WALL, it never rains but it pours, duz it? And it has been my
experience durin’ quite a middlin’ long life (jest how long, hain’t no
matter, as I know on, to anybody but the man who takes our senses).
But as I wuz sayin’, it has always been my experience that if company
gets to comin’ either on my side or hisen, they keep a comin’.
And it wuz only a short time after John Richard’s departure and exodus
that I got a letter from a aunt on my side kinder askin’ and proposin’
to have her daughter Melinda Ann come to Jonesville to make us a long
visit.
And only a little while after this, one of hisen writ to the same
effect.
And we had ’em both here to one time.
It wuz hard, but it seemed providential, and couldn’t be helped, and it
worked out a onexpected good in the end that paid us some for it. But I
wouldn’t go through it agin for a dollar bill.
You see the way on’t is, I sot out in married life determined to do as
well or better by the relations on his side than I did by them on my
own side. I wuz bound to do well by the hull on ’em, jest bound to.
But I made up my mind like iron that I would stand more, take more
sass, be more obleegin’, and suffer and be calm more from hisen than
from mine, and I would do awful, awful well by both sides.
And it wuz these beliefs carried out and spread out into practice that
caused my agonies and my sufferin’s that I went through for weeks.
The way on’t wuz, I had a letter from the city from my great-aunt
Melinda Lyons, a tellin’ me that her oldest girl, Melinda Ann (a old
maiden), wuz all run down with nervous prostration, nervous fits and
things, and she asked me if I would be willin’ to have her come down
into the country and stay a few weeks with me.
Wall, Aunt Melinda had done a good many good turns by me when I wuz a
girl, and then I set quite a good deal of store by Melinda Ann, she and
I wuz jest about of a age, and I talked it over with Josiah, and we
give our consents and writ the letter, and the next week Melinda Ann
come on, bag and baggage. A leather trunk and a bag for baggage.
Wall, we found Melinda Ann wuz very good dispositioned and a Christian,
but hard to get along with.
[Illustration: MELINDA HAS A FIT.]
The least thing we could do or say that wuz not jest so would throw her
into a fit—a nervous fit you know—she would have spazzums, and all
sally away, and faint like, and act.
And then I would have to soothe her with catnip, and bring her up with
mustard poultices, and apply a soap-stone to her.
Why, one night Josiah happened to throw he bootjack down kinder hard
(he had a corn and hit it, bein’ the cause).
Wall, I stood over Melinda more’n two hours after that, three poultices
bein’ applied in vain for relief, till arneky softened the blow to her.
And one night the slats came out of the hired man’s bed, jest acrost
the hall from hern, and it took more’n a quart of catnip to make her
hull agin.
And the cat fell through the suller winder—we have got a blind cat
that acts like fury, always a fallin’ round and a prowlin’—wall, I
thought Melinda Ann would never come to.
She thought it wuz Injuns; and the cat did scream awful, I’ll admit; it
fell onto some tin ware piled up onto a table under the winder, and it
skairt even the cat almost to death, so you can imagine the condition
it throwed Melinda into. I thought it wuz ghosts, and so did Josiah,
and felt riz up in my mind and full of or.
But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.
Wall, I guess Melinda Ann had been there about a week, and as well as
I liked Aunt Melinda, and as well as I loved duty, I wuz a beginnin’
to feel perfectly beat out and fearfully run down in my mind and
depressted, for fits is depresstin’, no matter how much duty and
nobility of soul you may bring to bear onto ’em, or catnip.
Wall, I wuz a beginnin’ to look bad, and so wuz Josiah, although
Josiah, though I am fur from approvin’ of his course, yet it is the
truth that he seemed to find some relief in givin’ vent to his feelin’s
out on one side, and blowin’ round and groanin’ out to the barn and in
the woodhouse, more than I did, who took it calm, and considered it a
dispensation from the first, and took it as such.
Wall, if you’ll believe it, right on the top of these sufferin’s come a
letter from a relation of Josiah’s, a widowed man by the name of Peter
Tweedle.
He wuz a distant relation of Josiah Allen—lived about two hundred
miles away.
He writ that he wuz lonesome—he had lost his companion for the third
time, and it wore on him. He felt that the country air would do him
good. (We found out afterwards that he had rented his house sence his
bereavement and had lived in a boarding-house, and had been warned out
by the crazed landlady and the infuriated boarders, owing to reasons
which will appear hereafter, and _had_ to move on).
Wall, he wanted to come and visit round to our house first, and then to
the other relations.
And I sez to myself, it is one of ’em on his side, and not one word
will I say agin the idee, not if I fall down in my tracks.
And Josiah was so kinder beat out with Melinda, and depressted and wore
out by havin’ to go round in his stockin’ feet so much and whisperin’,
that he said, “That any change would be a agreeable one, and he should
write for Peter to come.”
And I, buoyed up by my principle, never said a word agin the idee, only
jest this:
“Think well on it, Josiah Allen, before you make the move.”
And sez Josiah, “It will be a comfort to make a move of any kind.”
He had been kep’ awful still, I’ll admit. But I couldn’t see how it
wuz goin’ to make it any better to have another relation let in, on
whomsoever’s side they wuz.
Howsomever, I see that Josiah wuz determined, and I felt a delicacy
about interferin’, knowin’ well that I had one of the relations on my
own side in the house. Who wuz I, I sez to myself—who be I, to set up
agin hisen? No, I never will. So the letter of acceptance wuz writ, and
in less than a week’s time Peter Tweedle come.
We spozed he would bring a satchel bag with him; mebby a big one,
but—good land! Josiah had to go after his baggage with the Democrat
wagon. We see he had come to stay; it wuzn’t a evenescent visit, but a
long campane.
We didn’t know at the time that they wuz most all musical instruments;
we thought they wuz clothes.
I see a black shadder come over my companion’s face as he shouldered
the fifth trunk and took it up two flights of stairs into the attick.
He had filled the bedroom and hall.
Wall, I guess Peter Tweedle hadn’t been in the house over half an hour
before he walked up to the organ and asked me if it wuz in good repair.
I sez, “I guess so.”
Sez he, “How many banks of reeds is in it?”
I sez, “I don’t know.”
Sez he, “Have you any objections to my tryin’ it?”
I sez, “No.”
Sez he, “Sence my last affliction I have turned my mind agin towards
music, I find it soothes.” Sez he, “After my first bereavement I took
up the pickelo—I still play on it at intervals; I learned that and the
snare drum durin’ them dark hours,” sez he. “And I still play on ’em in
lonesome moments. I have ’em both with me,” sez he.
“Durin’ my next affliction I learned the clarinet, the fife, and the
base violin. Now,” sez he, “I am turnin’ my mind onto the brass horn in
various keys. But I have brought all my instruments with me,” sez he,
in a encouragin’ axent. “I frequently turn from one to another. When
I get lonesome in the night,” sez he, “I frequently run from one to
another till I have exhausted the capabilities of each, so to speak.”
I sithed and couldn’t help it, but I held firm on the outside, and he
turned to the organ.
“I love the organ,” sez he; and with that he sot down on the
music-stool, opened up all the loud bases, the double octave coupler,
blowed hard, and bust out in song.
Wall, it all come jest as sudden onto Melinda as a thunder-clap out of
a parlor ceilin’, or a tornado out of a teacup, it wuz as perfectly
onexpected and onlooked for as they would be, and jest as skairful.
For this wuz one of her bad days, and bein’ a old maid, we thought
mebby it would excite her too much to know a widower wuz in the house,
so we had kep’ it from her.
And the first intimation she had of Peter’ses presence wuz this awful
loud blast of sound.
His voice wuz loud in the extreme, and it wuz “Coronation” he bust out
in.
He is pious, there hain’t a doubt on’t, but still “Coronation” is the
loudest him in the him-book.
Wall, the very first time he blasted forth I knew jest as well as I
knew afterwards what the result would be.
I hastened upstairs, and there she wuz, there sot Melinda Ann in a fit;
she hadn’t had time to get onto the bed, and there she sot bolt upright
in her rockin’ chair in a historical fit. We had better let her known
he wuz there.
Wall, I histed her onto the bed as quick as I could, and hollered down
the back stairs for catnip.
And as soon as I had brung her to a little, she would clench right into
me, and groan and choke, and sort o’ froth to the mouth.
And I’ll be hanged if I didn’t feel like it myself, for right down
under our feet I heard that loud, thunderin’ organ, for his legs wuz
strong, and he blowed hard.
But yet so curius is human nater, specially wimmen’s human nater—right
there in my agony I couldn’t help bein’ proud o’ that instrument. I had
no idee, I said to myself, not a idee, that it had such a volume of
sound.
But loud as it wuz, Peter’ses clarion voice rung out loud and high
above it.
It wuz a fearful time, very. But even at that moment I sez to myself
agin:
“He is a relation on _his_ side—be calm!” and I wuz calm.
[Illustration: “IT WUZ ‘HOLD THE FORT’ HE BELCHED OUT IN.”]
Wall, I rubbed Melinda Ann and explained it to her, and poulticed her,
and got her kinder settled down.
And I see it took up her mind some. She didn’t seem to dislike it now,
after the first shock wuz over.
And I left her propped up on her piller a listenin’, and went down and
got supper.
Wall, it wuz all I could do to get that man away from the instrument
long enough to eat.
He seemed to be kinder absent-minded and lost like till he got back to
it agin.
Wall, it had been still for some time; you couldn’t hear a thing
from the dinin’ room up in Melinda’s room. And when he bust out agin
imegiatly after supper, it wuz too much, too much, for I spoze she had
been in a drowze.
It wuz “Hold the Fort” he belched out in, with all the steam on. He had
a way, Peter had, of bustin’ out loudest when he begun, and then kinder
dwindle down towards the last of the piece. (But it wuz one of ’em on
_his_ side, and I didn’t murmur, not out loud, I didn’t.)
Wall, I knew what wuz before me at the first volley of sound. I sez to
myself:
“Melinda Ann! Melinda Ann!” and hurried upstairs.
And there she wuz layin’ back on her piller with her eyes rolled up in
her head and fixed, and her nuckels clenched.
Wall, I brung her to agin after a long and tejus process, and then agin
I see that she sort o’ enjoyed it; and I left her propped up and went
down and helped do up the work.
Wall, Peter never stopped playin’ till a late bedtime.
And then I might have slept some at first, only Josiah begun a noise
where he left off, a scoldin’ and a jawin’.
And oh! my sufferin’s that I suffered with that man. I reminded him
that Peter wuz a relation on _his_ side—no avail.
I brung up his lonesome state.
Josiah said, “He’d ought to be lonesome! He’d ought to be fur away in
the middle of the desert or on a island in the depths of the seas.
Alone! alone!”
He raved, he swore, he said, “Dumb him!” repeatedly.
You see Josiah hated music anyway, only the very softest, lowest kind;
and Peter’ses wuz powerful—powerful and continuous.
But I reminded Josiah Allen in the cause of duty that he had complained
that the house wuz too still sence Melinda Ann had come, and he wanted
a noise.
“I never wanted to be in a Lunatick Asylum,” sez he; “I didn’t hanker
for Bedlam,” he yelled.
Wall, suffice it to say that I never got a wink of sleep till past
midnight. And mebby it wuz about one o’clock, when all of a sudden we
wuz all waked up by a low, rumblin’ noise, strange and weird.
My first thought was a earthquake, and then a cyclone.
But Josiah Allen had waked up first and got his senses before I did,
and sez he:
“It is that dumb fool a playin’ on a base viol.”
And that wuz what it proved to be. He had got lonesome in the night,
and got up and on-packed the base viol, and wuz playin’ a low, mournful
piece on it, so’s not to wake us up.
He said in the mornin’ that he held it in for that purpose.
He is a good-natured creeter, and a mourner, there hain’t no doubt
on’t, and so I told Josiah.
And he snapped out enough to take my head off:
“He’d ought to mourn! I mourn,” sez he, “Heaven knows I do. But I
shan’t mourn after the first ray of daylight, for I’ll take his trunks
and throw ’em out-doors, and him on top of ’em. And I’ll cast out
Melinda Ann like a viper,” sez he. “I’ll empty the house of the hull
crew of fools and lunaticks! I’ll do it,” sez he, “if I have a breath
left in my body.”
When he sez this I thought of Melinda Ann. Had she got a breath left?
Wuz she alive? Or wuz she not?
I jest sprung over Josiah Allen, I trompled on him, I won’t deny it,
in my haste to get up, and I left him groanin’ and a sayin’ in a low,
mournful axent:
“That foot could never be stepped on agin by him.”
But I didn’t stop to comfort him; no, my mind wuz too much took up with
the relation on my side.
I hastened upstairs, and there wuz my worst fears realized.
Melinda Ann wuz wild as a hen hawk.
She had got the winder up and wuz jest a springin’ out. I ketched her
by her limb and hollered for Josiah. Before he got there she had got
her hands clenched into my hair and wuz a tryin’ to choke me.
But, good land! she didn’t know what she wuz a doin’.
Wall, Josiah Allen by main strength got her into the house agin, and
after a tussle we got her onto the bed. And then I begun to doctor her
up.
But I never tried to go to bed agin that night, for it wuz daylight
before I got her quieted down.
Wall, Josiah had to go off that mornin’ early on bizness, to be gone
all day. And I wuz glad on’t, for I wuz afraid, in spite of all I could
do, he would do sunthin’ to disgrace himself in the eyes of both sides.
His last words to me wuz:
[Illustration: “I KETCHED HER BY HER LIMB.”]
“If I find either of them cussed fools in the house when I get back,
I’ll burn the house down over their heads.”
But I knew he wouldn’t, I knew he would quiet down while he wuz gone,
and he did.
But my sufferin’s through that day can’t never be told or sung. And the
martyrs that I called on, and the groans and sithes that I smothered in
my breast waist, couldn’t be told.
But jest as I expected, when Peter first blasted out on the clarinet
loud and strong, not bein’ afraid of wakin’ anybody up, I had to drop
everything and go right up to Melinda Ann. But the attack wuz light,
and, as usual, after she got over the first shock she enjoyed it.
And I happened to mention—havin’ that pride I have spoke of, of havin’
the relations on his side stand on their best foot before mine—I
happened to mention that Peter got up and played in the night because
he wuz lonesome, and that he said he would give half his property (he
wuz well off) if he had somebody to play the organ while he played the
clarinet.
I see she grew more meller-lookin’ and brightened up, and she sez:
“I used to be a good player.”
And if you’ll believe it—I don’t spoze you will, for Josiah wouldn’t
when I told him that night—
But when Josiah Allen came home that night they wuz a playin’ together
like a pair of turkle doves, she a playin’ the organ, and he a settin’
by her a tootin’, both as happy as kings.
And from that time out she never got skairt agin when he bust out
sudden in song or begun gradual. And her fits grew lighter and lighter
and fur seldomer.
And though our sufferin’s wuz heavy and severe to hear that organ and
clarinet, or base viol, or pickelo, or brass horn a goin’ day and
night, yet I seemed to see what wuz a comin’ on’t, and I held Josiah
by main force to stand still and let providential circumstances have a
straight path to move on in.
Wall, after two weeks of sufferin’ on our part almost onexampled in
history, ancient or modern, the end come.
Peter Tweedle took Josiah out one side and told him, as bein’ the only
male relation Melinda Ann had handy to get at, “that he had it in his
mind to marry her quietly and take her at once to his home in the
city,” and he asked Josiah “if he had any objections.”
And Josiah told me that he spoke out fervently and earnestly, and sez,
“No! Heaven knows I hain’t.”
And he urged Peter warm to have the weddin’ sudden and to once, that
very day and hour, and offered to get the minister there inside of
twenty minutes.
But I wuz bound to have things carried on decent. So I sot the day
most a week off, and I sent for Aunt Melinda and his children that wuz
married, and the single one, and we had a quiet little weddin’, or it
would have been, only the last thing that they done in the house before
they left wuz to get the hull crew on ’em to bust out in a weddin’ song
loud enough almost to raise the ruff.
Wall, Peter writ to Josiah that he hadn’t been lonesome sence it took
place, not a minute.
And Melinda Ann writ to me that she hadn’t had a fit sence, nor a
spazzum.
So, as I told Josiah Allen, our sufferin’s brung about good to two
lonesome and onhappy and fitty creeters, and we ort to be thankful when
we look back on our troubles and afflictions with ’em.
And he looked at me enough to take my head off, if a look could
guletine, and sez he:
“Thankful! Oh, my gracious Heaven! hear her! Thankful!”
And his tone wuz such that I hain’t dasted to bring up the subject
sence. No, I don’t dast to, but I do inside of me feel paid for all I
went through.
[Illustration: PETER AND MELINDA ANN.]