mysterious, curious performances,—talkin’ strange; praisin’ me up to the
skies; runnin’ other wimmen down to the lowest notch; jealous of likely
men; actin’ wild, spooney; eyein’ me all the time as close as if he was
a cat, and I was a rat hole; writin’ the curiousest letters to me;
threatenin’ to kill himself if I wouldn’t have him; and jumpin’ up as if
he would jump out of his skin, if I went to wait on myself any, pick up
a ball of yarn, or open a door or anything. I s’pose he thought he had
got to go through all this, or else it wouldn’t be courtin’. But good
land! he couldn’t keep it up, I hadn’t no idee he could, or he couldn’t
get no rest nor I nuther. It wore on me, he used to talk so dretful
curious to me, so ’fraid I’d get killed or wait on myself a little or
sunthin’; and eat! why I s’pose he eat next to nothin’, till I promised
to have him. Why! when we got engaged he wasn’t much more’n skin and
bones. But good land! he eats enough now to make it up; we hadn’t been
married a month before he’d eat everything that was put before him, and
instead of settin’ down and talkin’ strange at me, or jumpin’ up as if
he was shot to open the door—so ’fraid that I would strain myself
openin’ a door;—why, he would set and whittle and let me wait on myself
jest as natural—let me sprain my back a reachin’ for things at the
table, or bring in wood, or anything. Or he would drop to sleep in his
chair, and sleep most the hull evenin’ he felt so contented and happy in
his mind.”
I see I was a impressin’ Tirzah Ann the way I wanted to—and it made me
feel so neat, that I went to allegorin, as I make a practice of doin’
real often, when I get eloquent; sunthin’ in the Bunyan style, only not
so long. It is a dretful impressive way of talkin’.
[Illustration: LEFT BEHIND.]
Says I, “S’posen a man was a racin’ to catch a boat, that was liable to
start off without him. How he would swing his arms and canter, and how
the sweat would pour offen his eyebrows, so dretful afraid he wouldn’t
get there in time to embark. But after he had catched it, and sot down
as easy as could be, sailin’ along comfortable and happy towards the
place he wants to go to; how simple it would be in him, if he should
keep up his performances. Do you s’pose he is any more indifferent about
the journey he has undertook because he haint a swingin’ his arms, and
canterin’? No! the time for that was when he was a catchin’ the boat,
’fraid he shouldn’t git it in time. That was the time for racin’, that
was the time for lookin’ wild, that was the time for sweat. And when he
had catched it that was the time for quiet and happiness.
“When Whitfield Minkley was a tryin’ to git you, anxious, ’fraid he
shouldn’t, jealous of Shakespeare Bobbet, and etcetery,—that was the
time for exertion, that was the time for strange talk, spoony, wild,
spiritual runnin’ and swingin’ of the arms, sentimental canterin’ and
sweat. Now he has got you, he is jest as comfortable and happy as the
man on the boat, and what under the sun is the use of his swingin’ his
arms and hollerin’.
“There you two are, in your boat a sailin’ down the river of life, and
don’t you go to upsetin’ it and your happiness, by insistin’ on makin’
him go through with all the performances he did when he was a tryin’ to
catch you. It is unreasonable.”
I never see any one’s mean change much more in same length of time than
Tirzah Ann’s mean did, while I was a allegorin’. Her face seemed to look
a number of inches shorter than it did when I begun.
Pretty soon Whitfield come, and he and Tirzah Ann stayed and eat supper,
and we should have got along first rate, only there was a nutcake—a long
slim one with two legs—that put the Widder in mind of Doodle; it
happened to be put on her plate, and she cried one hour and a half by
the clock.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
P. A. AND P. I.
Last Tuesday, Thomas J. took Maggy Snow over to Tirzah Ann’s a visitin’,
and they stayed to the Debatin’ school; and it was that evenin’ that
Josiah and me first talked it over about goin’ to the Sentinal.
Thomas J. and Maggy haint married yet; when they will be I don’t exactly
know, but before long I think. Josiah can’t bear the thought of havin’
Thomas J. goin’ away from home, and Squire Snow wants to keep Maggy jest
as long as he can. He has been awful sot, the old Squire has, on havin’
’em live there right in the family after they was married. But Thomas J.
is as determined as a rock in one thing, that when he and Maggy are
married they are goin’ to keep house by themselves. And I don’t blame
him a mite. The Squire’s folks are well off and have got everything nice
and convenient, hot and cold water comes right up into the chambers, and
other things for their comfort. But his sister Sophronia Snow, lives
with ’em; has got to have a home there always accordin’ to old Mr.
Snow’ses will. And I’ve heerd, and haint a doubt of it in my own mind,
that she is a meddlesome critter, and grows worse as she grows older.
You know time affects different natures different, etcetery, and to
wit:—it will make wine softer, and sweeter, and mellower, and make
vinegar sour, and sharper than a serpent’s tooth, if serpents have got
teeth, which I never believed for a minute.
I don’t blame Thomas J. a mite for not wantin’ to settle down and live
with ’em, neither do I blame ’em for not wantin’ to come and live with
us, though it would be dretful agreeable to me and Josiah. Thomas J.
talks about goin’ west to live, when he gets married, and if he does it
will be a awful blow to me, but still I want him to do what is best for
him, and I tell Josiah that we all ort to use reason if we have got any
to use. Let the young birds build a nest for themselves, even if the old
birds are lonesome. Says I to Josiah:
“We left two old birds lonesome Josiah Allen, when we built our own nest
and feathered it out on the inside to our own comfort and likin’, with
the pure white feathers of love and content;” (I meant by the two old
birds father Smith and mother Allen, though they don’t look a mite like
birds either of ’em.) “and them feathers we feathered it out with, are
warm and soft now as anything.”
“Well,” says Josiah, “we didn’t go west.”
[Illustration: TESTING A MAN’S TEMPER.]
That thought seems to plague him the most of anything, and it does me
too, I don’t deny.
But Thomas J. is in the right on’t about wantin’ to set out in married
life without any outside weights and incumbrances. The first years in
married life is a precarious time, make the best of it. A dretful
curious, strange, precarious time; and if ever a woman wants a free room
for meditation and prayer, it is then; and likewise the same with the
man. There never was two persons so near alike, but what they was
different, and had their different ways and eccentricities; and folks
don’t realize the difference in their dispositions so much, I can tell
you, when they live from a half to three quarters of a mile apart, as
they do when they cook over the same stove, and sleep under the same
comforter. A woman may think she knows a man jest as well as if she had
been through his head with a lantern a number of times; but let her come
to live with him from day to day, and from week to week—in sunshine and
in storm; when dinner is ready at noon, and when it is late; when his
boot-jack is on the nail, and when it gets lost; when stove pipes are
up, and when they are bein’ put up; and in all other trials and reverses
of life. I tell you she will come acrost little impatient obstinate
streaks in him she never laid eyes on before, little selfish,
overbearin’ streaks. And the same with her. He may have been firm as a
rock in the belief he was marryin’ an angel, but the very first time he
brings unexpected company home to dinner on washin’ day, he’ll find he
haint. They may be awful good-principled well-meanin’ folks
nevertheless, but there are rocks they have got to sail round, and they
want strength, and they want patience, and they want elbo’ room. It is a
precarious time for both on ’em, and they don’t want no third person
round be she male or female, sacred or profane, to intermeddle or
molest. Let ’em fight their own warfare, enjoy their own blessings,
build up their own homes in the fear of God, sacred to their own souls
alone, and to Him.
They don’t want any little hasty word they may say to each other,
commented on and repeated five minutes after, when it is all made up and
forgiven. They don’t want anybody to run and complain to, in the little
storms of temper that sometimes darken the honeymoon. Good land! if they
are let alone the little clouds will disperse of themselves. And there
is another moon, what you may call the harvest moon of married life,
that rises to light true married lovers on their pilgrimage. It may not
be so brilliant and dazzlin’ as the honeymoon, but its light is stiddy,
and calm, and mellow as anything, and it shines all the way down to the
dark valley, and throws its pure light clear acrost it to the other
side. Thomas J. and Maggy will walk in its light yet, if they are let
alone, for they love each other with a firm and cast-iron affection,
that reminds me of Josiah and me, my affection and hisen.
So as I say I don’t blame ’em a mite for not wantin’ to live with his
folks or hern. When passion has burnt itself out, and been purified into
a calm tender affection but firm as anything can be firm, and patience
has been born of domestic tribulation; when they have built up their own
home on the foundations of mutual forbearance, and unselfishness, and
trust in each other, as they will have to build it in order to have it
stand—then in the true meanin’ of the term the two twain have become
one. The separate strands of their own individual existence will become
twisted into one firm cord, strong enough to stand any outside
pressure—Sophronia Snow, or any other strain. Then if they want to take
in a few infirm or even bedrid relations on his side or on hers, let ’em
take ’em in, it would be perfectly safe. Let ’em do as they are a mind
to, with fear and tremblin’.
But though I tell all this to Josiah Allen a tryin’ to make him
reconciled to the idee of lettin’ Thomas J. go, though I keep a firm
demeanor on the outside of me, nobody knows the feelin’s I feel when I
think of his goin’ west to live.
Why when Tirzah Ann was married, the day after she moved away, the
feelin’s I felt, the lonesomeness that took holt on me, wore on me so
that I had to go to bed regular, ondress, and everything. But I held
firm there in the bed, I hung on to reason, and never let on what ailed
me. And Josiah and the Widder Doodle, was skairt most to death about me,
and sweat me—give me a hemlock sweat. And though I didn’t say nothin’
thinks’es I to myself, with the bitter feelin’s I have got inside of me,
and a hemlock sweat on the outside, I am in a pretty hot place.
But I persume that sweat was the best thing they could have done. It
kinder opened the pours, and took my mind offen my troubles. It was so
oncommon disagreeable, and hard to bear, that I couldn’t think of
anything else while it was a goin’ on. And then it satisfied them, that
was why I let ’em go on with it; it kinder took up their minds, and kep’
’em from talkin’ to me every minute, and mournin’ to me about Tirzah
Ann’s goin’ away. Truly, feelin’ as I felt, I could stand a hemlock
sweat better than I could that.
But as I said more formally, I held firm there in the bed. Though my
body was wet with sweat, my mind was dry and firm, and my principles
cool and hefty. I knew it was the way of nater, what I ort to have
expected, and what was perfectly right. I couldn’t expect to keep the
childern with me always, it was unreasonable. And though it would seem
as lonesome and roomy as if one side of the house was gone, I must stand
it the best I could. Now when a bird lets her young ones fly away from
the old nest, I dare persume to say, lots of memories almost haunt that
old bird’s heart, of sweet May mornin’s, and the little ones chirpin’ in
the nest, and her mate a workin’ for ’em, and a singin’ to ’em close by.
I dare say she thought it all over, that old bird did, how the sweet May
mornin’ with its bloom and gay brightness, she couldn’t never see again,
and the little soft, dependent, lovin’ things couldn’t never come back
to her heart again, to be loved and to be worked for, and she, paid for
that work every minute by watchin’ their growin’ strength and beauty.
But she held firm—and when the time came for ’em to fly, she let ’em
fly. No matter what she felt, upheld by duty and principle she pushed
’em out of the nest herself. She held firm, and so Samantha Allen is
determined to, she whose maiden name was Smith.
If Thomas J. and Maggy could feel contented to settle down in Jonesville
after they was married, the cup of my happiness would be full and
runnin’ over, and so would Josiah’s cup; for we could see him every day,
or three times a day if we wanted to. But they have got a good Doctor
there now—Thomas J. has studied for a Doctor; goin’ to get his
sheep-skin in July. Though I have said and I say still, that I never
heerd of such a present to give the last day of school as a sheep-skin.
And it looks to me as if his teachers was dretful hard up for presents,
to have to fall back on a sheep-skin. I told Thomas J. that when a
scholar had studied day and night as he had for three years and over, it
seemed as if (if they was goin’ in to sheep presents at all,) they ort
to give him as much as a live sheep, instead of killin’ it and eatin’
the mutton themselves, and givin’ him the hide; howsumever, it haint
none of my business, and if he is satisfied I ort to be. Old Dr. Bombus
speaks dretful well of him, says he is jest as good a Doctor to-day as
he is; but folks have got kinder attached to the old Doctor, he havin’
helped their friends into life and out of it, for years, they naturally
take to him, and there don’t seem to be much of any chance for a young
Doctor, I think; and I know that Thomas J. and Maggy had ruther stay in
Jonesville if it wasn’t for that he and Maggy settle down by themselves
there—than to go west. But if he makes up his mind to go, I am
determined to put my shoulder blades to the wheel, keep my mind stiddy
and stabled, so’s to do justice to my own principles, and be a comfort
to my Josiah.
As I said, Thomas J. took Maggy over to Tirzah Ann’s in the mornin’ a
calculatin’ to stay to the Debatin’ school, and I told Josiah we’d have
an early supper, and go in good season. We had stewed oysters, and warm
biscuit and canned peaches, a first rate supper, and Josiah said it was.
And it went off dretful agreeable all but one thing; the Widder Doodle
shed tears when Josiah passed the oysters to her, she said them oysters
put her in mind so of Doodle.
But she wiped up in a minute or two, and enjoyed her supper first rate.
She didn’t want to go out in the cold she said, and she offered to wash
up the dishes—there wasn’t but a handful of ’em and so I let her. The
dish-pan put her in mind of Doodle again, and we left her a cryin; it
was time to go and we started off.
Josiah went to the Post-office, and I had a little tradin’ to do to the
stores and the groceries. But Jonesville was all up in end, as you may
say, and every place where I went to I could see that every man was rent
with excitement to his very foundations.
A grocer man where we did our tradin’ had been burgled the night before.
A poor man, a chair bottomer by trade, had stole a codfish weighin’ two
pounds and a half, and a dozen of onions. He had tried to git work and
couldn’t git a thing to do, so he was obleiged to follow his trade in a
different way from what he wanted to follow it; and the consequence was,
his family was perishin’ for food. And his wife havin’ the consumption
thought she could eat a little codfish and onions if she had ’em. So, as
he couldn’t get trusted for 22 cents he lay to and stole ’em. And
Jonesville rose to a man in anger and wrath, I never see so big a
excitement there, and Josiah said he never seen a excitement there or
any where else, any where near the size of this. More’n a dozen told us
the story before we had been in the grocery twenty minutes, for they was
rampant to tell it.
They said: they got on the track of the codfish and onions early in the
mornin’, tracked ’em to the haunt of the robber (he lived in a shanty on
the age of the village) and tore the booty he had obtained by lawless
rapine from his grasp. The grocer man that was rapined got back the
biggest part of the codfish skin, and three of the onions. Though they
said the robber’s pardner in iniquity tried to conceal her guilty
treasure beneath the straw bolster, for she was sick abed, and didn’t
know when she should ever get anything to eat again.
They said they demolished the straw bolster right there on the spot, in
their righteous anger and as an example to the woman of the mighty power
and justice of the law, and dragged the man off to jail of course. But
they wasn’t satisfied with that, they wanted to make an example of him.
The man he rapined came out boldly and said he ort to be masicreed right
there in the streets. Says he, “What is the nation comin’ to, if thieves
and robbers haint made public patterns and examplers of?”
An old man in a blue soldier overcoat who was tryin’ to get trusted for
some plug tobacco said to the grocer man: “He ort to be guletined.”
But the grocer didn’t know what that meant; he thought the old man was
kinder praisin’ him up, so he acted mad and wouldn’t trust him. But the
one that seemed to talk the biggest about it was P. Cypher Bumpus. Bein’
a lawyer by trade, he has got well acquainted with some uncommon big
words, and he naturally loves to let folks see on what familiar terms he
is with ’em.
[Illustration: THE THIEF AT HOME.]
He uses ’em like a master workman. He didn’t gesture a mite; they say he
wont on common occasions. I’d give a cent though if he had been willin’
to, for I s’pose it is a sight worth goin’ miles to see. But he used
words more’n three inches long, and I don’t know but some would have
come nigh onto four inches in length, a goin’ on about this rapine.
“Yes,” says Cornelius Cork takin’ aim at us with his forefinger as if we
was rabbits eatin’ his early cabbages. “Stealin’ is sunthin’ that
Jonesville and the nation cannot and _will_ not, put up with. And such
villains and robbers will find out that we wont; _fur frummit_.”
“He ort to be gulentined,” says the old man again. “Ort to have his head
chopped right off with an axe.”
They all looked favorably at the old man now, and the grocer man trusted
him right on the spot for a plug of tobacco.
Josiah come in jest then with the _World_ in his hand, and he turned to
Cornelius Cork, and says he:
“I see by the _World_ to-day, there has been another case of public
stealin’; another hundred and fifty thousand stole from us out of the
public treasury.”
“Yes,” said Cornelius Cork in a mild gentle tone: “A little case of
fraud, that is all.”
“Merely a deficit in accounts,” says the grocer man who was rapined, in
a ’poligy tone.
“Only a triflin’ defalcation from the revenue,” says the old man, bitin’
off another chew of his tobacco with a serene countenance.
“Nothin’ to speak of,” says P. Cypher Bumpus. “Nothin’ worth mentionin’,
a triflin’ abstraction, a diminution, a withdrawal of funds, a
emblezzlement.”
Oh, what feelin’s I felt to hear ’em go on; but I didn’t say a word to
’em, I don’t believe in a woman bein’ bold and forred in her demeanor.
But to see every one on ’em givin’ that stealin’ a bigger and a bigger
name, swellin’ and puffin’ it out from fraud clear up to embezzlement,
and no knowin’ where they would stop, if somebody didn’t interfere. I
declare for’t, it give me such feelin’s that I spoke right out to
Josiah, and my tones sounded low and awful, for I heerd ’em unbeknown to
me.
Says I, “Josiah Allen, what feelin’s it makes me feel to see folks
strain so, and hang back from eatin’ a gnat, and then swaller a elephant
and a rinosterrous and a drumedary.” Says I, “When a poor man in the
case of sickness steals a onion and a codfish, he is called a thief and
a robber; he is drummed out of camp, sent to jail, knocked down by
public opinion, and kicked after he is down by the same, till he is
completely mortified, and shame and disgrace bow his forward down into
the dust. But let a rich man steal all he can lay his hands to, and they
think it is sunthin’ pretty in him, so pretty that they make a new name
for it, and he wears that name like a feather in his cap. If he breaks
down a purpose to cheat his creditors, they call it ‘compromisin’
‘repudiation,’ both of these name stand up like beautiful feathers over
his forward, and he looks grand and feels so. If he lays to and steals
right out openly hundreds of thousands of dollars they have lots of
curious and handsome names to ornament him with, all the way from
defalcator and deficitor up to embezzler. Why, if some politician should
steal the hull United States treasury, they would have to make a new set
of names to trim him off with, there wouldn’t be none in the dictionary
half big and noble enough.”
I follered my pardner almost mekanically out of the store. What they
said to my back after I left, I know not. But we must all expect to be
backbited some, else why do we have backs.
In about seven minutes time we was seated in front of the Jonesville
Creation Searchers, a listenin’ to a epicac poem from Shakespeare
Bobbet—or that is how Josiah understood it; I myself thought they called
it a epock poem; but Josiah said when we was a talkin’ it over a goin’
home, that he would bet the colt it was a epicac.
Says he, “You know epicac means sunthin’ kinder weakenin’, and
sickenin’, and that is why such poems as hisen are called epicacs.”
“Well,” says I, “seein’ we haint either of us certain, we wont lay out
too much breath arguin’ about it. But this I know, that the poetry was
as long and dreary as the desert of Sarah, and as dry as Sarah ever was
in her dryest times.”
It happened dretful kinder curious, but the question up that night
before the Creation Searchers was about Kleptomania—another big name for
stealin’ that I never heerd before—and they proved it out so beautiful,
how Kleptomania worked in the system, and how anybody couldn’t help
stealin’ who had the distemper.
After they settled this to their own satisfaction, and the enlightenment
of the world, the President got up and in a awful thrillin’ and
impressive manner,—and usein his gesture as handy as I ever see a
gesture used—went on and talked in a foamin’ manner about the Sentinal
that was goin’ to be at Filadelfy village to celebrate old Epluribus’es
birthday; and he went on for probable half an hour about its uncommon
and amazin’ bigness, and he said when all the rest of the celebrated men
of America and the world was to be there, it didn’t look well for them
to hang back, and shirk out of goin’, and he motioned that the Creation
Searchin’ Society should send a body there, to encourage the Sentinal,
and collect information as a body, and he went on to say that if they
concluded to send a body there, they would proceed to vote on who should
be the body, and how many it should be.
Solomon Cypher got up and said the name told on the face of it:
Sent-ten-al. He said the doin’s was named with the view that there would
be ten sent there from the Jonesville Creation Searchin’ Society.
The minute he sot down, Simon Slimpsey got up lookin’ as if he would
sink right down through the floor into the suller. I’d seen that Betsey,
his wife had been a hunchin’ and pokin’ him, tryin’ to make him git up,
and whisperin’ to him in a loud angry whisper. And says he in a heart
broken tone: “If it will add any to the gloom and melancholy”—here
Betsey give such a jerk at his coat skirts that he crumpled right down
for a minute, and his tone was skairt as he went on—“and highlarity of
Filadelfy to have a poem sent by Betsey, I can carry it, I s’pose.” And
he sunk down a murmurin’: “I may live through it, and I may not.” And he
almost buried his face in his right hand, and I think shed tears. It
come hard on Simon.
But Solomon Cypher’s face looked dark and severe, and he rose up and
smote himself powerful and frequent as he said:
“For the time bein’ I represent the body. And speakin’ in the name of
the body which I now am, I say, that we, the body cannot, and _will_ not
be trammeled and bound down by either poetry, or bed-quilts.” (Two
wimmen jest in front of him was a whisperin’ loud; rampant to send a
blazin’ star and a sunflower.) “The body has got a great reputation to
keep up, the eye or eyes of the different globes assembled there will be
on it, watchin’ the demeanor of the body and copyin’ after it. A great
reputation is to be kep’ up.”