“Wall,” says he, lookin’ relieved, “if you will excuse me, I won’t make
no move towards raisin’ the money for you. It would probable cramp me
considerable to raise the sum jest at this present time.”
And then he begun about Kitty agin. Says he, knittin’ up his eyebrow
hard, and lookin’ gloomy:
“I never calculated to fall in love with a poor girl. It never used to
pass my mind that I ever should select such a one out of the hundreds
that stand round me, hankerin’ to marry me. But I have done it. Why,
sometimes I think I couldn’t love that girl any more if she was worth
two hundred and 50 dollars. I think so much of her that it is as hard
for me as loosin’ a limb, almost like loosin’ my pocket-book, to think
of her bein’ way off there a pinin’ for me, and bein’ on a perfect rack,
not knowin’ whether she will get me or not.
“When I think of that side of the question, Josiah Allen’s wife, I feel
jest like leavin’ word here with you for her, that I will marry her,
whether or no. But then, jest like a blow aginst the side of my head,
comes the thought of them other wimmen, that had hopes before she come
to Jonesville that they would get me. I believe, anyway, it will be safe
to leave word here for her to keep up good courage, and try not to get
too cast down and melancholy; to hope for the best; and I’ll do
everything I can. I’ll enquire round about the wimmen, see the doctor,
and try to arrange things for her good and happiness; try to get round
and marry her. At the same time,” says he, with a cautious look, “I
would feel it my duty to warn her to not get so bound up in me that the
disappointment would kill her, if she should lose me.”
“Wall,” says I, bein’ wore almost completely out, “I must go and skim
the milk for the calves.”
And he took the hint and started off, and glad enough was I to see him
go. But jest as he went down the steps, and I turned to go into the
buttery, I see a paper of indigo that Marier Burpey had left here that
very day. She had forgot it, and I knew she was in a hurry a colorin’;
so I jest carried it to the door, and asked Kellup if he would carry it
to her, knowin’ he had to go right by her door.
“No,” says he, firmly, “I dassent do it.” And he looked anxious and
skairt as he said it. “I’d be glad to, but I dassent,” says he. “I have
to make my demeanor perfectly stunny towards that girl, in order to keep
her affection anywhere within bounds. She don’t show it any by her looks
or actions—she has got almost marble self-control; but I see right
through it. I see that she almost worships me. I see that I am makin’
her perfectly unhappy; and when I think of Sofier’s fate, I tremble for
Marier. I am careful; I am a careful feller; I am on my guard. And at
the present time, situated as I be in regard to Kitty, I feel that I ort
to be doubly careful. But at any and every time a young man like me
can’t be too careful when they are round amongst wimmen.”
“Nobody wouldn’t mistrust you was makin’ such havock,” says I,
mechanically, for I really didn’t know what to say.
[Illustration: MARIER BURPEY.]
“Yes, if a young man like me is unprincipled enough to go headlong into
wimmen’s company without lookin’ where he is goin’, without actin’
offish and cold to ’em, why, before that man knows it, he is a wadin’
through goar. Bleedin’ hearts lay round him on every side a bleedin’.
Why don’t other young men think of these things? Why hain’t they more
careful, more offish?”
Says I, with feelin’, “That’s so, why hain’t they? The offisher some men
be, the more I think on ’em.” And I looked longin’ly at the path down to
the gate, and the road to Jonesville.
“Yes, you know what actin’ on principle means. That is why I respect
you, confide in you.”
“Then you don’t think you can carry the indigo?” says I, turnin’ to go
in.
“No,” says he, firm as marble, and as sot as that stun. “I’d love to
accommodate you, but I dassent. When I think of the fate of Sofier, when
I think of the deadly blows my conscience dealt to me every minute, as I
drove her hearse to the buryin’-ground—then I feel as if I had almost
ruther lose ten cents than go through it agin with Marier. I feel that I
must not be resky, and do anything to ensnare her affections.”
“Good land!” says I, “indigo won’t be likely to ensnare ’em, will it?”
“Other men might handle it safe, men with less attractions than I have
got, but I can’t, I dassent.”
And I wouldn’t demean myself by urgin’ him another word. And I went into
the house, and he started off.
Wall, as I was a sayin’, Kitty had been gone two weeks, the day Nathan
and Cassandra visited me, and this letter from her, brought in to me
while I was a gettin’ the dinner onto the table, brought news that was
startlin’ and agitatin’ in the extreme. I was jest a stirrin’ some sweet
cream and butter together over the stove, havin’ a fresh salmon trout
for dinner, and Josiah bein’ fond of that kind of gravy to eat with it,
and Nathan bein’ such a clever creeter, offered to stir it for me, while
I read the letter. And I was so anxious to git the news, that I let him
do it, though, the stove bein’ so hot, take it with that and his burnin’
blushes, it made a pretty hot time for him.
But the news was this: Kitty was married. But the curiousest and most
agitatin’ part of the news was, the old gentleman, Mark’s father, had
got after Kitty’s mother. He went to give her a scoldin’, and fell in
love with her on the spot. Like Hamen, he got hung on his own
gallowses—went to smite her, and got smit himself, awful. So he courted
her up violent and powerful, and they all got married the same day.
It was very pleasant and agreeable news to me, and to Josiah. And
Cassandra and Nathan acted well about it. They said they was glad it all
turned out so well, but their minds didn’t seem to be on the news so
much as they was on their babe. And it is a very good-lookin’ child, and
appears middlin’ well for a child of its age. Takes after its father
some—sort o’ sandy, with red hair. It don’t look much, as little
Samantha Jo did, nor it don’t have that noble, beautiful appearance she
had at that age. But then you can’t expect that any other child is ever
goin’ to look and act like her. I do despise people bein’ so bound up in
their own childern and grandchildern that they can’t see no good
qualities in any other childern. Thank fortune that hain’t my way, nor
never was. And I say, and I always shall say, that Cassandra’s babe
hain’t a babe to be ashamed of, and feel above, not by any means.
Bein’ so awful bashful, Nathan don’t probable associate with it so much,
and act on such intimate terms with it as he would if it wuzn’t for
that. But in a mild, sheepish way, he seems to think the world of it,
and seems to want to do everything he can to make it feel to home with
’em, and happy. But he don’t come out openly and express his admiration
and affection, as he would if it wuzn’t for that drawback.
Now, he dassent hold it much, or that is, he don’t seem to dast. But
Cassandra bein’ proud-spirited, and wantin’ Nathan to show off some,
would once in a while put the babe in his lap.
He never would make any move to stop her. He never would refuse to take
it. He would set and hold it jest as long as she felt disposed to leave
it there. But he would look down on it in a skairt, wonderin’,
breathless way, as if the child got there in his lap through some
mysterious and inscrutable decree of Providence, and it wuzn’t for him
to resist. But he suffered intensely at such times, I could see.
And every little while Cassandra (bein’ determined to make Nathan show
off) would tell him to say sunthin’ to the babe, talk baby-talk to it.
And he would always try to. He would always do jest as Cassandra told
him to (a cleverer critter never walked). His face would be as red as a
red handkerchief, but he would ask the babe, up in a little, high, fine
voice:
[Illustration: “DO YOU WANT A PAIR OF BOOTS?”]
“Do you want a pair of boots?”
He never made any other remark to the child that I heard, only jest
that. I heard him say that to it more’n 20 times, I dare persume to say.
For Cassandra, bein’ so anxious to have him show off, kep’ tellin’ him
to talk to it. And it seemed as if that remark was all he could think of
that would be agreeable to the child. But Josiah said, as we was talkin’
it over afterwards, that he heard him say two or three times to it:
“Yes, it shall have a pair of boots.”
But it must have been when I was out a gettin’ dinner. For if I was
under oath I would say that I didn’t hear him say a single thing to it,
only jest this:
“Do you want a pair of boots?”
They started for home jest after dinner, Nathan havin’ left some work
that must be done. And Josiah hitched up and went to Jonesville to mill.
And I s’pose he told the news about Kitty there. But it wuzn’t till the
next afternoon that I heard what the effects of that news wuz in a
certain place and to a certain feller.
And though it hain’t always best to mention names, and come right out
plain and talk, yet it probable won’t do no hurt to mention that you
might expect Kellup Cobb, under any circumstances, would act like a
fool.
[Illustration: THRILLING NEWS.]
I was down to the creek lot, pickin’ a few berries for supper, when
Josiah told me on’t. It had got a little later than I thought for, and
Josiah had come down after me, bein’ worried about me. It was only a
little ways from the house. I had put the tea-kettle on, and sot the
table, before I had come out, and the tea-kettle was a bilin’, so Josiah
said, after he told me the news. The news was thrillin’ and agitatin’ in
the extreme. He said Kellup Cobb had disappeared the night before, after
the news of Kitty’s marriage had got abroad in Jonesville. They said
that he felt so that he disappeared, he and the hearse and Elder Judas
Wart—the hull three on ’em. Kellup had been on intimate terms with Judas
Wart for some time; and some think that Kellup bein’ so cut down by
Kitty’s marriage, and the Elder bein’ so cut down by my witherin’
eloquence and Josiah’s broom-handle, that they both got into the hearse,
and drove off in it to Utah to jine the Mormons. And some think that
they sold the hearse, and took the money, and went to Salt Lake by rail.
Which last way, I told my Josiah, when he mentioned it, was the proper
way to go there, if it wuz the right kind of a rail. But anyway, they
had gone, the hull three on ’em, and there hain’t been a word heard from
’em sense in Jonesville.
Josiah said old Cobb felt awfully.
Says I, “To lose Kellup?”
“No,” says he, “to lose the hearse.”
But I jest repeated this line of poetry to my pardner. Says I:
“Poetry, Josiah, will somehow express the feelin’s of the soul better
than you can express them yourself.” And says I, “Josiah, as for Elder
Judas Wart and Kellup, I say with the poet, good riddance to bad
rubbidge.”
“Wall,” says Josiah, with a sort of a dreamy look,—that man loves
poetry, though he seldom quotes it—“don’t you s’pose, Samantha, that you
have got about enough berries for supper, for I am gettin’ hungry as a
bear.”
“Yes,” says I, “because I have got stewed peaches and cold chicken and
everything else good for supper besides them. But,” says I, lookin’ sort
o’ longin’ly at some berries that was a hangin’ over the water, “there
is a few extra big and ripe ones that do look too good to leave.”
“Wall,” says he, sweetly (for his mean sense I told him what we was
goin’ to have for supper had looked perfectly beautiful), “you set down
and rest, Samantha, and I will pick ’em for you.”
And so he took my little tin pail, and with a happy frame bent down to
pick ’em. And I, bein’ tired, sot down, and looked into the water. And I
see that everything was reflected in it. The trees, the nodding red
sumac feathers, my Josiah and me, gay golden-rod and wild blue
china-oysters, the berry bushes, the thorny stalks and the ripe fruit,
fresh posys, and withered leaves; all imaged there in the water; and the
water was a runnin’ swift.
And out on the end of a slender bush that hung over the water, a bird
swayed and swung to and fro, and sung out a dretful sort of a sweet
song, yet sad like. Some as if it was practicin’ over a farewell song to
its home, its happy nest, before it sailed away south in search of a
balmier climate.
So the bird sailed back and forth on that slender twig, over the deep
waters, a singin’ about a happier country, sweet and sad, sweet and low.
And my pardner picked the ripe berries, and I sot there peaceful and
serene (though some sweaty), a thinkin’ how, over all that was pictured
on the changing face of the waters, the changeless blue heavens was
reflected, shining down over all, the old and the new, the mournful and
the sorrowful; over all, and beneath all. That thought was perfectly
beautiful to me, and dretful comfortin’. And I sot there a thinkin’ of
that, and a thinkin’ how swift the water was a runnin’ towards the sea.