of the Creation Searchers, got up, and said as it was doubtless the aim
of all present to make as great a stir as possible in the literary and
scientific world, and as they were all a workin’ for that end, and as
there was now nine shillings and six pence in the treasury, he proposed
those moneys should be expended in purchasing spectacles for the body to
wear on the body.
The Editor of the Auger jumped up and seconded the motion, sayin’ he
hadn’t a doubt about its increasin’ its reputation for deep and
scientific wisdom. And he thought large round eyes would be best adapted
to givin’ the body a wise look, and that heavy brass bows would help to
give weight to its opinions.
They all agreed on this and the motion was carried in triumphant. Then
one feller who had been round to literary conventions a good deal and
had got high notions in his head, proposed that the body should let
their hair grow long in their necks; he said it would be a great help to
’em. But as the President, and Solomon Cypher and the most of the head
ones was as bald as a bald eagle—hadn’t hardly a mite of hair to their
heads—the motion was laid down under the table; and they began to vote
on who was to be sent. They voted in Cornelius Cork, and Solomon Cypher,
and the Editor of the Auger, and Shakespeare Bobbet and several others,
and everything seemed peaceful and happy—Solomon Cypher countin’ ’em
serenely out of his hat—when all of a sudden without no warnin’ he
jumped up, and brandished a vote in his hand, and yelled out in a voice
a good deal like thunder:
“Who! where is the villain who has dared to demean this society and put
it to shame by votin’ for a woman? Where is the wretch and the
demeaner?”
And he looked as black and wrathful as an iron musket, and he struck
himself in the breast powerful blows, and with every smite he would call
out for “that villain and demeaner.” It was a fearful time; but right
when the excitement was rainin’ most fearfully, I felt a motion by the
side of me, and my companion got up and stood on his feet and says in
pretty firm tones, though some sheepish:
“I did, and there’s where I stand now; I vote for Samantha.”
And then he sot down again. Oh! the fearful excitement and confusion
that rained down again. The President got up and tried to speak, the
Editor of the Auger talked wildly, Shakespeare Bobbet talked to himself
incoherently, but Solomon Cypher’s voice drownded ’em all out, as he
kep’ a smitin’ his breast and a hollerin’ that he wasn’t goin’ to be
infringed upon, or come in contract with by no woman! No female woman
needn’t think she was the equal of man; and I should go as a woman or
stay to home.
I was so almost wore out by their talk that I spoke right out, and says
I, “Good land! how did you _s’pose_ I was a goin’?”
The President then said that he meant, if I went I musn’t look upon
things with the eye of a “Creation Searcher” and a man, (here he pinted
his forefinger right up in the air and waved it round in a real free and
soarin’ way,) but look at things with the eye of a Private Investigator
and a woman; (here he pinted his finger firm and stiddy right down into
the wood-box, and a pan of ashes,) it was impressive, very. Then he went
on to ask me, if I was willin’ to go as a woman, and with what eyes I
was willin’ to look at things.
I kep’ on a knittin’ with considerable calm, and assured ’em with quite
a lot of dignity, that bein’ a woman, I should most probable go as one,
and not bein’ blind, I should look at things with my own eyes.
“But will you promise to look upon things in a private way, not as a man
and a ‘Creation Searcher?’ Will you go as Josiah Allen’s wife, P. I.,
which means Private Investigator?”
I declare, their talk was enough to wear out a snipe; and as I sot there
hearin’ ’em go on, big, lofty idees and hefty aspirations began to
tackle me. Truly the fires of persecutions are always fruitful of great
idees; and while the storms of opposition, and Cornelius Cork and
Solomon Cypher and etcetery was a ravin’ round me, I see a mission a
loomin’ up in front of me, like a war-horse a waitin’ for me to mount
and ride off to victory promiscous. And I spoke out in a noble tone, and
says I: “No! I will not go as a P. I., I will go as a P. A.;” and I
continued in still firmer axents, “I am not one of the whifflin’ ones of
earth, my mind is firm and stabled, and my principles are high and
foundered on a rock; if I go at all I shall go as Josiah Allen’s wife,
P. A., which means Promiscous Advisor, in the cause of Right.” But
Josiah whispered to me, and says he: “Let ’em put on the P. I.,
Samantha; it has a sort of a good sound; go as a P. A. and a P. I.”
And finally, after givin’ it a half a moment’s thought, and meditatin’
it wasn’t nothin’ ag’inst my principles, and would please my companion,
I consented to go as Josiah Allen’s wife, P. A. and P. I., which bein’
translated from the original means, Promiscous Advisor, and Private
Investigator. And bein’ dretfully worked up by more than a dozen
different emotions, and almost by the side of myself with principles and
everything—without mistrustin’ what I was a doin’—I riz right up and
stood on my feet, and spoke right out about my mission; wavin’ my
knittin’ work almost eloquently. Says I:
“When childern was a bein’ brung up, and mortgages was abroad, my place
was to home, and to home I stayed. But when liberated from these
cumberin’ cares, and mortgages was flown and childern growed up; my mind
was a mind that couldn’t be curbed in, when great questions was before
the world: deep conundrums that has puzzled the ages waitin’ for an
answer, and them answers to be worked out by individual men and wimmen,
by the sweat of their brows and the might of their shoulder-blades, says
I. My mind was one that worked nobly for the good of the human race, and
women; and on that great and lofty mission it took a tower. And now it
is a mind that can’t be held in and hitched to the fence that cowards
set acrost, while the conflict is a ragin’ on every side of ’em. The
battle-field where Right opposes Wrong is a broad one, as broad as the
hull world, and in every great warfare of principle there has been
martyrs, from St. Stephen—whose body was stunned to death while heaven’s
glory was a shinin’ out of his soul—to old John Brown who died faithful
to that eternal spirit of justice, that old Error never could stand.”
Says I,—“Old Mr. Brown was none the less a martyr because he fell in our
day, and has not been cannonized by the hand of old Time;” says I, “that
same old warfare of Justice with Injustice, Freedom with Oppression, and
True Religion with Bigotry, is a goin’ on now, and the spirit of
Martyrdom is strong in me. Gladly would I lead on the hull army of the
Right triumphant into victory, even if I fell in the conflict, and was
drownded in my own goar. But such a crown of honor is reserved for a
nobler and mebby a higher forward, but not a more well-wisher to the
cause. And if I can’t head a army, and lead the vanguard on to glory and
to victory, I can tussle with the little guerillas of wrong, that are
let loose in society; I can grapple with the solitary pickets that Error
sends out ahead of his army to see how the land lays, and if the enemy
is asleep on a post. I can lay holt of his spies that are hid under the
ambush of fashion and custom.”
“Any Advisor is a martyr more or less, for when was advice not scorned
and rejected of men and wimmen? In my mission of Promiscous Advisor, I
shall go forth, expectin’ to tread on the hot coals of public opinion;
be briled on the gridiron old bigotry keeps to brile her enemies on; be
scalded by the melted lead of old custom; and be burnt up on the stake
of opposition.” Says I—wipin’ my heated forward—“I am happy in the
thought.
“And I am ready to set forth to-night, or to-morrow, or next summer, not
harnessed up in the splendid trappin’s of a Major-General, but in the
modest mean of a humble militia officer, earnest and sincere, and
therefore feelin’ as much self-respect, as if I was Commander-in-Chief
over the hull caboodle. I can go,” says I—wavin’ my knittin’-work
outward with as noble a wave as I ever see waved—“I can go forth with
Josiah by my side a conqueror and to conquer.”
And then I sot down, for principle had tuckered me almost completely
out; and while they was a votin’ on who else was to be the body, Josiah
and I started for home. There was a contented look to his face, as he
started off; finally he spoke out in gentle axents:
“I am glad we are goin’ to git home in such good season, Samantha. I
guess we will hang over the kettle, and have a little bite of sunthin’
to eat; I didn’t eat much supper.”
[Illustration]
HOW I WENT TO ’LECTION.
I was a makin’ Josiah some cotton flannel shirts, and I lacked enough
for the gussets and one shoulder band. I had also run out of shirt
buttons; and I was a tellin’ the Widder Doodle in the forenoon, that I
couldn’t work another stitch on ’em till I had been to Jonesville. And
she said, speakin’ of cotton flannel, made her think of Doodle. She took
in work—hetchelled tow for a woman—and bought some cotton flannel to
make him some shirts; and when she got ’em all done, they didn’t set
exactly right somehow, kinder wrinkled in the back a little, and she had
to take ’em all to pieces and make ’em over; and Mr. Doodle would set
and read the Evenin’ Grippher to her, and smile at her so sweet when she
was a rippin’ of ’em up. She said, nobody knew but jest her, how much
that man worshipped her. Says she, “I can’t never forget his linement,
and I can’t never marry again and there needn’t nobody ask me to, for no
linement can ever look to me like Mr. Doodle’ses linement.”
Says I, “Don’t take on so sister Doodle; he’s most probable in a land
where he’ll have justice done to him.”
Josiah looked up from the _World_, and says he:
“I am goin’ to Jonesville to ’lection bime by, Samantha; you’d better
ride down, and get the stuff for my shirts.” Says he, “The Town Hall, as
you know, is bein’ fixed, and the pole is sot up right in the store. It
will be handy, and you can go jest as well as not.”
But I looked my companion in the face with a icy, curious mean, and says
I in low, strange tones:
“Wouldn’t it be revoltin’ to the finer feelin’s of your sole, to see a
tender woman, your companion, a crowdin’ and elboin’ her way amongst the
rude throng of men surroundin’ the pole; to have her hear the immodest
and almost dangerous language, the oaths and swearin’; to see her a
plungin’ down in the vortex of political warfare, and the arena of
corruption?” Says I, “How is the shrinkin’ modesty and delicacy of my
sect a goin’ to stand firm a jostlin’ its way amongst the rude masses,
and you there to see it?” Says I, “Aint it a goin’ to be awful revoltin’
to you, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh no!” says he in calm gentle axents, “not if you was a goin’ for
shirt buttons.”
“Oh!” says I almost wildly, “a woman can plunge up head first ag’inst
the pole, and be unharmed if she is in search of cotton flannel; she can
pursue shirt buttons into the very vortex of political life, into the
pool of corruption, and the mirey clay, and come out white as snow, and
modest as a lilly of the valley. But let her step in them very tracks, a
follerin’ liberty and freedom, and justice, and right, and truth and
temperance, and she comes out black as a coal.” And says I in a almost
rapped way, liftin’ up my eyes to the ceelin’: “Why are these things
so?”
“Yes,” says the Widder Doodle, that is jest what Mr. Doodle used to say.
He said it would make a woman’s reputation black as a coal, would spile
her modesty entirely to go to the pole, and be too wearin’ on her. Says
he, “Dolly it would spile you, and I would rather give my best cow than
to see you spilte. Poor Mr. Doodle! there was a heavy mortgage on old
Lineback then—it was a cow I brought to him when we was married, and Mr.
Doodle was obleeged to mortgage her to git his tobacco through the
winter; it was foreclosed in the spring, and had to go, but his speakin’
as he did, and bein’ so willin’ to give up my cow, showed jest how much
he thought of me. Oh! he almost worshipped me, Mr. Doodle did.”
Jest at that very minute, Josiah laid down the _World_, and says he: “I
am a goin to hitch up the old mare, Samantha. I guess you had better go,
for I am a sufferin for them shirts; my old ones are a gettin’ so thin;
I am cold as a frog.”
I braided my hair and done it up, and then I made a good cup of coffee,
and brought out a cherry pie, and some bread, and butter, and cheese,
and cold meat. We all eat a little, and then sister Doodle bein’ anxious
about the shirts, and dretful tickled about my goin’, offered to wash up
the dishes.
Josiah said we’d got to stop to the barn for the buffalo skin; he come
out with it all rolled up in a curious way, and I see there was a
middlin’ sized bundle in it, that he slipped under the seat. He seemed
so anxious for me not to see it that I never let on that I did; but I
kep’ my eye on it. I didn’t like the looks of things; Josiah acted
strange, but he acted dretful affectionate towards me. But all the while
I was on my tower towards ’lection—and the old mare went slow, all the
time—though my face was calm, my mind was worked up and agitated and
felt strange, and I kep’ s’posen things. I said to myself, here I be
started for ’lection, my companion settin’ by my side, affection on his
face, sweetness and peace throned onto his eyebrow, and at home is a
Widder Doodle a helpin’ me off to ’lection. Everything is peace and
harmony and gay, because I am a goin’ to ’lection after buttons and
gussets for men’s shirts. And then I’d s’pose t’other way; s’posen I was
a settin’ off with my mind all boyed up with enthusiasm in the cause of
Right, a earnest tryin’ to do my full duty to God and man, pledgin’ my
life and sacred honor to help the good cause forred and put my shoulder
blades to the wheel; s’posen I was on my way to vote,—and it wouldn’t
take me half so long as it would to pick out the shirt buttons, and
things—my Josiah’s face would look black as a thunder cloud, anger and
gloom would be throned on his eyebrow, his mean would be fierce and
warlike; I should be an outcast from Isreal, and sister Doodle wouldn’t
have washed a dish.
And so I kep’ s’posen things till we got clear to the store door and
Josiah went to help me out; and then thinkin’ what my companion had
warned me about so many times—about how dangerous and awful it was for
wimmen to go near the pole—I says to him, in middlin’ quiet tones:
“Josiah I guess I’ll set in the buggy till you hitch the old mare, and
then you can go in with me, so’s to kinder keep between me and the
pole.”
But he says in excited tones:
“Oh shaw! Samantha; what fools wimmen can be, when they set out to! Who
do you s’pose is a goin’ to hurt you? Do you s’pose Elder Minkley is a
goin’ to burgle you, or old Bobbet asalt and batter you? There haint a
man there but what you have been to meetin’ with. You wasn’t afraid last
Sunday was you? Go in and get your buttons and things, so’s to be ready
by the time I am for _once_,—wimmen are always so slow.”
I didn’t argue with him, I only said in cold tones:
“I wanted to be on the safe side, Josiah.”
[Illustration: JOSIAH’S SECRET.]
But oh! how I kep’ s’posen things, as he lifted me out right in front of
the pole, and left me there alone.
Josiah had business on his mind and it made him more worrysome; but I
didn’t know what it was till afterwards. As I was a goin’ up the store
steps I kinder looked back, and I see him take that bundle out of the
wagon in a dretful sly way, and kinder meach off with it. I didn’t like
the looks of things; he acted guilty, strange, and curious.
As I went into the store, I see sister Minkley up to the counter by the
front winder, and I was glad to see her. The store was a big one and
quite a lot of men was goin’ up and votin’. But good land! there wasn’t
nothin’ frightful about it, I’ve seen three times as many men together,
time and again. I wasn’t skairt a mite, nor sister Minkley wasn’t
nuther. Two men was a swearin’, some, as I went in, but we heerd ’em
swear as hard again 4th of July’s and common days; but the minute they
catched sight of sister Minkley and me, they stopped off right in the
middle of a swear, and looked as mild as protracted meetin’s, and took
up some sticks and went to whittlin’ as peaceable as two sheeps.
Sister Minkley said she shouldn’t thought she could have come out that
day, she had such a cold in her head, if her husband hadn’t urged her
so, to come on his business. His heart seemed to be so sot on Kentucky
Jane—
“Jane who?” says I in awful axents, for I couldn’t hardly believe my
ears—my faith in that man’s morals was so high, it was like a steeple to
my soul, and always had been ever sense I had known him—and I thought to
myself if I have got to give up Elder Wesley Minkley, if his morals have
got to totterin’ and swayin’ to and fro, a tottlin’ off after Janes and
other wimmen, and if he is mean enough to send his wife off after ’em, I
declare for’t I don’t know but I shall mistrust my Josiah. I know I
looked wild and glarin’ out of my eyes, and horror was on my mean, as I
asked her again in still more stern tones:
“Jane who?” For I was determined to get to the bottom of the affair, and
if worst come to worst, to lay it before the meetin’ house myself, and
have it stopped, and hushed up, before it got out amongst the world’s
people, to bring a shame onto the meetin’ house, and them that belonged
to it. And then as a woman that had a vow on her in the cause of Right,
I felt it my duty to look out for Jane, and if there was any hopes of
reformin’ her, to befriend her. And so I says in tones that would be
replied to:
“Jane who?”
“Why Kentucky Jane for overhauls, he thought my judgment on Janes was
better than hisen.”
“Oh!” says I in dretful relieved tones, for my heart would have sung for
joy if it had understood the notes, it was that joyful, and thankful.
Says I, “They have got a piece here that wears like iron, Josiah has got
a frock offen it.”
Well, we stood there by the counter, a feelin’ of Jane, and tryin’ the
thickness and color of it, and talkin’ together—as wimmen will—when who
should come in but the Editor of the Auger’ses wife. She is a woman that
is liked better on further acquaintance. She is thought a sight on in
Jonesville; more’n her husband is, ten times over. She’s had two pair of
twins sense she was married; I never see such a hand for twins as the
Editor is. He’s had three pair and a half sense I knew him.
Well, as I was a sayin’, she came in, and called for some cigars. She
told us he sent her to git ’em, the two biggest twins bein’ to school,
and there bein’ nobody to come only jest him or her. She had walked
afoot, and looked tired enough to sink; they lived about a mile and a
half out of the village.
She said the Editor could not come himself for he was writin’ a long
article on “The Imprudence, Impurity, and Impiety of Woman’s Appearance
at the Pole.” She said, he said he was goin’ to make a great effort; he
was goin’ to present the indecency and immorality of woman’s goin’ to
’lection, in such a masterly way that it would set the matter to rest
forever. It was for to-morrow’s paper, and bein’ obleeged to use up so
much brain, as he had to in the effort, he felt he must have some
cigars, and a codfish; you know fish is dretful nourishin’ to the mind,
and he is fond of it; he told her to get the biggest codfish she could
get, and bile it up. And she was goin’ to.
I didn’t say much in reply to her, truly, as the poet says, “The least
said is the soonest mended.” I only told her in a kind of a blind way,
that if codfish was good for common sense, not to stent him on it. And
jest then the storekeeper came back from down suller with the fish.
[Illustration: BRAIN FOOD.]
“Good land!” says I the minute I laid eyes on it; “haint you made a
mistake?”
“What mistake?” says he.
Says I, “Haint it a whale?”
“Oh no,” says he, “it is a codfish; but it is a pretty sizeable one.”
“I should think as much,” says I. For as true as I live, when the Editor
of the Auger’ses wife laid it over her arm, it touched the floor head
and tail; and it made her fairly lean over it was so heavy. And I
thought to myself that I could have tackled the biggest political
question of the day, easier than I could tackle that whale, and carry it
a mile and a half. And so the Editor of the Auger’ses wife went home
from ’lection, luggin’ a whale, and walkin’ afoot.
I picked out my buttons, five cents a dozen, and bought my cotton
flannel, and no Josiah. I felt worried in my mind. I thought of that
mysterious bundle, and my companion’s strange and curious looks as he
brought it out from the barn, seemin’ly unbeknown to me, and his dretful
curious actions about it as he meached out of the buggy with it. And I
felt worried, and almost by the side of myself. But I kep’ a cool
demeanor on the outside of me—it is my way in the time of trouble to be
calm, and put my best foot forred.
Jest then a man come up to me that I never laid eyes on before. He was a
poor lookin’ shack; his eyes was white mostly, and stood out of his head
as if in search for some of the sense he never could git holt of, and
his mouth was about half open. A dretful shiftless lookin’ critter, and
ragged as a Jew—all but his coat, and I’ll be hanged if that didn’t look
worse than if his clothes was all of a piece. It was a blue broadcloth
coat, swaller tailed, and had been a dretful genteel coat in the day of
it—which I should judge was some fifty or sixty years previous to date.
It was awful long waisted, and small round, and what they call single
breasted; it turned back at the breast in a low, genteel way, over his
old ragged vest; and ragged, red woolen shirt, and pinched him in at the
bottom of his waist like a pismire, and the tails floated down behind,
so polite over his pantaloons, which was fairly rags and tatters. As I
said, I never laid eyes on him before, and still as he come up, and
stood before me, I felt a curious, and strange feelin’ go most through
me; sunthin’ in the arrer way. A curiouser more familiar-like, strange
feelin’, I never felt. But I didn’t know then what it meant, I was in
the dark. But more of this, anon, and hereafter.
[Illustration: THE STRANGER.]
Says the man, says he; “I beg your parding mom, for speaking to you, but
you have got such a dretful good look to your face, somehow—,” (Truly as
I have said prior, and before this, my trials with the Widder Doodle, my
martyrdom on the stake of Doodle and particulars, borne like a martyr,
have purified my mean and make me look first-rate.) Says the man, says
he: “You look so good, somehow, that I want to ask your advice.”
Says I kindly, “I am a Promiscous Advisor by trade; advisin’ is my
mission and my theme. Ask me any advice my honest man, that you feel
called to ask, and I will proceed to preform about my mission.”
He handed me a ticket, with a awful dirty hand, every finger nail of
which was seemin’ly in the deepest of mournin’ for the pen-knife and
nail-brushes they never had seen; and says he, “Will you tell me mom,
whether that ticket is a democrat ticket, or the t’other one?”
I put on my specks, and says I, “It is the t’other one.”
“Good Gracious!” says he; “Christopher Columbus! Pocahontas! Jim Crow
and Jehosiphat!” says he. But I interrupted of him coldly, and says I:
“Stop swearin’, instantly and this minute; and if you want my advice,
proceed, and go on.”
Says he, “There I have voted that ticket seventeen times, and I was paid
to vote the democrat.” Says he, “I am a man of my word, I am a poor man
but a honest one. And here I have,”—says he in a mournful tone—“here I
have voted the wrong ticket seventeen times.” Says he in a bitter tone,
“I had ruther have give half a cent than to had this happen.” Says he,
“I am a poor man, I haint no capital to live on, and have got to depend
on my honesty and principles for a livin’. And if this gets out, I am a
ruined man;” says he in awful bitter tones, “what would the man that
hired me say, if he should hear of it?”
“What did he give you?” says I, and as I said this, that strange,
curious feelin’ came over me again, as strange a feelin’ as I ever felt.
Says he, “He give me this coat.”