Wall, if you’ll believe it, after all my eloquent talk, and reasonin’,
and everything, the very next week they set off on their journey after a
change, on that exertion after rest and pleasure. They come to see us
the day before they went, but their plans was all laid, and tickets
bought, (they was goin’ to the same place and the same hotel and tavern
Skidmore’s folks was), so I didn’t say nothin more—what was the use?
Thinkses I, bought wit is the best if you don’t pay too much for it;
they’ll find out for themselves whether I was in the right on’t or not.
But bad as I thought it was goin’ to be, little did I think it was goin’
to be so bad as it wuz. Little did I think that Tirzah Ann would be
brought home on a bed. But she was. And Whitfield walked with two canes,
and had his right arm in a sling. But as I told Josiah, when anybody
chased up pleasure so uncommon tight, it wasn’t no wonder they got lamed
by it. For pleasure is one of the curiousest things in the world to
ketch,—speakin’ in a coltish and parable way. Almost impossible to ketch
by chasin’ her. And if anybody don’t believe me, let ’em get up some
mornin’ before sunrise, and take a halter, and start off a purpose, and
see if they can overtake her;—see if they can ketch her, and put a bit
and martingill onto her. See if they don’t find she is skittish and
balky, and shies off when they go to put the bits in her mouth. And see,
when they think they have got the upper hands of her, whether she don’t
throw ’em head over heels, and caper off agin in front of ’em.
I have spoke in a parable way, and would not wish to be understood a
thinkin’ pleasure is a horse. Far from it. But this is a very deep
subject, and would be apt to carry any one beyond their depth if not
simplified and brought down to human comprehension.
[Illustration: “A PITIFUL SIGHT.”]
The first time I went to see ’em after they got back, Tirzah Ann told me
all about it. She could set up some then. But if it wasn’t a pitiful
sight to see them three—Whitfield, Tirzah Ann, and the babe. To see how
their means looked now, and then to look back and think how they had
looked the last time I had seen ’em in that very place. Why, as I looked
at ’em, and see how feeble, and mauger, and used up they all looked,
there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. Tirzah Ann told me it was a
lesson that would last her through her hull life. Why, she said right
out plain, that if she should live to be 3 or 400 years old, she
shouldn’t never forget it, and I don’t believe myself that she would.
There they was, she and Whitfield, poor as 2 snails. I never see either
of ’em in half so poor order before. They hadn’t no ambition nor
strength to work. Their morals had all got run down. Their best clothes
was all wore out. And that babe! I could have cried, and wept, to see
how that pretty little thing was lookin’. Poor as a feeble young snail,
and pale as a little white cotton piller-case. Her appetite was all
gone, too. She had always been used to sweet, fresh milk—the milk from
her own heifer, white as snow, with a brindle back, that her grandpa
give her for the name of Samantha. It gives dretful sweet, rich milk.
And the babe almost lived on it. And all the milk they could get for her
there was sale milk, sour half the time, and at the best full of
adultery, so Whitfield said. And I don’t think anything that happened to
them on their hull tower made Josiah and me so mad as that did. To think
of that sweet little babe’s sufferin’ from adulted and sour milk. It
made us so awful indignant that we can’t hardly speak peacible now, a
talkin’ about it.
And then they was all cooped up together in a little mite of a room, and
she was used to bein’ out-doors half the time, and had a great, cool,
airy room to sleep in nights; and bein’ shet up so much, in such close,
bad air, it all wore on her, and almost used her up. Oh! how pale she
was, and mauger, and cross! Oh! how fearfully cross! She would almost
take our heads off, Josiah’s and mine, (as it were,) every time we would
speak to her. It was dretful affectin’ to me to see her so snappish; it
reminded me so of her grandpa in his most fractious hours, and I told
him it did. Josiah felt bad to see her so; it cut him down jest as bad
as it did me.
And then to see Whitfield’s and Tirzah Ann’s demeaniers and means! Why
jest as sure as I live and breathe they didn’t seem no more like their
old means and demeaniers than if they belonged to perfect strangers, and
I told Tirzah Ann so.
And she bust right out a-cryin’, and says she, “Mother, one week’s more
rest would have tuckered me completely out. I could not have stood it, I
should have died off.”
I wiped my own eyes, I was so affected, and says I, in choked-up axents,
“You know I told you how it would be, I told you that you was happy
enough to home, and you hadn’t better go off in search of pleasure.”
Says she, bustin’ right out agin, “One week more of pleasure and
recreation would have been my death-blow.”
Says I, “I believe it. But,” says I, knowin’ it was my duty to be calm,
“It is all over now, Tirzah Ann. You hain’t got to go through the
pleasure agin. You hain’t got to rest any more. You must try to overcome
your feelin’s. Tell your ma all about it,” says I, thinkin’ it would
mebby do her good, and get her mind offen it quicker.
[Illustration: KEEPIN’ UP HER END.]
So she up and told me the hull story. And I see plain that Miss Skidmore
was to the bottom of it all. She and Tirzah Ann’s determination to not
let her get ahead of her, and be more genteel than she was. Tirzah Ann
said she was jest about sick when they started, for she found out most
the last minute that Miss Skidmore had one dress more than she had, and
a polenay, and so she sent at once for materials and ingregients, and
sot up day and night and worked till she had got hers made, full as good
and a little ahead of Miss Skidmore’s.
Wall, they started the same day, and went to the same place, a
fashionable summer resort, and put up to the same tavern, a genteel
summer tavern, to rest and recreate. And Miss Skidmore bein’ a great,
healthy, strong, raw-boned woman, could stand as much agin rest and
recreation as Tirzah Ann could.
Why, Tirzah Ann said the rest was enough to wear out a leather woman,
and how she ever stood it for two weeks was more than she could tell.
You see she wasn’t used to hard work. I had always favored her, and gone
ahead with the work myself, when she lived to home; and Whitfield had
been as careful of her as he could be, and jest as good as a woman to
help her, and so the rest come tough on her; it was dretful hard on her.
But as hard as the rest was for her, I s’pose the recreation was as bad
agin; I s’pose it was twice as tough on her.
You see she had to dress up 3 or 4 times a day, and keep the babe
dressed up slick. And she had to prominade down to the waterin’ place
and drink at jest such a time. And go a-ridin’ out on the water in boats
and yots; and had to play crokay, and be up till midnight every night to
parties. You see she had to do all this, ruther than let Miss Skidmore
get on ahead of her, and do more than she did, be more genteel than she
was, and rest more.
[Illustration: MIDNIGHT AT A WATERING PLACE.]
Their room was a little mite of a room up four flights of stairs, and
Tirzah Ann never could climb stairs worth a cent; and it leaked
awful—the rain come down round the chimbley. But they had to take that
room or none, the house bein’ so full and runnin’ over. And Whitfield
thinkin’ they could rest better in it than they could on the fence or
door-step, took it. But if there happened to come up a storm in the
night, a thunder-storm or anything, they would have to histe their
umberells and lay under ’em. They must have looked as curious as 2 dogs,
and I told ’em so.
The room bein’ so high up, it wore on Tirzah Ann—she never could climb
stairs worth a cent. And then it was so small, the air was close, nearly
tight, and hot as a oven. And the babe bein’ used to large, cool rooms,
full of fresh, pure air, couldn’t stand the hotness and the tightness,
and it begun to enjoy poor health, and it cried most all the time. And
to home it could play round out in the yard all day a’most, and here it
hung right onto its ma. And before long she begun to enjoy poor health.
And then the room on one side of ’em was occupied by a young man who was
learnin’ to play on the flute. He had been disappointed in love, and he
would try to make up tunes as he went along, sort o’ tragedy style, and
dirge-like. The most unearthly, and woe-begone, and soul-harrowin’
sounds, they say that they ever heard or read of. They say it was enough
to make any one’s blood run cold in their vains to hear ’em. He kept his
room most of the time, and played day and night. He had ruther be alone
day times, and think of that girl, and lament over her, and play about
her, than go into company; and nights he couldn’t sleep, owin’ to his
trouble, so he would set up and play. They was sorry for him, they said
they was. They said they knew he must have been in a awful state, and
his sufferin’s intense, or he couldn’t harrow up anybody’s feelin’s so.
But that didn’t make it none the easier for them.
[Illustration: WAILS OF WOE.]
Tirzah Ann and Whitfield are both tender-hearted and sympathetic by
nature; if they hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have been so hard on ’em. But
they both say that tongue never can express the sufferin’s they
underwent from that flute, and from the feelin’s they felt for that
young man. They expected every day to hear that he had made way with
himself, his sufferin’s seemed so great. Such agonizin’ wails of woe he
would blow into that flute! and he would groan and writhe so when he
wasn’t a playin’.
Twice Whitfield went to bed with his clothes on, he was so certain the
young feller couldn’t stand it till mornin’, and would need help.
The room on the other side of ’em was occupied by a young woman who
owned a melodeon. She went into company a good deal, and her spells to
play would come on nights, after she got home from parties. She had a
good many bo’s, and was happy dispositioned naturally, and they said
some nights it seemed as if there wouldn’t be no end hardly to her
playin’, quick pieces, waltzes, and pokeys bein’ her theme—and love
songs, which she would sing very sentimental and impressive, and put in
sights of quavers and shakes—they said it did seem as if they never see
so many quavers and trills as she trilled and quavered.
Tirzah Ann and Whitfield both said that they knew what it was to be
young, they had been young themselves, not much more’n two years ago,
and they knew by experience what it was to be lovesick, and they wanted
to sympathize with happiness and gayity of heart, and they didn’t want
to do nothin’ to break up her highlarity of spirits. But still it come
dretful tough on ’em. I s’pose the sufferin’s couldn’t never be told nor
sung that they underwent from them 2 musicianers.
[Illustration: QUAVERS AND SHAKES.]
And the babe not bein’ used to such a racket nights would get skairt,
and almost go into historical fits. And two or three nights Tirzah Ann
had ’em, too—the historicks. I don’t see what kep’ Whitfield up; he says
no money would tempt him to go through with it agin. I s’pose Tirzah Ann
almost tore him to pieces. But she wasn’t to blame; she didn’t know what
she was a doin’.
It hain’t no use to blame Tirzah Ann now, after it is all over with. And
she sees it plain enough now; she is sufferin’ enough from the effects
of it—her tryin’ to keep up with Miss Skidmore, and rest as much as she
did, and recreate as fur, and do all that she done. And that is where
her morals got all run down, and Whitfield’s, too.
To think of them two—she that was Tirzah Ann Allen, and Whitfield
Minkley—to think of them two, brought up as they had been, havin’ such
parents and step-parents as they had, settin’ under such a preacher as
they had always set under—to think of them two a dancin’! and a
flirtin’!
Why, if anybody had told me, if it had come through two or three, I
would have despised the idee of believin’ of it. But it didn’t come
through anybody; she owned it up to me herself. I couldn’t hardly
believe my ear when she told me, but I had to.
They had parties there every evenin’ in the parlors of the tavern, and
Miss Skidmore went to ’em all, and danced, and so they went, and they
danced. I didn’t say nothin’ to hurt her feelin’s, her mean looked so
dretful, and I see she was a gettin’ her pay for her sinfulness, but I
groaned loud and frequent while she was a tellin’ me of this (entirely
unbeknown to me).
[Illustration: DOIN’ THEIR LEVEL BEST.]
Here was where Whitfield got so lame. He never had danced a step before
in his life—nor Tirzah Ann, neither. But Skidmore and his wife danced
every night till after midnight, and Tirzah Ann was so ambitious she was
determined that she and Whitfield should recreate and dance as much as
they did, if they fell dead a doin’ of it. And not bein’ used to it, it
almost killed ’em. Besides loosenin’ their morals so that it will be
weeks and weeks before they get as strong and firm as they was before.
When morals get to tottlin’ and wobblin’ round, it is almost impossible
to get ’em as firm as they was before.
[Illustration: HOW JOSIAH WOULD PLAY POLO.]
But truly they got their pay. Whitfield not bein’ used to it, and bein’
so tuckered out with the recreation and rest he had been a havin’, it
lamed him dretfully, rheumatiz sot in, and his sufferin’s was intense.
And then a base-ball hit him—or anyway he got hurt awfully when he was a
playin’ some game, base-ball, or billiards, or polo. That is a game,
polo is, that I never heard on in my life before, and Josiah was awful
interested in it when I told him about it. And he said he should deerly
love to learn to play it. That man acts frisky now, a good deal of the
time, and is a great case to foller up new idees.
But I told him it would be dretful foolish for him to try to learn it,
for the old mare had enough to do now, without that. It is played on
horseback, and from the name I s’pose they try to hit each other with
poles, or hit the horses, or sunthin’. I don’t really understand it well
enough to give directions about playin’ it straight and correct.
But Josiah was all carried away with the idee, and stuck to it he should
love to play it, love to like a dog. Says he: “How I should enjoy to
take a game with old Bobbet. Why,” says he, “let me get onto the old
mare, and give me a good, strong hop-pole, and I believe I could fetch
the old man down the first blow.”
But I discourage the idee, and don’t mean to let him undertake it. Says
I, “Josiah Allen, it stands you in hand at your age to not go to
caperin’ round, and actin’, and get all the other old men in Jonesville
all rousted up about it, and a actin’. And I should think,” says I,
“that one lame one in the family is enough, without your chasin’ after
pleasure on the old mare, and mebby both of you get killed in the job.”
I guess I have kinder broke it up; I don’t believe he will try to learn
the game. But as I was a sayin’, in that or some other of the games
Whitfield got hit on his elbo, right on his crazy-bone, and I s’pose it
made him most crazy. But the doctor thinks with the best of care he may
get over it, and use his arm again.
Tirzah Ann’s dancin’ didn’t give her the rheumatiz; it seemed to hurt
her more inwardly, the doctor says, brought on a kind of weakness. But
where she got her death-blows (as it were), what laid her up, and made
her bed-sick, was goin’ in bathin’, and drinkin’ so much mineral water.
Ridin’ out on the water so much come hard on ’em both, for it made ’em
sick as snipes. Every ride was so severe on ’em it almost spilte their
stomachs. Tirzah Ann never could bear deep water—was always afraid of
it. But she wasn’t goin’ to have Miss Skidmore bathe, and she not, not
if she drounded herself in the operation. So she went in, and got skairt
the minute the water was over her knees; it skairt her so she had sort
o’ cramps, and gin up she was a droundin’. And that made it worse for
her, and she did crumple right down in the water, and would have been
drounded if a man hadn’t rescued her. She was a sinkin’ for the 3d time
when he laid holt of her hair, and dragged her out. She hain’t got over
the fright yet, and I am afraid she never will.
[Illustration: THE RESCUE.]
The mineral water, they say, tasted awfully. And Tirzah Ann bein’ very
dainty always about what she eat and drunk, it went against her stomach
so she couldn’t hardly get a tumbler-full of it down. But Miss Skidmore,
bein’ so tough, could drink 8 tumblers-full right down, and it seems it
lifted her up dretfully. They said she acted haughty and overbearin’
because Tirzah Ann couldn’t drink so much as she could, into a quart or
two. She put on airs about it. And Tirzah Ann couldn’t stand that, so
one day, (it was the day before they come home,) she drinked 5
tumblers-full right down. And I s’pose a sicker critter never lived than
she was.
[Illustration: “IT TASTED AWFULLY.”]
I s’pose they was awful skairt about her, and she was skairt about
herself. She thought she was a dyin’, and made Whitfield promise on a
Testament to carry her back to Jonesville the next day, dead or alive.
And he, bein’ a master hand to keep his promise, was as good as his
word, and brought her home the next day on a bed.
She got up in a day or two so as to be about the house. But they have
been laid up for repairs, as you may say, ever since. They are sick
critters now, both on ’em. I have seen awful and deplorable effects from
rest and recreation before, but never, _never_ did I see awfuller or
deplorabler than they are both a sufferin’ from. They both say that one
week’s rest more would have been their death blows, and finished ’em for
this world, and I believe it.
[Illustration: A SAD SCENE.]
And besides the outward sufferin’s that are plain to be seen, there are
inward hurts that are fur, fur worse. Outside bruises and hurts can be
reached with arneky and wormwood, but who can put a mustard poultice on
a bruised spirit, and a weakened moral? Nobody can’t do it.
Now what I am a goin’ to say, what I am a goin’ to tell now, I wouldn’t
have get round for the world—_it must be kept_! If I didn’t feel it to
be my boundin’ duty to write the truth, and the hull truth, and if it
wuzn’t for its bein’ a solemn warnin’ to them who may have felt a
hankerin’ to go off on a tower after rest; if it wuzn’t for this I
couldn’t write the awful words. But I wouldn’t have it told for
anything; I wouldn’t have it get round for the world. It _must_ be kept.
But sense I am on the subject I will tell it jest as it is. But it
_must_ not go no further. Tirzah Ann didn’t tell it right out to me, but
I gathered it from little things I heard her and Whitfield say, and from
what I heard from others that was there. I mistrust, and pretty much
know, that Tirzah Ann flirted. Flirted with a man!
[Illustration: TIRZAH ANN FLIRTS WITH A MAN.]
You see, Miss Skidmore wantin’ to appear fashionable and genteel, and do
as other genteel wimmen did, flirted with men. And I know jest as well
as I want to know that Tirzah Ann did, not wantin’ to be outdone. I know
she and Whitfield quarreled dretfully, for the first time in their
lives,—that I had right from Tirzah Ann’s own mouth. But she didn’t tell
me what it was about. She looked sort o’ meachin’, and turned the
subject, and I hain’t one to pump. But I s’pose, from what they both
told me, that they come pretty nigh partin’. And I know, jest as well as
if I see her at it, that Tirzah Ann bein’ so ambitious, and not wantin’
to be outdone by Miss Skidmore, went to flirtin’, and I mistrust it was
with old Skidmore himself. I know he and Whitfield don’t speak. Tirzah
Ann never could bear the sight of him, but I s’pose she wanted to gaul
Miss Skidmore.
Oh! such doin’s, such doin’s! It worked up me and Josiah dretfully. As I
told him, “where would their morals have been, if they had rested and
recreated much longer?”
And he groaned aloud, and said what gauled him the worst was to think of
the piles and piles of money they had throwed away. Says he: “It will
cramp ’em for months and months,”—and it will.
[Illustration]