t yield.
Wall, Miss Daggett said she would give, and give abundant, only she
didn’t consider it a worthy object.
But it wuzn’t nothin’ only a excuse, for the object has never been
found yet that she thought wuz a worthy one. Why, she wouldn’t give a
cent towards painting the Methodist steeple, and if that haint a high
and worthy object, I don’t know what is. Why, our steeple is over
seventy feet from the ground. But she wouldn’t help us a mite—not a
single cent.
Take such folks as them and the object never suits ’em. They won’t come
right out and tell the truth that they are too stingy and mean to give
away a cent, but they will always put the excuse onto the object—the
object don’t suit ’em.
Why, I do believe it is the livin’ truth that if the angel Gabriel wuz
the object, if he wuz in need and we wuz gittin’ up a pound party for
him—she would find fault with Gabriel, and wouldn’t give him a ounce of
provisions.
Yes, I believe it—I believe they would tost their heads and say, they
always had had their thoughts about anybody that tooted so loud—it
might be all right but it didn’t _look_ well, and would be apt to make
talk. Or they would say that he wuz shiftless and extravagant a loafin’
round in the clouds, when he might go to work—or that he might raise
the money himself by selling the feathers offen his wings for down
pillers—or some of the rest of the Gabriel family might help him—or
something, or other—anyway they would propose some way of gittin’ out
of givin’ a cent to Gabriel. I believe it as much as I believe I live
and breathe; and so does Josiah.
Wall, Miss Mooney wouldn’t give anything because she thought Jane
Smedley wuzn’t so sick as she thought she wuz; she said “she was
spleeny.”
And I told Miss Mooney that when a woman was sick enough to die, I
thought she ort to be called sick.
But Miss Mooney wouldn’t give up, and insisted to the very last that
Miss Smedley wuz hypoey and spleeny—and thought she wuz sicker than she
really wuz. And she held her head and her nose up in a very
disagreeable and haughty way, and said as I left, that she never could
bear to help spleeny people.
Wall, all that forenoon did I traipse through the street and not one
cent did I get for the Smedleys, only Miss Gowdey said she would bring
a cabbage and Miss Deacon Peedick and Miss Ingledue partly promised a
squash apiece. And I mistrusted that they give ’em more to please me
than anything else.
Wall, I wuz clean discouraged and beat out, and so I told Josiah. But
he encouraged me some by sayin’:
“Wall, I could have told you jest how it would be,” and, “You would
have done better, Samantha, to have been to home a cookin’ for your own
famishin’ family.” And several more jest such inspirin’ remarks as men
will give to the females of their families when they are engaged in
charitable enterprises.
But I got a good, a very good dinner, and it made me feel some better,
and then I haint one to give up to discouragements, anyway.
So I put on a little better dress for after noon, and my best bonnet
and shawl, and set sail again after dinner.
And if I ever had a lesson in not givin’ up to discouragements in the
first place I had it then. For whether it wuz on account of the more
dressy look of my bonnet and shawl—or whether it wuz that folks felt
cleverer in the afternoon—or whether it wuz that I had gone to the more
discouragin’ places in the forenoon, and the better ones in the
afternoon—or whether it wuz that I tackled on the subject in a better
way than I had tackled ’em—whether it wuz for any of these reasons, or
all of ’em or somethin’—anyway my luck turned at noon, 12 M., and all
that afternoon I had one triumph after another—place after place did I
collect pound or pounds as the case may be (or collected the promises
of ’em, I mean). I did _splendid_, and wuz prospered perfectly
amazing—and I went home feelin’ as happy and proud as a king or a zar.
And the next Tuesday evenin’ we had the pound party. They concluded to
have it to our house. And Thomas Jefferson and Maggie, and Tirzah Ann
and Whitefield came home early in the afternoon to help trim the parlor
and setin’ room with evergreens and everlastin’ posies, and fern
leaves.
They made the room look perfectly beautiful. And they each of ’em, the
two childern and their companions, brought home a motto framed in nice
plush and gilt frames, which they put up on each side of the settin’
room, and left them there as a present to their pa and me. They think a
sight of us, the childern do—and visey versey, and the same.
One of ’em wuz worked in gold letters on a red back-ground “Bear Ye One
Another’s Burdens.” And the other wuz “Feed my Lambs.”
They think a sight on us, the childern do—they knew them mottoes would
highly tickle their pa and me. And they did seem to kinder invigorate
up all the folks that come to the party.
And they wuz seemingly legions. Why, they come, and they kept a comin’.
And it did seem as if every one of ’em had tried to see who could bring
the most. Why, they brought enough to keep the Smedleys comfortable all
winter long. It wuz a sight to see ’em.
The Pound Party
It wuz a curious sight, too, to set and watch what some of the folks
said and done as they brought their pounds in.
I had to be to the table all the time a’most, for I wuz appointed a
committee, or a board—I s’pose it would be more proper to call myself a
board, more business like. Wall, I wuz the board appointed to lay the
things on—to see that they wuz all took care of, and put where they
couldn’t get eat up, or any other casuality happen to ’em.
And I declare if some of the queerest lookin’ creeters didn’t come up
to the table and talk to me. There wuz lots of ’em there that I didn’t
know, folks that come from Zoar, Jim Smedley’s old neighborhood.
There wuz a long table stretched acrost one end of the settin’ room,
and I stood behind it some as if I wuz a dry goods merchant or grocery,
and some like a preacher.
And the women would come up to me and talk. There wuz one woman who got
real talkative to me before the evenin’ wuz out. She said her home wuz
over two miles beyond Zoar.
She had a young babe with her, a dark complexioned babe, with a little
round black head, that looked some like a cannon ball. She said she had
shingled the child that day about eight o’clock in the forenoon; she
talked real confidential to me.
She said the babe had sights of hair, and she told her husband that day
that if he would shingle the babe she would come to the party and if he
wouldn’t shingle it she wouldn’t come. It seemed they had had a
altercation on the subject; she wanted it shingled and he didn’t. But
it seemed that ruther than stay away from the party—he consented, and
shingled it. So they come.
They brought a eight pound loaf of maple sugar and two dozen eggs. They
did well. Then there wuz another woman who would walk her little girl
into the bedroom every few minutes, and wet her hair, and comb it over,
and curl it on her fingers. The child had a little blue flannel dress
on, with a long plain waist, and a long skirt gethered on full all
round. Her hair lay jest as smooth and slick as glass all the time, but
five times did she walk her off, and go through with that performance.
She brought ten yards of factory cloth, and a good woollen petticoat
for the old grandma. She did first-rate.
And then there wuz another woman who stayed by the table most all the
evenin’. She would gently but firmly ask everybody who brought
anything, what the price of the article wuz—and then she would tackle
the different women who come up to the table for patterns. I do believe
she got the pattern of every bask waist there wuz there, and every
mantilly.
And Abram Gee brought twenty-five loaves of bread—of different sizes,
but all on ’em good. And he looked at Ardelia Tutt every minute of the
time. And Ardelia brought a lot of verses,—“Stanzas on a Grandmother.”
I didn’t think they would do Grandma Smedley much good, and then on the
other hand I didn’t s’pose they would hurt her any.
But we had a splendid good time after the things wuz all brought in—of
course, bein’ a board the fore part of the evenin’ I naturally had a
harder time than I did the latter part, after I had got over it.
The children, Thomas J., and Tirzah Ann, and Ardelia Tutt, and Abram
Gee, and some of the rest of the young folks sung and played some
beautiful pieces, and they had four tablows, which wuz perfectly
beautiful.
And then we passed good nice light biscuit and butter, and hot coffee,
and pop corn and apples. And it did seem, and all the neighbors said
so, that it wuz the very best party they had ever attended to.
And before they went away they made a motion some of the responsable
men did—some made the motions and some seconded ’em—that they would
adjourn till jest one year from that night, when if the Smedleys was
still alive and in need—we would have jest such a party ag’in.
And at the last on’t Elder Minkley made a prayer—a very thankful and
good prayer, but short. And then they went home.
Wall, the next mornin’ we started to carry the things to the Smedleys.
It wuz very early, for Josiah had got to go clear to Loontown on
business, and I wuz goin’ to stay with the childern till he got back.
It wuz a very cold mornin’. We hadn’t heard from the Smedleys for two
or three days, because we wanted to surprise ’em, so we didn’t want to
give ’em a hint beforehand of what we wuz a doin’. So, as I say, it wuz
a number of days sense we had heard from ’em, and the weather wuz cold.
When we got to the door it seemed to be dretful still there inside. And
there wuz some white frost on the latch jest as if a icy, white hand
had onlatched the door, and had laid on it last.
We rapped, but nobody answered. And then we opened the door and went
in, and there they all lay asleep. The children waked up. But old
Grandma didn’t.
Nobody answered
There wuzn’t any fire in the room, and you could see by the freezing
coldness of the air that there hadn’t been any for a day or two.
Grandma Smedley had took the poor old coverin’s all off from herself,
and put ’em round the youngest baby, little Jim. And he lay there all
huddled up tight to his Grandma, with his red cheek close to her white
one, for he loved her.
Josiah cried and wept, and wept and cried onto his bandana—but I
didn’t.
The tears run down my face some, to see the childern feel so bad when
Grandma couldn’t speak to ’em.
But I knew that the childern would be took care of now, I knew the
Jonesvillians would be all rousted up and sorry enough for ’em, and
would be willin’ to do anything now, when it wuz some too late.
And I felt that I couldn’t cry nor weep (and told Josiah so), the tears
jest dripped down my face in a stream, but I wouldn’t weep—for as I
said to myself:
While the Jonesvillians had been a disputin’ back and forth, and
wrestin’ Scripter, and the meanin’ of Providence in regard to helpin’
Grandma Smedley and gittin’ her a comfortable place to stay in, and
somethin’ to eat, the Lord himself had took the case in hand and had
gin her a home and the bread that satisfies.”
Samantha and Josiah at home