ARDELIA AND ABRAM GEE.
Wall, I don’t s’pose there had been a teacher in our deestrict for
years and years that gin’ better satisfaction than Ardelia Tutt. Good
soft little creeter, the scholars any one of ’em felt above hurtin’ on
her or plagin’ her any way. She sort a made ’em feel they had to take
care on her, she wuz so sort a helpless actin’, and good natured, and
yet her learnin’ wuz good, fust-rate.
Yes, Ardelia was thought a sight on in Jonesville by scholars and
parents and some that wuzn’t parents. One young chap in perticiler,
Abram Gee by name, who had just started a baker’s shop in Jonesville,
he fell so deep in love with her from the very start that I pitied him
from about the bottom of my heart. It wuz at our house that he fell.
The young folks of our meetin’-house had a sort of a evenin’ meetin’
there to see about raisin’ some money for the help of the
steeple—repairin’ of it. Abram is a member, and so is Ardelia, and I
see the hull thing. I see him totter and I see him fall. And prostrate
he wuz, from that first night. Never was there a feller that fell in
love deeper, or lay more helpless. And Ardelia liked him, that wuz
plain to see; at fust as I watched and see him totter, I thought she
wuz a sort o’ wobblin’ too, and when he fell deep, deep in love, I
looked to see her a follerin’ on. But Ardelia, as soft as she wuz, had
an element of strength. She wuz ambitious. She liked Abram, but she had
read novels a good deal, and she had for years been lookin’ for a
prince to come a ridin’ up to their dooryard in disguise with a crown
on under his hat, and woo her to be his bride.
The Prince
And so she braced herself against the sweet influence of love and it
wuz tuff—I could see for myself that it wuz, when she had laid out to
set on a throne by the side of a prince, he a holdin’ his father’s
scepter in his hand—to descend from that elevation and wed a husband
who wuz a moulder of bread, with a rollin’ pin in his hand. It wuz tuff
for Ardelia; I could see right through her mind (it wuzn’t a great
distance to see), and I could see jest how a conflict wuz a goin’ on
between love and ambition.
But Abram had my best wishes, for he wuz a boy I had always liked. The
Gees had lived neighbor to us for years. He wuz a good creeter and his
bread wuz delicious (milk emptin’s). He wuz a sort of a hard, sound
lookin’ chap, and she, bein’ so oncommon soft, the contrast kinder sot
each other off and made ’em look well together.
He had a house and lot all paid for, with no incumbrances only a
mortgage of 150 dollars and a lame mother. But he laid out to clear off
the mortgage this year, and I wuz told that mother Gee wuz a goin’ to
live with her daughter Susan, who had jest come into a big property—as
much as 700 dollars worth of land, besides cows, 2 heads of cow, and
one head of a calf.
I knew Mother Gee and she wuz goin’ to stay with Abram till he got
married and then she wuz goin’ to live with Susan. And I s’pose it is
so. She is a likely old woman with a milk leg.
Wall, Abram paid Ardelia lots of attention, sech as walkin’ home with
her from protracted meetin’s nights, and lookin’ at her durin’ the
meetin’s more protracted than the meetin’s wuz fur. And 3 times he sent
her a plate of riz biscuit sweetened, sweetened too sweet almost, he
went too fur in this and I see it.
Yes, he done his part as well as his condition would let him, paralyzed
by his feelin’s—but she acted kinder offish, and I see that sonthin’
wuz in the way. I mistrusted at first, it might be Abram’s incumbrance,
but durin’ a conversation I had with her, I see I wuz in the wrong
on’t. And I could see plain, though some couldn’t, that she liked Abram
as she did her eyes. Somebody run him down a little one day before me
and she sprouted right up and took his part voyalent. I could see her
feelin’s towards him though she wouldn’t own up to ’em. But one day she
came out plain to me and lamented his condition in life. Somebody had
attact her that day before me about marryin’ of him—and she owned up to
me, that she had laid out to marry somebody to elevate her. Some one
with a grand pure mission in life.
And I spoke right up and sez, “Why bread is jest as pure and innocent
as anything can be, you won’t find anything wicked about good yeast
bread, nor,” sez I, cordially, “in milk risin’, if it is made proper.”
But she said she preferred a occupation that wuz risin’, and noble, and
that made a man necessary and helpful to the masses.
And I sez agin—“Good land! the masses have got to eat. And I guess you
starve the masses a spell and they’ll think that good bread is as
necessary and helpful to ’em as anything can be. And as fer its bein’ a
risin’ occupation, why,” sez I, “it is stiddy risen’—risin’ in the
mornin,’ and risin’ at night, and all night, both hop and milk
emptin’s. Why,” sez I, “I never see a occupation so risin’ as his’n is,
both milk and hop.” But she wouldn’t seem to give in and encourage him
much only by spells.
And then Abram didn’t take the right way with her. I see he wuz a goin’
just the wrong way to win a woman’s love. For his love, his great
honest love for her made him abject, he groveled at her feet, loved to
grovel.
I told him, for he confided in me from the first on’t and bewailed her
coldness to me, I told him to sprout up and act as if he had some will
of his own and some independent life of his own. Sez I, “Any woman that
sees a man a layin’ around under her feet will be tempted to step on
him,” sez I. “I don’t see how she can help it, if she calcerlates to
get round any, and walk.” Sez I, “Sprout up and be somebody. She is a
good little creeter, but no better than you are, Abram; be a man.”
Abram
And he would try to be. I could see him try. But one of her soft little
glances, specially if it wuz kind and tender to him, es it wuz a good
deal of the time, why it would just overthrow him ag’in. He would
collapse and become nothin’ ag’in, before her. Why I have hearn him
sing that old him, a lookin’ right at Ardelia stiddy:
“Oh to be nothin’, nothin’!”
And thinks I to myself, “if this keeps on, you are in a fairway to git
your wish.”
He wuz a good singer, a beartone, and she a secent. They loved to sing
together. They needed some air, but then they got along without it; and
it sounded quite well, though rather low and deep.
Wall, it run along for weeks and weeks, he with his hopes a risin’ up
sometimes like his yeast and then bein’ pounded down ag’in like his
bread, under the hard knuckles of a woman’s capricious cruelty. For I
must say that she did, for sech a soft littte creeter, have cold and
cruel ways to Abram. (But I s’pose it wuz when she got to thinkin’
about the Prince, or some other genteel lover.)
But her real feelin’s would break out once in a while, and lift him up
to the 3d heaven of happiness and then he’d have to totter and fall
down ag’in. Abram Gee had a hard time on’t. I pitied him from nearly
the bottom of my heart. But I still kep’ a thinkin’ it would turn out
well in the end. For it wuz jest about this time that I happened to
find this poetry in a book where she had, I s’posed, left it. And I
read ’em, almost entirely unbeknown to myself.
It wuz wrote in a dreatful blind way but I recognized it at once. I
looked right through it, and see what she wuz a writin’ about though
many wouldn’t, it wuz wrote in sech a deep style.
“STANZAS ON BREAD;
“ or
“ A LAY OF A BROKEN HEART.
“Oh Bread, dear Bread, that seemest to us so cold,
Oft’times concealed thee within, may be a sting!
Sweet buried hopes may in thy crust be rolled;
A sad, burnt crust of deepest suffering.
“There are some griefs the female soul don’t tell,
And she may weep, and she may wretched be;
Though she may like the name of Abram well
And she may not like dislike the name of G-,
“Oh Fel Ambition, how thou lurest us on,
How by thy high, bold torch we’re stridin’ led:
Thou lurest us up, cold mountain top upon,
And seated by us there, thou scoffest at bread.
“Thou lookest down, Ambition, on the ovens brim;
Thou brookest not a word of him save with contumalee:
And yet, wert thou afar, how sweet to set by him
And cut low slices of sweet joy with G—,
“Oh! Fel Ambition, wert but thou away,
Could we thy hauntin’ form no more, nor see;
How sweet ’twould be to linger on with A—,
How sweet ’twould be to dwell for aye with G—.”
Wall, as I say, she gin good satisfaction in the deestrict and I
declare for it, I got to likin’ her dretful well before the winter wuz
over. Softer she wuz, and had to be, than any fuz that was ever on any
cotton flannel fur or near. And more verses she wrote than wuz good for
her, or for anybody else,—Why she would write “Lines on the Tongs,” or
“Stanzas on the Salt Suller,” if she couldn’t do any better; it beats
all! And then she would read ’em to me to get my idees on ’em. Why I
had to call on every martyr in the hull string of martyrs sometimes to
keep myself from tellin’ her my full mind about ’em unbeknown to me.
For, if I had, it would have skairt the soft little creeter out of what
little wit she had.
So I kep’ middlin’ still, and see it go on. For she wuz a good little
soul, affectionate and kinder helpful. A good creeter now to find your
speks. Why she found ’em for me times out of number, and I got real
attached to her and visey versey. And when she came a visitin’ me in
the spring (at my request), and I happened to mention that Josiah and
me laid out to go to Saratoga for the summer, what did the soft little
creeter want to do but to go too. Her father was well off and wuz able
to send her, and she had relatives there on her own side, some of the
Pixleys, so her board wouldn’t cost nothin’. So it didn’t look nothin’
unreasonable, though whether I could get her there and back without her
mashin’ all down on my hands, like a over ripe peach, she wuz that
soft, wuz a question that hanted me, and so I told Josiah.
But Josiah kinder likes young girls (nothin’ light; a calm
meetin’-house affection), it is kinder nater that he should, and he
sez: “Better let her go, she won’t make much trouble.”
“No,” sez I, “not to you, but if you had to set for hours and hours and
hear her verses read to you on every subject—on heaven, and earth, and
the seas, and see her a measurin’ of it with a stick to get the lines
the right length; if you had to go through all this, mebby you would
meditate on the subject before you took it for a summer’s job.”
“ Wall,” sez he, “mebby she won’t write so much when she gets started;
she will be kinder jogged round and stirred up in body and mebby her
feelins’ will kinder rest. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if they did,” sez
he. “And then she can take a good many steps for you, and I love to see
you favored,” sez he.
He wanted her to go, I see that, and I see that it wuz natur that he
should, and so I consented in my mind—after a parlay.
She found his specks a sight and his hat. Nothin’ seemed to please her
better than to be gropin’ round after things to please somebody; her
disposition wuz such. So it wuz settled that she should accompany and
go with us. And the mornin’ we started she met us at the Jonesville
Depot in good sperits and a barege delaine dress, cream color, and a
hat of the same.
At the depot
I hadn’t seen her for some weeks, and she seemed softly tickled to see
Josiah and me, and asked a good many questions about Jonesville, kinder
turnin’ the conversation gradually round onto bread, as I could see. So
I branched right out, knowin’ what she wanted of me, and told her
plain, that “Abram Gee wuz a lookin’ kinder mauger. But doin’ his duty
_stiddy_,” sez I, lookin’ keenly at her, “a doin’ his duty by
everybody, and beloved by everybody, him and his bread too.”
She turned her head away and kinder sithed, and I guess it wuz as much
as a quarter of a hour after that, that I see her take out a pencil and
a piece of paper out of her portmonny, and a little stick, and she went
to makin’ some verses, a measurin’ ’em careful as she wrote ’em, and
when she handed ’em to me they wuz named
“A LAY ON A CAR;
“ or
“THE LESSON OF A LOCOMOTIVE.”
“Oh cars that bearest us on; oh cars that run
If backward thou didst go, we should not near
The place we started for at break of sun;
The place we love, with love devout, sincere.
“Oh! snortin’ Engine, didst thou not so snort
Thou wouldst not start, and lo! we see—
Our sorrows’ hidden griefs, they do not come for nort
They start the Locomotive, Life, with screechin’ agony
“Oh passengers that wail, and dread the screech,
Wail not; but lift eyes o’er the chimney top
As they bend over the Locomotive; beach
Thy hopes on fairer shores, a sweeter crop.”
After I had read it and handed it back to her, she sez, “Don’t you
think I improve on the melody and rhythm of my poetry? I take this
little stick with me now wherever I go, and measure my lines by it.
They are jest of a length, I am very particular; you know you advised
me to be.”
“Yes,” sez I mechaniklly, “but I didn’t mean jest that.” Sez I, “the
poetry I wuz a thinkin’ on, is measured by the soul, the enraptured
throb of heart and brain; it don’t need takin’ a stick to it.
Howsumever,” sez I, for I see she looked sort a disapinted,
“howsumever, if you have measured ’em, they are probable about the same
length: it is a good sound stick, I haint no doubt;” and I kinder
sithed.
And she sez, “What do you think of the first verse? Haint that verse as
true as fate, or sadness, or anything else you know of?”
“Oh yes,” sez I candidly, “yes; if the cars run backwards we shouldn’t
go on; that is true as anything can be. But if I wuz in your place,
Ardelia,” sez I, “I wouldn’t write any more to-day. It is a kind of
muggy damp day. It is a awfully bad day for poetry to-day. And,” sez I,
to get her mind offen it, “Have you seen anything of my companion’s
specks?”
And that took her mind offen poetry and she went a huntin’ for ’em, on
the seat and under the seat. She hunted truly high and low and at last
she found ’em on my pardner’s foretop, the last place any of us thought
of lookin’. And she never said another word about poetry, or any other
trouble, nor I nuther.
Cupid