shet the door in his face, and came back pantin’ for breath, but proud
and victorious in his mean. Then the Editor of the Auger got up to make
the closing speech, when all of a sudden the door opened, and in walked
Miss Gowdey. I thought in a minute she looked dretful kinder flustrated
and awe-struck. She sot right down by me—Josiah had gone across the
school-house to speak to Whitfield on business—and says I:
“What is the matter, sister Gowdey!” (sister in the church;) says I:
“you look as white as a white woolen sheet.”
Then she says to me and sister Minkley; says she:
“Sunthin’ dretful has happened!”
“What is it?” says I.
“Do tell us sister Gowdey!” says sister Minkley.
Says she, “You know how cold it is!”
Says I, “I _guess_ I do; Josiah froze one of his ears a comin’ here
to-night, as stiff as a chip offen the north pole.”
“And our buttery shelves froze for the first time in years,” says sister
Minkley.
[Illustration: FOUND DEAD.]
“Well,” says she “Willie Harris, Widder Harris’es Willie, was found
froze to death in that big snow drift jest the other side of the canal.
You know sense they licenced that new drinkin’ saloon, Willie has got
into bad company, and he left there late last night, after he and a hull
party of young fellers had been a drinkin’ and carousin’; he couldn’t
hardly stand up when he left, and they s’pose he lost his way and fell
in the snow; and there he was, jest the other side of his mother’s, half
covered up in the snow; some boys that were skatin’ on the canal found
him jest at dark. I never see such a house in my life; the Dr. thinks it
will kill his mother, you know she has worked so hard to educate him,
almost killed herself, and was happy a doin’ it; she loved him so, and
was so proud of him; and she has such a loving, dependent nature; such a
affectionate tender-hearted little woman; and Willie was all she had.
She lays there, lookin’ like a dead woman. I have been there all the
evenin’.”
All the while Miss Gowdey was a speakin’, my heart kep’ a sinkin’ lower
and lower, further and further down every minute, till I declare for’t,
I didn’t know where it would go to, and I didn’t much care. Willie
Harris! that handsome, happy boy that had sot on my knee a hundred times
with my Thomas Jefferson; played with him, slept with him. That bright
pretty boy, with his frank generous face, his laughing blue eyes, and
his curly brown hair—his mother’s pride and darling. Oh! what feelin’s I
felt. And then all of a sudden, my heart took a new start, and sunk down
more’n two inches I’ll bet, at one sinkin’, as a thought gripped holt of
me. What if it had been my Thomas Jefferson! And as that thought tackled
me, without mistrustin’ what I was a doin’ I turned round in my seat and
spoke right out loud to sister Minkley. Says I:
“Sister Minkley what if it was my Thomas Jefferson that was murdered
accordin’ to law? What if it was _my_ boy that was layin’ out there
under the snow?”
Sister Minkley had her white linen handkerchief up to her eyes, and she
didn’t say a word; but she give several sithes, awful deep; she has got
a mother’s heart under her breast bone; she has had between twelve and
thirteen childern of her own, and they was on her mind. She couldn’t
speak a word, but she sithed powerful, and frequent. But though I was as
agitated as agitated could be, and though there wasn’t a dry eye in my
head, I began to feel dretful eloquent in mind; my soul soared up
awfully, and I kep’ on:
Says I, “Sister Minkley, how can we mother’s live if we don’t put our
shoulder blades to the wheel?” says I, “we must put ’em there whether or
no; we are movin’ the wheel one way, or the other anyway. In this, as in
every other reform, public sentiment has got to work with the law, stand
behind the law and push it ahead of it, or else it wont never roll
onward to victory.” Says I, “It is a wheel that is loose jinted, the
spokes are sot loose on the hub; it is slippery, and easy to run
backwards; it is always easier to push anything down hill than up, and
there is far more pushers in that direction. And one of the solemnest
things I ever see, sister Minkley, is this thought—that you and I, and
everybody else is a pushin’ it one way or the other every day of our
lives; we can’t shirk out of it, we are either for it or ag’inst it. A
man or a woman can’t git away from castin’ their influence one way or
the other no more than they can git away from their shadder on a desert,
with the sun bilein’ down on ’em, and no shade trees in sight. There
haint no trees tall enough to hide us from the blazin’ sun of God’s
truth; this cause is before us, and we must work with God or ag’inst
him.”
“Amen!” says sister Minkley out from under her white linen handkerchief,
and she sithed hard.
“How can we help workin’, sister Minkley? How can we fold our hands up,
and rest on our feather beds? If a deadly serpent had broke loose from
some circus, and was a wreathin’ and twistin’ his way through
Jonesville, swallerin’ down a man or a woman every few days, would men
stand with their hands in their pockets, or a leanin’ up ag’inst
barn-doors a whittlin’; arguin’ feebly from year to year, whether it was
best to try to catch the serpent and cut its head off, or whether it was
best after all to let him go free? After they had seen some of their
best friends swallered down by it, wouldn’t they make an effort to
capture it? Wouldn’t they chase it into any hole they could get it into?
Wouldn’t they turn the first key on it they could git holt of? And if it
broke loose from that, wouldn’t they try another key, and another, till
they got one that would holt him?
“Do you s’pose they would rent out that serpent at so much a year to
crunch and swaller folks accordin’ to law? And would it be any easier
for the folks that was crunched and swallered, and for the survivin’
friends of the same, if they was killed by act of Congress? What would
such a law be thought of sister Minkley? and that is nothin’ to the
wickedness of the laws as they be. For what is one middlin’ sized
serpent in a circus, that couldn’t eat more’n one man a week with any
relish, to this of intemperance that swallers down a hundred thousand
every year, and is as big as that Great Midgard serpent I have heerd
Thomas J. read about, whose folds encompass the earth.”
Sister Minkley sithed so loud that it sounded some like a groan, and I
kep’ on in a dretful eloquent way:
“We have got to take these things to home sister Minkley, in order to
realize ’em. Yours and mine, are as far apart as the poles when we are
talkin’ about such things. As a general rule we can bear other folks’es
trials and sufferin’s with resignation. When it is your brother, and
husband, that is goin’ the downward road, we can endure it with
considerable calmness; but when it is a part of my own heart, _my_
Willie, or _my_ Charley that is goin’ down to ruin, we feel as if men
and angels must help rescue him. When it is mine, when it is mother’s
boy that is lyin’ murdered by this trade of death—when the cold snow has
drifted down over the shinin’ curls that are every one wove into her
heart strings, and the colder drifts of disgrace and shame are heaped
over his memory—how does the poison look to her that has killed her
darling? How does the law that sanctions the murder seem to her? Then it
is that yours and mine draw near to each other. It is the divine
fellowship of suffering our Lord speaks of, that brings other hearts
near to ours, makes us willin’ to toil for others, live for them, die
for them if need be. It was this, that sent forth that wonderful Woman’s
Crusade, made tender timid women into heroes willin’ to oppose their
weakness to banded strength. It was this that made victory possible to
them.
“When a king was chosen in the old time to lead the people of the Lord
to victory, he was consecrated by the touch of a royal hand. And it was
these women, weak and tender, touched with the divine royalty of sorrow,
that God chose to confound the mighty.
“And other great souled women, who loved the praise of God better than
the praise of the world, joined ’em; they swept over the land, the most
wonderful army that was ever seen. Conquerin’ minds and hearts, instead
of bodies, with tears and prayers for weapons. Hindered not by ridicule,
helped by angels, enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, conquerin’ in
His name. What was the Crusade to the Holy Land that I have heerd Thomas
J. read about, to this? That was to protect the sepulchre where the body
of our Lord was once laid, but this was to defend the living Christ, the
God in man.”
I don’t know how much longer I should have kep’ on, for I seemed to feel
more and more eloquent every minute—if I hadn’t all of a sudden heerd a
little low modest snore right in front of me, and I see sister Minkley
was asleep, and that brung my senses back as you may say, and when I
took a realizin’ sense of my situation, and see how still the
school-house was and everybody a listenin’ to me, I was completely
dumbfounded to think I had spoke right out in meetin’ entirely unbeknown
to me.
Cornelius Cork the President was a sheddin’ tears, though bein’ a man he
tried to conceal ’em by blowin’ his nose and coughin’ considerable hard.
But coughin’ couldn’t deceive me; no! the whoopin’ cough couldn’t, not
if he had whooped like an Injun’s warwhoop. I see ’em, I had my eye on
’em.
You see he was own cousin to Willie Harris on his mother’s side—Willie’s
mother and his, was own sisters. They was old Joe Snyder’ses girls by
his first wife.
Cornelius Cork never asked a person to judge on the question, or vote on
it, or anything. He jest jumped right up onto his feet, and says he in a
real agitated and choked up voice:
“It is decided, that it is wrong to licence intemperance.” And then he
coughed again awful hard. And Lawyer Nugent got up and said sunthin’
about adjournin’ the meetin’ till “Sime-die.” Though what Simon he
meant, and what ailed Sime, and whether he died or not, I don’t know to
this day no more than you do. Howsumever, we all started for home.
[Illustration]
TIRZAH ANN AS A WIFE.
Tirzah Ann was to home a visitin’, yesterday. They keep house in part of
Brother Minkley’ses house, for this winter. Brother Minkley’ses house is
a bigger one than they need, or can furnish, and it is handy for
Whitfield on account of its bein’ near to the law office where he learnt
his trade. But Whitfield lays out to open a office of his own next
summer. Everybody says he will do well, for the lawyer he learnt his
trade of, has a awful creek in his back most the hull time. If he is a
tryin’ anybody, or a swearin’ anybody,—right when he is a usin’ the
biggest words, a tryin’ and a swearin’—he is liable to crumple right
down, and be carried out with that creek,—no dependence on him at all;
and lawyer Snow has got so rich that he don’t care whether he works at
his trade or not; so there seems to be a clear road for Whitfield.
And they are a goin’ to have a house of their own, before long,—though
nobody knows a word about it, only jest Tirzah Ann’s pa, and me. I atted
Josiah to give Tirzah Ann her portion, now. Says I,—“They are a stiddy,
likely, equinomical couple, and wont run through it; why not give ’em a
start now, when they need it, as well as to wait till you and I die, and
have ’em kinder lookin’ forred and ‘hankerin’ after our shoes,’ as the
poet says.” Says I,—“give her her talent now, Josiah, and let her
improve on it.” Says I,—“less buy ’em a house, Josiah Allen; they wont
run through it, I know they wont.”
I would sejest this to Josiah Allen, every little while; but he hung
off. Josiah is close, (but honest.) But I kep’ a sejestin’ and I kep’ a
’swaidin’, and finally he give his consent.
We are goin’ to buy ’em a neat little cream-colored house, with green
blinds, right on the age of the village. We have got our eyes on it now,
Josiah and me have; and to speak more plain, and let out a secret—which
_mustn’t go no further_—we have got a contract of it. The man can’t give
a clear deed till 1st of September.
This house and the one next to it—which is jest exactly like it—are
kinder set off by themselves, and are the handsomest, pleasantest places
in Jonesville, and everybody says so. I told Josiah he couldn’t do
better than to buy one of ’em, and he sees it now; he feels well.
In the back garden is fruit trees of all kinds, and berry vines, and
bushes, and a well of soft water; two acres of land, “be it more or
less: to wit, namely, and so 4th, a runnin’ up to a stake, and back
again, to wit.”
Josiah read it all off to me; he is a great case to read deeds and
insurance papers, and so 4th. He thinks they are dretful agreeable
readin’.
I know when we was first married, and he wanted to use me so awful
well,—bein jest married, he naturally wanted to make himself agreeable
and interestin’ to me—and so to happyfy me and keep me from bein’
homesick, and endear himself still more to me, he would draw out his tin
trunk from under the bed, and read over deeds and mortgages to me by the
hour. But I didn’t encourage him in it, and kinder broke it up; but he
loves to read ’em to this day; and I felt so neat over this contract,
that I let him read the hull thing right through, and was glad to hear
it, though it took him one hour by the clock. He reads slow, and then
there was so many whereases, and namelys, and to wits, that he would git
baulked every few minutes. He would git to wanderin’ round in ’em—git
perfectly lost—and I’d have to lay holt and help him out.
We are goin’ to git a deed of the house, unbeknown to Whitfield and
Tirzah Ann, and make ’em a present of it. They was married the 14th day
of September, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon—jest the time Josiah was
born—so I told Josiah that I would bake up as nice vittles as I could,
and enough of ’em,—enough to last a week or ten days—and we would have
supper all ready in the new house, jest the day of the month and the
time of the day he was born and they was married, and invite ’em over;
and we’d have Thomas Jefferson and Maggie Snow, and the Widder Doodle,
and turn it into a sort of 4th of July,—keep the day in a kind of a
camp-meetin’, holiday style.
I believe in workin’ and earnin’ your honest bread, etc. and so 4th; but
still, I believe in makin’ things agreeable and pleasant, very. We
Americans, as a nation, are a dretful anxious-lookin’, hard-workin’,
long-faced, ambitious, go-ahead race, and we tackle a holiday as if it
was a hard day’s work we had got to git through with jest as quick as we
could; and we face enjoyments with considerable the same countenance we
do funerals. But I am layin’ out now to take a good deal of comfort the
14th of next September, Providence permittin’.
I think a sight of Tirzah Ann. I’ve done well by her, and she sees it
now; she thinks a sight of old mother, I can tell you. She enjoys
middlin’ poor health, now-a-days, and her pa and I feel anxious about
her, and we talk about her a good deal nights, after we git to bed; and
I wake up and think of her considerable, and worry.
And truly, if anybody is goin’ to set up in the worry business, nights
is the best time for it in the hull twenty-four hours; middlin’-sized
troubles swell out so in the dark; tribulations that haint by daylight
much bigger’n a pipes-tail, at midnight will look bigger’n a barn. I
declare for’t, I’ve had bunnets before now, that didn’t suit me,—was
trimmed up too gay, or come over my face too much, or sunthin’, and when
I’d wake up in the night and think on ’em, they’d look as big to me as a
bushel basket, and humblier; and I’d lay and sweat to think of ever
wearin’ ’em to meetin’; but at daylight, they would kinder dwindle down
again to their natural shape. And so with other sufferin’s that come
tougher to me to bear. When I was a bringin’ up Thomas Jefferson, tryin’
to git him headed right, how many times he has stood before me at
midnight a black-leg—his legs as black as a coal, both of ’em;—a pirate;
a burglar; he has burgled his pa and me, night after night; set
Jonesville afire; burnt New York village to ashes; and has swung himself
on the gallows.
And Tirzah Ann has had cancers; and childern; and consumptions; and has
been eloped with; and drownded in the canal, night after night; but good
land! in the mornin’ the childern was all right. The sunshine would
shine into my heart like the promises in the Bible to them that try to
bring up their childern in the fear of the Lord; and I could lay holt of
them promises and feel first rate.
And Josiah Allen! I s’pose I have buried that man as many times as he
has got hairs on his head, (he is pretty bald) when he’d have a cold or
anything. I’d wake up in the latter part of the night, when it was dark
as Egyptian darkness, and I’d git to thinkin’ and worryin’, and before I
knew it, there Josiah would be all laid out and the procession a
meanderin’ off towards Jonesville buryin’ ground, and I a follerin’ him,
a weepin’ widder. And there I’d lay and sweat about it; and I’ve gone so
far as to see myself lay dead by the side of him, killed by the feelin’s
I felt for that man; and there we’d lay, with one stun over us, a
readin’:
“Here lays Josiah and Samantha;
Their warfare is accomplished.”
Oh! nobody knows the feelin’s I would feel there in the dead of night,
with Josiah a snorin’ peacefully by my side. But jest as quick as the
sun would rise up and build up his fire in the east, and Josiah would
rise up and build up his fire in the stove, why them ghosts of fears and
anxieties that haunted me, would, in the language of the poem Thomas J.
was readin’ the other day:—Fold up their tents like an Arab man and
silently go to stealin’ somewhere else. And I’d git up and git a
splendid breakfast, and Josiah and I would enjoy ourselves first rate.
There is sunthin’ in the sunlight that these phantoms can’t stand;
curious, but so it is. Their constitution seems to be like the Serious
flower that blows out in the night. These serious ghosts—as you may
say—are built jest right for livin’ in the dark; they eat darkness and
gloom for a livin’, die off in the daytime, and then resurrect
themselves when it comes dark, ready to tackle anybody again, and haunt
’em, and make ’em perfectly miserable for the time bein’. But truly, I
am a episodin’; and to resoom and go on:
Tirzah Ann, as I said, come down a visitin’; she brought down a little
pail of canned sweet corn, all fixed for the table. I thought that sweet
corn would be the death of the Widder Doodle; it made her think so of
Doodle.
“Oh!” says she, “when I think how I used to raise sweet corn in my
garden, and how Mr. Doodle would set out on the back stoop and read to
me them beautiful arguments ag’inst wimmen’s rights, when I was a hoein’
it; and how he would enjoy eatin’ it when I’d cook it, it seems as if I
can’t stand it; and shant I never see that man?” says she, “shant I
never see that dear linement again?”
And she out with her snuff handkerchief and covered her face with it.
Whether she cried or not, I don’t know. I shant say she did, or didn’t;
but she went through with the motions, that I know.
Tirzah Ann was all offen the hooks, yesterday, she felt down-hearted and
nervous. She is dretful nervous lately; but I tell Josiah that I’ve seen
other wimmen jest as nervous, and I have; and they got over it, and
Tirzah Ann will. There was she that was Celestine Gowdey, she was so
nervous—I’ve heerd her mother say—her husband was most afraid of his
life; she would throw anything at him—the tea-pot, or anything—if he
said a word to her she didn’t like; scalded him a number of times, real
bad. But he, bein’ considerable of a family man—he had had three wives
and fourteen or fifteen childern, before he married Celestine—didn’t
mind it, knowin’ what wimmen was, and that she’d git over it and she
did; and so will Tirzah Ann. It comes considerable hard on Whitfield
now, but he will git over it and wont mind bein’ scolded at, if it
rains, or if it don’t rain, or if the old cat has kittens.
After dinner the Widder Doodle went up stairs and laid down for a nap,
as she makes a practice of doin’ every day; and glad enough was I to see
her go. And after she had laid down and our ears had got rested off, and
I had got the work all done up, and Tirzah Ann and me had sot down to
our sewin’—she was doin’ some fine sewin’ and I laid to and helped
her—as we sot there all alone by ourselves she began on me, and her face
lengthened down a considerable number of inches longer than I had ever
seen it as she went on:
She was afraid Whitfield didn’t think so much of her as he used to; he
didn’t act a mite as he used to when he was a courtin’ of her. Didn’t
kiss her so much in a week now, as he used to one Sunday night. Didn’t
set and look at her for hours and hours at a time, as he did then.
Didn’t seem to be half as ’fraid of her wings spreadin’ out, and takin’
her up to heaven. Didn’t seem to be a bit afraid of her goin’ up bodily.
Didn’t call her “seraph” any more, or “blessed old honey-cake,” or
“heavenly sweetness,” or “angel-pie.” About all he called her now
besides Tirzah Ann, was “my dear.”
[Illustration: THE NERVOUS WOMAN.]
I see in a minute the cause of the extra deprested look onto her face
that day, I see in a minute “where the shoe pinched” as the poet says.
And I see here was a chance for me to do good; and I spoke up real
earnest like, but considerable calm, and says I:
“Tirzah Ann, that is a first-rate word, and your husband Whitfield
Minkley hits the nail on the head every time he says it. ‘Dear!’ that is
jest what you are to him, and when he puts the ‘my’ onto it that tells
the hull of the story; you are dear, and you are hisen, that is the hull
on’t.” Says I, in a real solemn and almost camp-meetin’ tone, “Tirzah
Ann you are a sailin’ by that rock now that the happiness of a great
many hearts founder on, that a great many life boats are wrecked on.”
Says I, “lots of happy young hearts have sailed smilin’ out of the
harbor of single blessedness, hit ag’inst that rock and gone down; don’t
you be one of ’em;” says I, “don’t make a shipwreck of the happiness of
T. A. Minkley late Allen; histe up the sail of common sense and go round
the rock with flyin’ colors,” and says I in agitated tones, “I’ll help
you, I’ll put my shoulder blades to the wheel.” And I continued in
almost tremblin’ tones—as I trimmed off the edge of the linen cambric,
and went to overcastin’ of it:
“I never could bear to see anybody want to set down and stand up at the
same time,” says I, “it always looked so unreasonable to me.” And says
I: “Tirzah Ann, you are in the same place; you want to be courted, and
you want to be married at the same time; you want a husband and you want
a bo out of the same man, simultaneous, as it were.”
Says I: “Truly we can’t have everything we want at one time. There is a
time for apple trees to blow out, rosy color—sweet—with honey bees a
hummin’ round ’em; and there is a time for the ripe fruit, and apple
sass. We can’t have good sleighin’ in hot weather, we can’t be drawed
out to a peach tree to eat ripe peaches on a hand sled. Slidin’ down
hill is fun, but you can’t slide down hill over sweet clover blows, for
clover and snow don’t blow out at the same time. And you can’t have
peace, and rest, and quiet of mind, at the same time with delerious
enjoyment, and highlarious mirth.
“There is as many kinds of happiness as ‘there is stars in the heavens,’
and no two stars are alike, they all differ from each other in their
particular kind of glory.
“Now courtin’ is considerable fun, sunthin’ on the plan of catchin’ a
bird, kind o’ resky and uncertin’ but excitin’ like, and considerable
happyfyin’. To set down after a good supper, contented and quiet, by a
bright fireside with your knittin’ work, and your affectionate pardner
fast asleep and a snorin’ in the arm chair opposite, is another kind of
happiness, nothin’ delerious nor highlarious about it, but considerable
comfortin’ and consolin’ after all. Now you have got a good affectionate
husband Tirzah Ann, a man that will look out for your comfort, do well
by you, and be a good provider; and you musn’t expect to keep the lover;
I mean, you musn’t expect him to go through with all the performances he
used to when he was tryin’ to get you; why it is as unreasonable as
anything in the world can be unreasonable.”
“Now” says I, “there’s your pa and me, Tirzah Ann; we have lived
together in the neighborhood of twenty years, and we are attached to
each other with a firm and cast-iron affection, our love for each other
towers up like a pillow. But if that man should go to talkin’ to me as
he used to when he came a courtin’ me, I’d shet him up in the smoke
house, for I should be afraid of him, I’ll be hanged if I shouldn’t; I
should think he was a luny.