That skairt him. He started kinder sideways for the door, got holt of
the latch, and says he:
“I come to labor with you, n’ I don’t want to leave you goin’ the broad
road to destruction; but I will,” says he, with a simple sort of a
smile, and as foolish a wink as I ever see wunk, “I will if you’ll give
me a drink of cider, if you please.”
[Illustration: A THREATNIN’ ATTITUDE.]
Says I, firmly, “You will take a broader road than you have calculated
on, if you don’t clear out of this house, instantly and to once.” And as
I still held my umberell in my hand, I held it up in a threatnin’ way in
my left hand, some like a spear. And he started off and went staggerin’
down the road.
I was a wonderin’ awfully who he was, and what he come for, when Miss
Bobbet come in to bring home a drawin’ of tea, and she was so full of
news that she most fell aginst the door, as wimmen will when they are
freighted too heavy with gossip. And she said it was Elder Judas Wart, a
Mormon Elder, who had come back to Jonesville again.
“And,” says she, hurryin’ to relieve herself, for her mind was truly
loaded heavy with news beyond its strength, “what do you think now about
the Widder Bump bein’ a Mormon. I told you she was one, a year ago, and
other wimmen told you so, but you would stick to it that she was a
camel.”
“Yes,” says I, “in the name of principle I have upholded that woman and
called her a camel.”
“Wall,” says she, “camel or not, she was sealed to Elder Judas Wart last
week. You know she went home to her mother’s in the spring. And he has
been out there all summer holdin’ his meetin’s, and married her.
[Illustration: MISS BOBBET TELLS ABOUT JOSIAH.]
“He told us all about it to-day. He said he hadn’t hardly a wife by him
but what was disabled in some way from workin’. He said he was fairly
discouraged. Eleven of ’em was took down with the tyfus, violent. A few
of ’em, he didn’t hardly know jest how many, but quite a number of ’em,
had the chills. Two or three of ’em was bed-rid. Four of ’em had young
babes; and he said he felt it was not good for man to be alone, and he
needed a wife—so he married the Widder Bump and sent her on to Utah by
express to take charge of things till he come. He had meetin’s to
Jonesville last spring, and Bobbet went to ’em.”
“Bobbet went to ’em,” says I, mechanically. For oh! what strange and
curious feelin’s was a tacklin’ of me. Memeries of that terrible crysis
in my life when I heard the mutterin’s of a earthquake, a rumblin’ and a
roarin’ unbeknown to me. When everything in life seemed uncertain and
wobblin’ to a Samantha, and a Josiah talked in his slumbers of a Widder
Bump.
“Yes,” says she, “Bobbet owned it all up to me, jest now. He wouldn’t,
if the Elder hadn’t come in and acted so glad to see him. But, if you’ll
believe it, Bobbet looked as if he would sink when he said he had
married the Widder Bump. And he says he hain’t goin’ to have no new
overcoat made this winter. And he has been sot on havin’ one.”
“Bobbet owned it all up to you,” says I, speakin’ agin mechanically, for
I felt fairly stunted by the emotions that was rushin’ onto me.
“Yes, I remember he used to go evenin’s to Jonesville a sight, last
spring, when I had the quinzy and was laid up. But I s’posed he went to
the Methodist Conference meetin’s. But he didn’t, he went to hear Elder
Judas Wart. And Bobbet says Josiah Allen went to ’em, too.”
At them fearful words I groaned aloud. I wouldn’t say a word aginst my
pardner. But to save my life I couldn’t keep that groan back. It fairly
groaned itself (as it were), my feelin’s was such.
It was a fearful groan, deep and melancholy in the extreme. I was
determined to not say one word about my feelin’s concernin’ my pardner,
and I didn’t, only jest that groan. She is quite a case to make mischief
in families, but she hain’t got a thing to carry from me, only jest that
groan. And there can’t be much done, even in a court of law, with one
plain groan, and nothin’ else; there can’t be much proved by it.
She is a pryin’ woman, and I see she mistrusted sunthin’. Says she:
“What is the matter, Josiah Allen’s wife? What are you groanin’ for, so
heavy?”
I wouldn’t come right out and tell the awful emotions that was
performin’ through my mind—and at the same time I wouldn’t lie. So I
broke out sort o’ eloquent, and says I:
“When I think what female wimmen have suffered, and are sufferin’, from
this terrible sin of polygamy, it is enough to make anybody groan.” Says
I, “I feel guilty, awful guilty, to think I hain’t done sunthin’ before
now to stop it. Here I have,” says I, growin’ fearfully excited, “here I
have jest sot down here, with my hands folded (as it were), and let them
doin’s go on without doin’ a single thing to break it up. And it makes
me feel fairly wicked when I think of that address the sufferin’ female
wimmen of Utah sent out to Miss Hays and me.”
“To Miss Hays and you?” says Miss Bobbet, in a sort of a jealous way. “I
don’t know as it was sent to you special. It said Miss Hays, and the
other wimmen of the United States.”
“Wall,” says I, “hain’t I a woman, and hain’t Jonesville right in the
very center of the United States?”
“Why yes,” says she. Miss Bobbet will always give up when she is
convinced. I’ll say that for her.
“Wall,” says I, “that address that they sent out to us was one of the
most powerful and touchin’ appeals for help ever sent out by sufferin’
humanity. And here I hain’t done a thing about it, and I don’t believe
Emily has.”
“Emily who?” says she.
“Why, Emily Hays,” says I. “Rutherford Hays’es wife. She that was Emily
Webb. As likely a woman as ever entered that White House. A woman of
gentle dignity, sweet, womanly ways, earnest christian character, and
firm principles. No better or better-loved woman has ever sot up in that
high chair since Lady Washington got down out of it. A good-lookin’
woman, too,” says I proudly. “She has got a fair face and a fair soul.
Her christian example is as pure and clear as the water she makes them
old congressmen drink to her dinner-table, and is as refreshin’, and as
much of a rarity to ’em. I can tell you,” says I, “it makes me and
America proud, it tickles both of us most to death, to think our
representative lady is one so admirable in every way. And foreigners can
gaze at her all they are a mind to. We hain’t afraid to let ’em peruse
her through the biggest telescopes they can get; they won’t find nothin’
in her face nor her nature but what we are proud of, both of us.
“But in this matter I’ll bet a cent Emily hain’t made a move, no more
than I have. We have been slack in it, both on us. But as for me,” says
I firmly, “I am determined to be up and a doin’.”
[Illustration: “A RARITY TO ’EM.”]
And oh! how I sithed (to myself) as I thought it over. Emily hadn’t had
the fearful lesson that I had had. Her pardner’s morals never had
wobbled round and tottered under the pressure of this pernicious
doctrine, and a Widder Bump. My sithes was fearful, as I thought it
over, but they was inward and silent ones. For my devotion to my pardner
is such that I would not give even the testimony of a sithe against my
Josiah.
When necessary, and occasion demands it, I scold Josiah myself,
powerful; I have to. But I will protect him from all other blame and
peril, as long as I have a breath left in my lung, or a strength left in
my armpit.
But oh! what feelin’s I felt, what deep, though silent, sithes I sithed,
as I thought it over to myself. How the posy will not give out its
perfume; will hang right onto it with its little, dainty, invisible
hands till it is trod on; then it gives it up—has to. And gold won’t
drop a mite of its dross; obstinate, haughty, holdin’ right onto it till
it is throwed into the fire, and heat put to it.
And to foller up the simelys, Josiah Allen’s wife’s heart had to be
tried in the fiery furnace of pain and mortifacture before it would give
up and do its duty.
Oh! how my conscience smoted me as I thought it over. Thought how the
hand of personal sufferin’ had to fairly whip me into the right. There
had hundreds and thousands of my own sect been for year after year a
sufferin’ and a agonizin’. Bearin’ the heaviest of crosses with bleedin’
hands, and eyes so blinded with tears they could hardly ketch a glimpse
of the sweet heavens of promise above ’em. And how at last, bein’ fairly
drove to it in their despair, they writ to Emily and me for help: help
to escape out of the deeps of personal and moral degradation; help to
rescue them and the whole land from barberism and ruin. And there we
hadn’t paid no more attention to that letter than if it hadn’t been
wrote to us.
Oh! how guilty I felt. I felt as if I was more to blame than Emily was,
for her house was bigger than mine, and she had more to do. And she
hadn’t had the warnin’ I had. I was the guilty one. In the spring of the
year, and on a Friday night, right up on the ceilin’ of our kitchen had
those fearful words been writ, jest as they was in Bellshazzer’ses time:
“_Mean! mean!_ tea-kettle!” and et cetery. Which bein’ interpreted in
various ways, held awful meanin’s in every one of ’em. “_Mean! mean!_”
showin’ there was mean doin’s a goin’ on; “tea-kettle!” showin’ there
was bilin’ water a heatin’ to scald and torture me. And takin’ it all
together this awful meanin’ could be read: “Josiah Allen is weighed in
the ballances, and is found wantin’.”
I hadn’t heeded those fiery words of warnin’. I had covered my eyes, and
turned away from interpretations (as it were). Forebodin’s had
foreboded, and I hadn’t minded their ’bodin’s. Forerunners had run right
in front of me, and I wouldn’t look at these forerunners, or see ’em
run.
Blind trust and affection for a Josiah had blinded the eyes of a
Samantha; but now, when the truth was brought to light by a Miss Bobbet,
when I could see the awful danger that had hung over me on a Friday
night and in the spring of the year, when I could almost hear the
whizzin’ of the fatal arrow aimed at my heart, my very life—now I could
realize how them hearts felt where the arrows struck, where they was a
quiverin’ and a smartin’ and a ranklin’.
Now, it felt a feelin’, my heart did, that it was willin’, while a throb
of life remained in it, to give that throb to them fellow-sufferers
(fellow-female-sufferers). And when Miss Bobbet said, jest as she
started for home, that Elder Judas Wart wanted to have a talk with me on
religion and mormonism, I said, in a loud, eloquent voice:
“Fetch him on! Bring him to me instantly! and let me argue with him, and
convert him.”
I s’pose my tone and my mean skairt her, she not knowin’ what powerful
performances had been a performin’ in my mind. And I heard that she went
right from our house and reported that I was after the Elder. So little
is worldly judgment to be relied upon. But nobody believed it, and if
they had, I shouldn’t have cared, no more than I should have cared for
the murmurin’ of the summer breeze. When the conscience is easy, the
mind is at rest. I knew there was three that knew the truth on’t: the
Lord, Elder Judas Wart, and myself. I count Josiah and me as one, which
is lawful, though Josiah says that I am the one the biggest heft of the
time. He said “he made calculations when he married me, when we was
jined together as one, that he would be that one.”
And I told him, “Man’s calculations was blindin’, and oft deceivin’.”
I said it in a jokin’ way. I let him be the “one” a good deal of the
time, and he knows it.
But, as I was a sayin’, them three that knew it was all that was
necessary to my comfort and peace of mind.
Josiah looked sad and depressted, and I knew, for I see old Bobbet
leanin’ over the barnyard fence while he was a milkin’, and I knew they
had been talkin’ over the news. And when he come in with his second
pail-full of milk, lookin’ so extra depressted, my mean was some colder,
probable about like ice cream, only not sweet; no, not at all
sweet—quite the reverse.
[Illustration: BOBBET AND JOSIAH TALKIN’.]
After Miss Bobbet’s departure, the night that ensued and followed on was
fearful and agonizin’. What to do with Josiah Allen I knew not. But I
made my mind up not to tackle him on the subject then, but wait till I
was more calm and composed down. I also thought I would do better to
take the daylight to it. So I treated him considerable the same as my
common run of treatment towards him was, only a little more cool—not
cold as ice, but coolish.
But oh! what emotions goared me that night, as I lay on my goose-feather
pillow, with Josiah by my side a groanin’ in his sleep frequent and
mournful. He couldn’t keep awake, that man couldn’t, not if all the
plagues of Egypt was a plaguin’ him, as I often remarked to him.
But while such emotions was a performin’ in my mind, there wuzn’t no
sleep for me. Some of the time I was mad at Josiah Allen, and then agin
I was mad at the Government. Some of the time I would feel indignant at
Josiah, clear Josiah; and then agin, as he would sithe out loud and
heart-breakin’ sithes, my affection for him would rise up powerful, and
I would say to myself—oritorin’ eloquent right there in the dead of the
night—“Why should I lay all the blame of a pernicious system onto my
sufferin’ pardner? Human nater is weak and prone to evil, especially man
human nater, which is proner. And when Government keeps such abysses for
men to walk off of, and break their necks (morally), who should be
scolded the most—them men after their necks are broke, or the ones who
dug the abysses, or let ’em be dug?
“Let this band of banditty flourish on shore—furnished land for ’em to
flourish on—and furnished ships to go out over the ocian and hunt round
for foreign souls to ruin. Who calmly looked on and beheld its ships
bear to our shores hundreds and thousands of the ignorant peasantry of
the old world—fair-faced Swedish and Danish maidens, blue-eyed German
girls, and bright English and Irish lassies—lookin’ with innocent,
wonderin’ eyes toward a new life—innocent youth, deceived by specious
falsehoods, pourin’ onto our shores like pure rills of water, to fall
into that muddy gulf of corruption and become putrid also—and our
Government lookin’ calmly on, happy as a king, and pretendin’ to be
religious.”
I declare! as I thought it all over, I was as mad with the Government as
I was with my pardner, and I don’t know but madder.
Scolded, Josiah Allen had got to be—that I knew. But I hankered, I
hankered awfully, right there in the dead of the night, to tackle the
Government, too, and scold it fearfully. I felt that I must be up and a
doin’. I yearned to tackle Elder Judas Wart, and argue with him with a
giant strength. But little did I think that in a few days I should be a
doin’ of it.
[Illustration]
A SERENADING EPISODE, &c.
These verses of Betsey’s come out in the last week’s _Gimlet_, and I
call it foolish stuff. Though (on measurin’ ’em in a careless way with a
yard-stick) I found the lines was pretty nigh of a equal length, and so
I s’pose it would be called poetry.
[Illustration: OLD TOIL’S BRIDE.]