Wall, the very next mornin’ Josiah got up with a new idee in his head.
And he broached it to me to the breakfast table. They have been havin’
sights of pleasure exertions here to Jonesville lately. Every week
a’most they would go off on a exertion after pleasure, and Josiah was
all up on end to go too.
That man is a well-principled man as I ever see, but if he had his head
he would be worse than any young man I ever see to foller up picnics and
4th of Julys and camp-meetin’s and all pleasure exertions. But I don’t
encourage him in it. I have said to him time and again: “There is a time
for everything, Josiah Allen, and after anybody has lost all their teeth
and every mite of hair on the top of their head, it is time for ’em to
stop goin’ to pleasure exertions.”
But good land! I might jest as well talk to the wind! If that man should
get to be as old as Mr. Methusler, and be goin’ on a thousand years old,
he would prick up his ears if he should hear of a exertion. All summer
long that man has beset me to go to ’em, for he wouldn’t go without me.
Old Bunker Hill himself hain’t any sounder in principle than Josiah
Allen, and I have had to work head-work to make excuses and quell him
down. But last week they was goin’ to have one out on the lake, on a
island, and that man sot his foot down that go he would.
We was to the breakfast-table a talkin’ it over, and says I:
“I shan’t go, for I am afraid of big water, anyway.”
Says Josiah: “You are jest as liable to be killed in one place as
another.”
Says I, with a almost frigid air, as I passed him his coffee: “Mebby I
shall be drounded on dry land, Josiah Allen, but I don’t believe it.”
Says he, in a complainin’ tone: “I can’t get you started onto a exertion
for pleasure any way.”
Says I, in a almost eloquent way: “I don’t believe in makin’ such
exertions after pleasure. As I have told you time and agin, I don’t
believe in chasin’ of her up. Let her come of her own free will. You
can’t ketch her by chasin’ after her no more than you can fetch up a
shower in a drowth by goin’ out doors and runnin’ after a cloud up in
the heavens above you. Sit down and be patient, and when it gets ready
the refreshin’ rain-drops will begin to fall without none of your help.
And it is jest so with pleasure, Josiah Allen; you may chase her up over
all the oceans and big mountains of the earth, and she will keep ahead
of you all the time; but set down and not fatigue yourself a thinkin’
about her, and like as not she will come right into your house unbeknown
to you.”
“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll have another griddle-cake, Samantha.”
And as he took it, and poured the maple-syrup over it, he added gently,
but firmly:
“I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have
you present at it, because it seems jest to me as if I should fall
overboard durin’ the day.”
Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin’
could stir me up like that one speech. For though I hain’t no hand to
coo, and don’t encourage him in bein’ spoony at all, he knows that I am
wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.
Wall, the day before the exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a
errant, and I asked him if he was goin’ to the exertion; and he said he
would like to go, but he dassent.
“Dassent!” says I. “Why dassent you?”
“Why,” says he, “how would the rest of the wimmen round Jonesville feel
if I should pick out one woman and wait on her?” Says he bitterly: “I
hain’t perfect, but I hain’t such a cold-blooded rascal as not to have
any regard for wimmen’s feelin’s. I hain’t no heart to spile all the
comfort of the day for ten or a dozen wimmen.”
“Why,” says I, in a dry tone, “one woman would be happy accordin’ to
your tell.”
“Yes, one woman happy, and ten or fifteen gauled—bruised in the
tenderest place.”
“On their heads?” says I enquirin’ly.
“No,” says he, “their hearts. All the girls have probable had more or
less hopes that I would invite ’em—make a choice of ’em. But when the
blow was struck, when I had passed ’em by and invited some other, some
happier woman, how would them slighted ones feel? How do you s’pose they
would enjoy the day, seein’ me with another woman, and they droopin’
round without me? That is the reason, Josiah Allen’s wife, that I
dassen’t go. It hain’t the keepin’ of my horse through the day that
stops me. For I could carry a quart of oats and a little jag of hay in
the bottom of the buggy. If I had concluded to pick out a girl and go, I
had got it all fixed out in my mind how I would manage. I had thought it
over, while I was ondecided, and duty was a strugglin’ with me. But I
was made to see where the right way for me lay, and I am goin’ to foller
it. Joe Purday is goin’ to have my horse, and give me seven shillin’s
for the use of it and its keepin’. He come to hire it just before I made
up my mind that I hadn’t ort to go.
“Of course it is a cross to me. But I am willin’ to bear crosses for the
fair sect. Why,” says he, a comin’ out in a open, generous way, “I would
be willin’, if necessary for the general good of the fair sect—I would
be willin’ to sacrifice ten cents for ’em, or pretty nigh that, I wish
so well to ’em. I _hain’t_ that enemy to ’em that they think I am. I
can’t marry ’em all, Heaven knows I can’t, but I wish ’em well.”
“Wall,” says I, “I guess my dish-water is hot; it must be pretty near
bilin’ by this time.”
And he took the hint and started off. I see it wouldn’t do no good to
argue with him, that wimmen didn’t worship him. For when a feller once
gets it into his head that female wimmen are all after him, you might
jest as well dispute the wind as argue with him. You can’t convince him
nor the wind—neither of ’em—so what’s the use of wastin’ breath on ’em.
And I didn’t want to spend a extra breath that day, anyway, knowin’ I
had such a hard day’s work in front of me, a finishin’ cookin’ up
provisions for the exertion, and gettin’ things done up in the house so
I could leave ’em for all day.
We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was 15
miles from Jonesville, and the old mare bein’ so slow, we had got to
start an hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first on’t,
that I had jest as lives set up all night, as to be routed out at two
o’clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin’ that he
looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that we would go to
bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did. So we went to
bed the sun an hour high. And I was truly tired enough to lay down, for
I had worked dretful hard that day, almost beyond my strength. But we
hadn’t more’n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a
single wagon stop at the gate, and I got up and peeked through the
window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin’. Elder
Bamber and his family, and Deacon Dobbins’es folks.
[Illustration: ROUTED OUT.]
Josiah vowed that he wouldn’t stir one step out of that bed that night.
But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin’ on my clothes,
and I finally got him started up. I hain’t deceitful, but I thought if I
got my clothes all on, before they came in, I wouldn’t tell ’em that I
had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to
my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten
minutes before I thought that I hadn’t took my night-cap off. They
looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin’. But I jest
ketched it off, and never said nothin’. But when Josiah come out of the
bedroom with what little hair he has got standin’ out in every
direction, no two hairs a layin’ the same way, and one of his galluses a
hangin’ most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told ’em. I
thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’es folks
seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed
we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’; so they never
went home till after ten o’clock.
[Illustration: “MURDER WILL OUT.”]
It was most eleven when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as
I was gettin’ into a drowse, I heerd the cat in the buttery, and I got
up to let her out. And that rousted Josiah up, and he thought he heerd
the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a
marchin’ round most all night.
And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin’, and
he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid
we would be belated, and not get to that exertion in time. And there we
was on our feet most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that
Josiah was a drowndin’, and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin’
for him. It started me so, that I jist ketched holt of Josiah and
hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, “What does ail you,
Samantha? I haint been asleep before, to-night, and now you have rousted
me up for good. I wonder what time it is.”
And then he got out of bed again, and went and looked at the clock. It
was half past one, and he said “He didn’t believe we had better go to
sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he
wouldn’t miss that for nothin’.”
“Exertion!” says I, in a awful cold tone. “I should think we had had
exertion enough for one spell.”
[Illustration: SAMANTHA’S DREAM.]
But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in
his mind about what a good time he was a goin’ to have. He acted
foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black gingham
and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress
that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up.
So, jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.
And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons
I had been a makin’ for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin’ up a milatary
company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red stripe
down the sides—a kind of a uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to ’em,
and says he:
“I will wear ’em, Samantha; they look so dressy.”
Says I: “They hain’t hardly done. I was goin’ to stitch that red stripe
on the left leg on again. They hain’t finished as they ort to be, and I
would not wear ’em. It looks vain in you.”
Says he: “I will wear ’em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once.”
I didn’t contend with him. Thinks I: we are makin’ fools of ourselves by
goin’ at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself,
by wearin’ them blue pantaloons, I won’t stand in his light. And then I
had got some machine oil onto ’em, so I felt that I had got to wash ’em,
anyway, before Thomas J. took ’em to wear. So he put ’em on.
I had good vittles, and a sight of ’em. The basket wouldn’t hold ’em
all, so Josiah had to put a bottle of red ross-berry jell into the
pocket of his dress-coat, and lots of other little things, such as
spoons and knives and forks, in his pantaloons and breast-pockets. He
looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But
good land! he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him
to, he felt so neat about goin’, and boasted so on what a splendid
exertion it was goin’ to be.
We got to the lake about eight o’clock, for the old mare went slow. We
was about the first ones there, but they kep’ a comin’, and before ten
o’clock we all got there.
The young folks made up their minds they would stay and eat their dinner
in a grove on the mainland. But the majority of the old folks thought it
was best to go and set our tables where we laid out to in the first
place. Josiah seemed to be the most rampant of any of the company about
goin’. He said he shouldn’t eat a mouthful if he didn’t eat it on that
island. He said, what was the use of goin’ to a pleasure exertion at all
if you didn’t try to take all the pleasure you could. So about twenty
old fools of us sot sail for the island.
[Illustration: FACING TROUBLE.]
I had made up my mind from the first on’t to face trouble, so it didn’t
put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins, in gettin’ into the boat,
stepped onto my new lawn dress, and tore a hole in it as big as my two
hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin’ felt so
animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when,
jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off
and blew it away out onto the lake. He had made up his mind to look so
pretty that day that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat
down onto him; and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have
seemed more shady.
[Illustration: BOUND FOR THE ISLAND.]
But I did the best I could by him. I stood by him and pinned on his red
bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin’ it on, I see
there was sunthin’ more than mortification ailed him. The lake was rough
and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginnin’ to be awful sick. He
looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad, too. Oh! the wretchedness of
that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never
did I enjoy so much sickness in so short a time as I did on that
pleasure exertion to that island. I s’pose our bein’ up all night a’most
made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.
I sot right down on a stun and held my head for a spell, for it did seem
as if it would split open. After a while I staggered up onto my feet,
and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little.
Though it was tejus work to walk, anyway, for we had landed on a
sand-bar, and the sand was so deep it was all we could do to wade
through it, and it was as hot as hot ashes ever was.
Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The butter had
all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had
swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies and tarts and delicate
cake and cookies looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of
the company’s did.
But we did the best we could, and the chicken and cold meat bein’ more
solid had held together quite well, so there was some pieces of it
considerable hull, though it was all very wet and soppy. But we
separated ’em out as well as we could, and begun to make preparations to
eat. We didn’t feel so animated about eatin’ as we should if we hadn’t
been so sick to our stomachs. But we felt as if we must hurry, for the
man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the
way the sun scalded.
[Illustration: ON THE BEACH.]
There wasn’t a man or a woman there but what the presperation and sweat
jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy-lookin’
set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a
rise of ground, and there wasn’t one of us but what had the rheumatiz
more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it
was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.
After we got the fire started, I histed a umberell and sot down under
it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.
Wall, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden
I thought, where is Josiah? I hadn’t seen him since we had got there. I
riz up and asked the company almost wildly if they had seen my
companion, Josiah.
They said, “no, they hadn’t.”
But Celestine Wilkin’s little girl, who had come with her grandpa and
grandma Gowdy, spoke up, and says she:
“I seen him goin’ off towards the woods. He acted dretful strange, too;
he seemed to be a walkin’ off sideways.”
“Had the sufferin’s he had undergone made him delerious?” says I to
myself; and then I started off on the run towards the woods, and old
Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdy, and Sister Bamber, and Deacon Dobbins’es
wife all rushed after me.
Oh, the agony of them two or three minutes! my mind so distracted with
fourbodin’s, and the presperation and sweat a pourin’ down. But all of a
sudden, on the edge of the woods, we found him. Miss Gowdy weighin’ a
little less than me, mebby 100 pounds or so, had got a little ahead of
me. He sot backed up against a tree, in a awful cramped position, with
his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable. But when Miss
Gowdy hollered out:
“Oh, here you be. We have been skairt about you. What is the matter?”
He smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he:
“Oh, I thought I would come out here and meditate a spell. It was always
a real treat to me to meditate.”
[Illustration: A DISCOURAGED EXCURSIONIST.]
Just then I come up a pantin’ for breath, and as the wimmen all turned
to face me, Josiah scowled at me, and shook his fist at them four
wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions of his hands towards ’em.
But the minute they turned round he smiled in a sickish way, and
pretended to go to whistlin’.
Says I, “What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you off here for?”
“I am a meditatin’, Samantha.”
Says I, “Do you come down and jine the company this minute, Josiah
Allen. You was in a awful takin’ to come with ’em, and what will they
think to see you act so?”
The wimmen happened to be a lookin’ the other way for a minute, and he
looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest
motions towards ’em; but the minute they looked at him he would pretend
to smile, that deathly smile.
Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, we’re goin’ to get dinner right away, for
we are afraid it will rain.”
“Oh, wall,” says he, “a little rain, more or less, hain’t a goin’ to
hender a man from meditatin’.”
I was wore out, and says I, “Do you stop meditatin’ this minute, Josiah
Allen!”
Says he, “I won’t stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of
the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain’t a
goin’ to break it up.”
Jest at that minute they called to me from the shore to come that minute
to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But oh! the gloom of
my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions
and looks of Josiah wore on me. Had the sufferin’s of the night, added
to the trials of the day, made him crazy? I thought more’n as likely as
not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days.
And then, oh how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the
smoke so into my face that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And
then a perfect swarm of yellow wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick
as we laid ’em down, so you couldn’t touch a thing without runnin’ a
chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time! the distress of that
pleasure exertion! But I kep’ to work, and when we had got dinner most
ready, I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would
go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there,
and her Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would try to dig one to
give him. So we started up the hill again. He set in the same position,
all huddled up, with his leg under him, as uncomfortable a lookin’
creeter as I ever see. But when we both stood in front of him, he
pretended to look careless and happy, and smiled that sick smile.
Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, dinner is ready.”
“Oh! I hain’t hungry,” says he. “The table will probable be full. I had
jest as lieves wait.”
“Table full!” says I. “You know jest as well as I do that we are eatin’
on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute.”
“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet, “we can’t get along without you.”
“Oh!” says he, with that ghastly smile, a pretendin’ to joke, “I have
got plenty to eat here—I can eat muskeeters.”
The air was black with ’em, I couldn’t deny it.
“The muskeeters will eat you, more likely,” says I. “Look at your face
and hands; they are all covered with ’em.”
“Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don’t
begrech ’em. I hain’t small enough, nor mean enough, I hope, to begrech
’em one good meal.”
Miss Bobbet started off in search of her wild turnip, and after she had
got out of sight Josiah whispered to me with a savage look, and a tone
sharp as a sharp axe:
“Can’t you bring forty or fifty more wimmen up here? You couldn’t come
here a minute, could you, without a lot of other wimmen tight to your
heels?”
I begun to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet had got her wild turnip
and some spignut, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then
Josiah told me all about why he had gone off by himself alone, and why
he had been a settin’ in such a curious a position all the time since we
had come in sight of him.
[Illustration: A DESPERATE SITUATION.]
It seems he had sot down on that bottle of rass-berry jell. That red
stripe on the side wasn’t hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn’t
fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin’ at ’em to try to
wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein’ sewed on a machine,
that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he
had walked off sideways towards the woods for. But Josiah Allen’s wife
hain’t one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned ’em up as well as
I could, and I didn’t say a word to hurt his feelin’s, only I jest said
this to him, as I was a fixin’ em: I fastened my grey eye firmly and
almost sternly onto him, and says I:
“Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?” Says I, “You was determined to come.”
“Throw that in my face agin, will you? What if I was? There goes a pin
into my leg! I should think I had suffered enough without your stabbin’
of me with pins.”
“Wall then, stand still, and not be a caperin’ round so. How do you
s’pose I can do anything with you a tousin’ round so?”
“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”
I fixed ’em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and there
they was all covered with jell, too. What to do I didn’t know. But
finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up
corner-ways as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind,
and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell
the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he
wouldn’t, and I told him if he wouldn’t that he must make his own
excuses to the company about wearin’ the shawl. So he told ’em he always
loved to wear summer shawls; he thought it made a man look so dressy.
But he looked as if he would sink all the time he was a sayin’ it. They
all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin’ as if he
had stole sheep—and meachin’er—and he never took a minute’s comfort, nor
I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the shore, and so was I. And
jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain began to
pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time. My
lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bonnet. And I
says to Josiah:
“This bonnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy
some new ones.”
“Wall! wall! who said you wouldn’t?” he snapped out.
But it wore on him. Oh! how the rain poured down. Josiah havin’ nothin’
but a handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a
apron to put on a gettin’ dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it
on his head. But says he, firmly:
“I hain’t proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin’ out
with a pink apron on for a hat.”
“Wall then,” says I, “get as wet as sop if you had ruther.”
I didn’t say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain
poured down; the wind howled at us; the old mare went slow; the
rheumatiz laid holt of both of us; and the thought of the new bonnet and
dress was a wearin’ on Josiah, I knew.
[Illustration: HOMEWARD BOUND.]
There wasn’t a house for the first seven miles, and after we got there I
thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had got to get home to milk, anyway,
and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the
apron we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as thirteen miles or so;
but I did speak once, as he leaned forward, with the rain drippin’ offen
his bandanna handkerchief onto his blue pantaloons. I says to him in
stern tones:
“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”
[Illustration: THE END OF THE EXERTION.]
He give the old mare a awful cut, and says he: “I’d like to know what
you want to be so agrevatin’ for.”
I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our
door-step, and he helped me out into a mud-puddle, I says to him:
“Mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”
And I’ll bet he will. I hain’t afraid to bet a ten cent bill that that
man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a pleasure exertion.
[Illustration]