That very afternoon we was all invited to take tea with she that was
Cassandra Allen, Miss Nathan Spooner, that now is. And we all went,
Alzina Ann, Josiah, and me.
Cassandra didn’t use to be likely. She had a misfortune when she was a
girl. It is six years old now. But all of a sudden she took a turn, and
went to behavin’. She learnt the dress-maker’s trade, experienced
religion, and jined the Methodist Church. And folks begun to make of
her. I didn’t use to associate with her at all, Josiah didn’t want me
to, though she is his 2nd cousin on his father’s side. But jist as quick
as she went to behavin’, we went to makin’ of her. And the more she
behaved, the more we made; till we make as much of her now as we do of
any of the relation on my side, or on hisen. And last fall she was
married to Nathan Spooner. She got acquainted with him about two years
ago.
Nathan is a likely feller, all that ails him is he is bashful, too
bashful for any sort of comfort. But Cassandra is proud-spirited, and
holds him up, and I tell Cassandra “I dare say he’ll get over it by the
time he gets to be a old man. I tell her “I shouldn’t wonder at all if
by the time he got to be seventy or eighty, he would talk up quite
well.” I try to make her feel well, and encourage her all I can.
[Illustration: NATHAN SPOONER.]
But bein’ proud-spirited, it works her up awfully to have Nathan get
over the fence, rather than meet a strange woman, and walk in the lot
till he gets by her. And it mortified her dretfully, I s’pose, when she
introduced him to our new minister and his wife, to have him instead of
bowin’ to ’em, and speakin’, turn his back to ’em, and snicker.
[Illustration: NATHAN SNICKERS.]
But he couldn’t help it, I told her he couldn’t. I was present at the
time, and I could see, his mouth bein’ a little open, that his tongue
was dry, and parched, and his eyes wild and sot in his head.
He has the worst of it, as I told Cassandra—it don’t hurt nobody else so
bad as it does him. But I s’pose it has been almost the means of his
death, time and agin—through his not dastin’ to call for anything to eat
when he is away from home, and not dastin’ to eat it when it is on the
table. And then again, sometimes, through his not dastin’ to stop eatin’
when he gets at it.
He went to Bobbets’ one day in the fall of the year,—it was a year ago
this present fall. Cassandra was a sewin’ for Miss Bobbet. They had jest
had some new corn ground, and they had a new corn puddin’ and milk for
dinner.
Nathan had been to dinner jest before he went in there. His mother had
had a boiled dinner, and mince pie, and etcetery—he had eat a awful
dinner, and was so full he felt fairly uncomfortable. But Miss Bobbet
urged him to set down and eat, and wouldn’t take no refusal. She thought
he was refusin’ because he was bashful, and she urged him out of his
way, telling him he _must_ eat, and he, not dastin’ to refuse any
longer, thought he would set down and eat a few mouthfuls, if he could,
though it seemed to him as if he couldn’t get down another mouthful.
[Illustration: PUDDING AND MILK.]
But when he stopped, Cassandra, thinkin’ it was bashfulness that made
him stop, and thinkin’ a good deal of him then—and wantin him to eat all
the puddin’ he wanted, she told him she shouldn’t think he showed good
manners at all, if he didn’t eat as much as she did, anyway. So he
dassent do anything else then, only jest eat as long as they wanted him
to, and he did. Miss Bobbet would press him to have his bowl filled up
again with milk, and Cassandra would urge him to have a little more
puddin’, and he not dastin’ to stop, after she had said what she had, I
spose he eat pretty nigh three quarts. It almost killed him. He vomited
all the way home, and was laid up bed-sick for more’n two weeks.
And he has destroyed his clothes dretfully. Now hats,—I spose it took
pretty nigh all he could earn to keep himself in hats. When he would go
to any new place, or evenin’ meetings or anything, he would muss ’em so,
rub ’em, and everything—why, he couldn’t keep no nap on a hat at all,
not for any length of time—he would rub ’em so, and poke at ’em, and jab
’em, and wring ’em when he was feelin’ the worst. Why, he got holt of
Josiah’s hat, thinkin’ it was hisen, one night at a church social; they
appointed Nathan to some office, and he wrung that hat till there wasn’t
no shape of a hat to it. When Josiah put it on to go home, it was a
sight to behold. Anybody would have thought that it was the fashion in
the Allen family to wear hats for night-caps, and this had been the
family hat to sleep in for years. Josiah was for makin’ him pay for the
wear and tear of it. But I wouldn’t hear a word to it. I told him
breakin’ bruised reeds, or smokin’ flax, would be tender-hearted
business compared to makin’ anybody pay for such sufferin’s as Nathan
Spooner had suffered that night. Says I, “if he wrung one mite of
comfort out o’ that hat, for pity sake don’t begrech it to him.”
[Illustration: THE FAMILY NIGHT-CAP.]
Why, I have been so sorry for that feller that I didn’t know what to do.
Now when he was a courtin’ Cassandra (and how he ever got up spunk
enough to court a mouse, is a mystery to me), Cassandra used to sew for
me, and he would come there evenin’s to see her, and set the hull
evenin’ long and not say nothin’, but jest look at her, and twirl his
thumbs one over the other. And I told Josiah “I felt bad for him, and it
seemed as if his thumbs must give out after a while, and it looked
fairly solemn to me, to see ’em a goin’ so, for evenin’ after evenin’,
and week after week, without any change.”
And Josiah said there was a change. He said about the middle of the
evenin’ he changed thumbs, and twirled ’em the other way.
I don’t know whether it was so or not. I couldn’t see no change; and I
told Josiah I couldn’t.
How under the sun he ever got up courage to ask her to marry him, is
another deep and mysterious mystery, and always has been. But there are
strange things in this world that there hain’t no use tryin’ to pry into
and explain. But in his feeble way, he courted her a good deal, and
thought everything of her, anybody could see that. And he popped the
question to her, or she to him, or it popped itself,—anyway it was
popped, and they was married.
They said he suffered dretfully the day he was married, and acted
strange and bad. They said he seemed to act sort o’ paralyzed and blind.
And she had to take the lead, and take holt of his hand, and lead him up
to the minister, instead of his leadin’ her.
Some made fun of it, but I didn’t. I told ’em I presumed he was fairly
blind for the time bein’, and sort o’ numb, and didn’t sense what was
passin’ round him.
[Illustration: NATHAN SOT DOWN.]
It made it as bad agin for him, to think he fell jest after they was
married. You see he sort ’o backed off to set down, for he needed rest.
And feelin’ so weak and wobblin’ and sort o’ tottlin’, he didn’t back
quite fur enough, and sot right down on the floor. It hurt him awfully,
I s’pose, from their tell. He was tall, and they say he struck hard. But
he was too bashful to have a doctor, or make any fuss, only jest set
there where he wuz. Some think he would have sot there all night, and
not tried to make a move towards gettin’ up at all. But Cassandra was
proud-spirited, and helped him up onto his feet. But they said he acted
jest exactly like a fool.
And I told ’em in reasonable axents “that I presumed he wuz a fool for
the time bein’.” Says I, “When anybody’s senses are gone, they are a
fool.” Says I, “It is jest as bad to be skairt out of ’em, as be born
without ’em, as long as it lasts.”
But says I, “He knows enough when he hain’t skairt to death.” And he
does. He is industrious, and so is she, and I shouldn’t wonder if they
got along first-rate, and done well.
Wall, when we got there, Nathan was settin’ by the stove in the
settin’-room. He was afraid of Alzina Ann, and was too bashful to set
down, or stand up, or speak, or anything. And when she asked him “how
his health was,” he didn’t say nothin’, but looked down on the floor,
and under his chair, and into his hat, as if he was tryin’ to find his
health, and drive it out, and make it tell how it was.
But she asked him over agin—she was perfectly heartless, or else she
didn’t notice his sufferin’s. And the second time she asked him, he sort
o’ looked under his chair agin, and into his coat pocket, and seemed to
give up findin’ his health and makin’ it speak for him, so he said, sort
o’ dry and husky, sunthin’ about bein’ “comfortable.”
Which was one of the biggest stories Nathan Spooner had told sence he
j’ined the meetin’-house, for he wuzn’t comfortable; far from it. His
face was red as blood, and he was more than half blind, I could see that
by the looks of his mean. But after awhile he seemed to revive up a
little. He wuzn’t afraid of me and Josiah, not very. And after Alzina
Ann and Cassandra got engaged in talkin, he said quite a number of words
to us, as rational and straight as anybody. But Alzina Ann had to bring
back his sufferin’s agin, and worse than he had suffered.
I hadn’t said a word to Alzina Ann about Cassandra’s misfortune; I
hadn’t mentioned the child to her. He is a dretful humbly child, about
the humbliest boy I ever see in my life. He looks fairly pitiful he is
so humbly, and he hain’t more than half-witted, I think. But Alzina Ann
couldn’t keep still; she had to flatter somebody, or sunthin’, so she
had to begin agin:
“How much! how much! that beautiful little boy looks like his pa! Don’t
you think so?” says she to Cassandra.
And then she would look at Nathan, and then at the boy, in that rapt,
enthusiastic way of her’n. And says she to Cassandra:
“Hain’t it a comfort to you to think he looks so much like his pa?”
[Illustration: CASSANDRA’S MISFORTUNE.]
And Cassandra’s face would get red as blood, and I could see by her
looks that she hadn’t the least idee what to say, or do, she was so
awful wretched, and feerfully uncomfortable. And truly if Nathan Spooner
could have sunk right down through the floor into the suller, right into
the potato-ben, or pork-barrell, it would have been one of the most
blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed.
If she had said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann
never’ll do that; she has to enlarge on her idees. And so she would keep
a-askin’ Cassandra in that rapturous, admirin’ way of her’n, if she
didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look and manners that
his father had. And Cassandra’s face and Nathan’s would be as red as two
red woolen shirts. And then Alzina Ann would look at the child’s pug
nose, and then at Nathan’s, which is a sort of a Roman one, and the best
feature on his face, as Josiah says. She would look from one nose to the
other as if she admired both of ’em so she couldn’t hardly stop lookin’
at ’em, and would ask Nathan “if folks hadn’t told him before how much
his little boy resembled his pa?”
And Nathan didn’t say nothin’ but jest set there red as blood, his eyes
fixed and glarin’ on the opposite wall, a watchin’ it as close and
wishful as if he expected to see a relief party set out from it to
befriend him, and shoot him down where he sot, or drag him off into
captivity. Anything that would relieve him of his present sufferin’s he
would have hailed gladly. I could see that by his mean.
But at supper-time worse was in store for him. Her supper was good—good
enough for anybody. She haint got a great deal to do with, but bein’ a
little afraid of Alzina Ann, and bein’ proud-spirited and wantin to make
a good appearance, Cassandra had sent over and borrowed her
mother-in-laws’s white-handled knives, and entirely unbeknown to Alzina
Ann I had carried her over some tea-spoons and other things for her
comfort, for if Cassandra means to do better, and try to get along and
be respectable, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the
spoons.
But all the time Cassandra was a settin’ the table, Nathan looked worse
and worse; he looked so bad it didn’t seem as if we _could_ keep him out
of the suller. He realized what was in front of him.
You see Cassandra, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in
the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathan ask a blessin’. But
he bein’ so uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they
had company. He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on
him. He looked more and more as if he would sink all the while she was a
gettin’ the supper onto the table. And when she was a settin’ the chairs
round the table he looked so bad that I didn’t know but what he would
have to have help to get to the table. And he would give the most
pitiful and beseechin’ looks onto Cassandra that ever was, but she would
shake her head at him, and look decided, and then he would look as if he
would wilt right down agin.
So, when we got set down to the table, Cassandra give him a real firm
look, and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and
Cassandra, and me, and Josiah put on a becomin’ look for the occasion,
and shet up our’n, when, all of a sudden, Alzina Ann—she never asked a
blessin’ in her own house, and forgot that other folks did—she spoke out
in a real loud, admirin’ tone, and says she:
“There! I will say it, I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in
my hull life. White-handled knives, with a gilt of sun-flowers on ’em,
is something I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But
never, never did I see any that was so perfectly beautiful as these
are.”
And she held her knife out at arm’s length, and looked at it admirin’ly,
and almost rapturusly.
Nathan looked bad, dretful bad, for he see by Cassandra’s looks that she
wuzn’t goin’ to set him free from the blessin’. And he sort o’ nestled
round, and looked under the table, a wishful and melancholy look, as if
he had hopes of findin’ a blessin’ there; as if he thought mebby there
might be one a layin’ round loose on the floor that he could get holt
of, and so be sot free himself. But we didn’t none on us reply to Alzina
Ann, and she seemed to kind o’ quiet down, and Cassandra give Nathan
another look, and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she,
and me, and Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathan was jest beginnin’ agin,
when Alzina Ann broke out afresh, and says:
“What wouldn’t I give if I owned some knives like them? What a proud and
happy woman it would make me.”
[Illustration: BAD FOR NATHAN.]
That rousted us all up agin, and never did I see—unless it was on a
funeral occasion—a face look as Nathan’s face looked. Nobody could have
blamed him a mite if he had gin up then, and not made another effort.
But Cassandra bein’ so awful determined to do jest right, and start
right in the married life, she winked to Nathan agin, as firm and
decided a wink as I ever see wunk, and shet up her eyes, and Josiah and
I done as she done, and shet up our’n.
And Nathan (feelin’ as if he _must_ sink), got all ready to begin agin.
He had jest got his mouth opened, when says Alzina Ann, in that rapturus
way of her’n:
“Do tell me, Cassandra, how much did you give for these knives, and
where did you get ’em?”
Then it was Cassandra’s turn to feel as if she must sink, for, bein’ so
proud-spirited, it was like pullin’ out a sound tooth to tell Alzina Ann
they was borrowed. But bein’ so sot in tryin’ to do right she would have
up and told her. But I, feelin’ sorry for her, branched right off, and
asked Nathan “if he layed out to vote republican or democrat.”
Cassandra sithed, and went to pourin’ out the tea. And Nathan, feelin’
so relieved, brightened up, and spoke up like a man, the first words he
spoke out loud and plain, like a human bein’, that day—says he:
“If things turn out with me as I hope they will, I calc’late to vote for
old Peter Cooper.”
I could see by the looks of Josiah’s mean that he was a gettin’ kinder
sick of Alzina Ann, and (though I haint got a jealous hair in the hull
of my back-hair and foretop) I didn’t care a mite if he wuz. But truly
worse wuz to come.
After supper Josiah and me was a settin’ in the spare room close to the
window, a lookin’ through Cassandra’s album, when we heard Alzina Ann
and Cassandra out under the window a-lookin’ at the posy beds, when
Alzina Ann says:
“You must excuse my lookin’ at you so much, Cassandra, but you are so
lovely and fair-lookin’ that I can’t keep my eyes offen you. And what a
noble-appearin’ husband you have got—perfectly splendid! And how
pleasant it is here to your house—perfectly beautiful! Seein’ we are
such friends to her, I feel free to tell you what a awful state I find
Josiah Allen’s wife’s house in. Not a mite of a carpet on her
settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look as that.
She said it was up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t believe a
word of it. I believe it was up for some other purpose, somethin’ she
didn’t want to tell.
“And the curtains was down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first
night in that condition. I might jest as well set up, for I could not
sleep, it looked so. And when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they
wuzn’t nothin’ but plain, white muslin. I should think she could afford
something a little more decent than that for her spare room. And she
hadn’t a mite of fruit cake in the house, only two kinds of
common-lookin’ cake. She said Josiah forgot to give her my letter, and
she didn’t get word I was comin’ till about ten minutes before I got
there; but, between you and me, I never believed that for a minute. I
believe they got up that story between ’em to excuse it off, things
lookin’ so. If I wuzn’t such a friend of hern, and didn’t think such a
sight of her, I wouldn’t mention it for the world. But I think
everything of her, and everybody knows I do, so I feel free to talk
about her.
“How humbly she has growed! Don’t you think so? And her mind seems to be
kind o’ runnin’ down. For how under the sun she can think so much of
that simple old husband of hern is a mystery to me, unless she is
growin’ foolish. If it was your husband, Cassandra, nobody would wonder
at it, such a splendid, noble-appearin’ gentleman as he is. But Josiah
Allen was always a poor, insignificant-lookin’ creeter; and now he is
the humbliest, and foolishest, and meachin’est-lookin’ creeter I ever
see in human shape. And he looks as old as Grandfather Rickerson, every
mite as old, and he is most ninety. And he is vain as a peahen.”
I jest glanced round at Josiah, and then instinctively I looked away
agin. His countenance was perfectly awful. Truly, the higher we are up
the worse it hurts us to fall down. Bein’ lifted up on such a height of
vanity and vain-glory, and fallin’ down from it so sudden, it most broke
his neck (speakin’ in a poetical and figurative way). I, myself, havin’
had doubts of her all the time, didn’t feel nigh so worked up and
curious, it more sort o’ madded me, it kind o’ operated in that way on
me. And so, when she begun agin to run Josiah and me down to the lowest
notch, called us all to naught, made out we wuzn’t hardly fit to live,
and was most fools, and then says agin:
“I wouldn’t say a word aginst ’em for the world if I wuzn’t such a
friend to ’em—”
[Illustration: FACE TO FACE.]
Then I riz right up, and stood in the open window; and it come up in
front of me some like a pulpit, and I s’pose my mean looked considerable
like a preacher’s when they get carried away with the subject, and
almost by the side of themselves.
Alzina Ann quailed the minute she sot her eyes on me, as much or more
than any minister ever made a congregation quail, and, says she, in
tremblin’ tones:
“You know anybody will take liberties with a friend that they wouldn’t
with anybody else.”
Says I, in deep, awful tones, “I never believed in knockin’ folks down
to show off that we are intimate with ’em.”
“Wall,” says she, “you know I do think everything in the world of you.
You know I shouldn’t have said a word aginst you if I wuzn’t such a warm
friend of yourn.”
“Friend!” says I, in awful axents, “friend! Alzina Ann Rickerson, you
don’t know no more about that word than if you never see a dictionary.
You don’t know the true meanin’ of that word no more than a African babe
knows about slidin’ down hill.”
Says I, “The Bible gives a pretty good idee of what it means: it speaks
of a man layin’ down his life for his friend. Dearer to him than his own
life. Do you s’pose such a friendship as that would be a mistrustin’
round, a tryin’ to rake up every little fault they could lay holt of,
and talk ’em over with everybody? Do you s’pose it would creep round
under windows and backbite and slander a Josiah?”
I entirely forgot for the moment that she had been a talkin’ about me,
for truly abuse heaped upon my pardner seems ten times as hard to bear
up under as if it was heaped upon me.
Josiah whispered to me: “That is right, Samantha! give it to her!” and,
upheld by duty and that dear man, I went on, and says I:
“My friends, those I love and who love me, are sacred to me. Their
well-being and their interest is as dear to me as my own. I love to have
others praise them, prize them as I do; and I should jest as soon think
of goin’ round tryin’ to rake and scrape sunthin’ to say aginst myself
as aginst them.”
Agin I paused for breath, and agin Josiah whispered:
“That is right, Samantha! give it to her!”
Worshipin’ that man as I do, his words was far more inspirin’ and
stimulatin’ to me than root beer. Agin I went on, and says I:
“Maybe it hain’t exactly accordin’ to Scripture, but there is somethin’
respectable in open enmity—in beginnin’ your remarks about anybody
honestly, in this way: ‘Now I detest and despise that man, and I am
goin’ to try to relieve my mind by talkin’ about him jest as bad as I
can;’ and then proceed and tear him to pieces in a straightforward,
manly way. I don’t s’pose such a course would be upheld by the ’postles.
But there is a element of boldness and courage in it amountin’ almost to
grandeur, when compared to this kind of talk: ‘I think everything in the
world of that man. I think he is jest as good as he can be, and he
hain’t got a better friend in the world than I am;’ and then go on, and
say all you can to injure him.
“Why, a pirate runs up his skeleton and cross-bars when he is goin’ to
rob and pillage. I think, Alzina Ann, if I was in your place I would
make a great effort, and try and be as noble and magnanimous as a
pirate.”
Alzina Ann looked like a white hollyhawk that had been withered by a
untimely frost. But Cassandra looked tickled (she hadn’t forgot her
sufferin’s, and the sufferin’s of Nathan Spooner). And my Josiah looked
proud and triumphant in mean. And he told me in confidence, a goin’ home
(and I wouldn’t wish it spoke of agin, for folks might think it was
foolish in me to tell such little admirin’ speeches that a companion
will make in moments of harmony and confidence). But he said that he
hadn’t seen me look so good to him as I did when I stood there in the
winder, not for much as thirteen years. Says he:
“Samantha, you looked almost perfectly beautiful.”
That man worships the ground I walk on, and I do hisen.
[Illustration]