baby out into the desert. If I had lived neighbor to ’em, at the time, I
should have give him a talkin’ to about it; I should have freed my mind,
and felt relieved so fur, anyway. I should have said to the old
gentleman, in a pleasant way, so’s not to git him mad:—‘I think a sight
of you, Abraham, in the patriarch way. You are a good man, in a great
many respects; but standin’ up for wimmen is my theme, (and also
promiscous advisin’,) and do you think you are doin’ the fair thing by
Hagar, to send her and your baby off into the desert with nothin’ but
one loaf of bread and a bottle of water between them and death?’ Says I,
‘It is your child, and if it hadn’t been for you, Hagar would probable
now be a doin’ housework round in Beersheba, a happy woman with no
incumbrances. It is your child as well as hern, and you, to say the
least of it, are as guilty as she is; and don’t you think it is a little
ungenerous and unmanly in you, to drive her off into the desert—to let
her in her weakness, take all the consequences of the sin you and she
committed, when she had paid for it already pretty well, in the line of
sufferin’?’ Says I, ‘I think a sight of you, Abraham, but in the name of
principle, I say with the poet,—that what is sass for the goose, ort to
be sass for the gander—and if she is drove off into the desert, you ort
to lock arms with her and go too.’
“I’ll bet a cent I could have convinced Abraham that he was doin’ a
cowardly and ungenerous act by Hagar. But then I wasn’t there; I didn’t
live neighbor to ’em. And I persume Sarah kep’ at him all the time; kep’
a tewin’ at him about her; kep’ him awake nights a twittin’ him about
her, and askin’ him to start her off. I persume Sarah acted meaner than
pusly.
“Human nater, and especially wimmen human nater is considerable the same
in the year 18 and 1800, and I’ll bet a cent, (or I wouldn’t be afraid
to bet a cent, if I believed in bettin’,) that if Sarah had had her way,
Hagar wouldn’t have got even that loaf of bread and bottle of water. It
says, Abraham got up early—probable before Sarah was up—and give ’em to
her, and started her off. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Sarah twitted
Abraham about that loaf of bread every time she did a bakin’, for a
number of years after. And that bottle. I dare persume to say, if the
truth was known, that she throwed that bottle in his face more’n a
hundred times, deplorin’ it as the toughest-hided, soundest bottle in
all Beersheba.
“But as I said, I wasn’t there, and Abraham turned her out, and Hagar
had a hard time of it out in the desert, toilin’ on alone through its
dreary wastes, hungry for bread, and hungry for love; dying from
starvation of soul and body; deceived; despised; wronged; deserted;
lonely; broken-hearted; and carrying with all the rest of her sorrow—as
mothers will—the burden of her child’s distress. Why, this woman’s
wrongs and misery opened the very gates of Heaven, and God’s own voice
comforted and consoled her; again Eternal Justice and Mercy spoke out of
Heaven for wimmen. Why is it that his childern on earth will continue to
be so deaf and dumb—deaf as a stun—for 6000 years.
“But from that time to this, take it between the Abrahams and the Sarahs
of this world, the Hagars have fared hard, and the Abrahams have got
along first rate; the Hagars have been turned out into the desert to die
there, and the Abrahams that ruined ’em, have increased in flocks and
herds; are thought a sight of and are high in the esteem of wimmen.
Seems as though the more Hagars they fit out for the desert business,
the more feathers it is in their cap. Every Hagar they start out is a
new feather, till some get completely feathered out; then they send ’em
to Congress, and think a sight on ’em.
“I declare for’t it is the singularest thing I ever see, or hearn tell
on, how folks that are so just in every thing else, are so blinded in
this one. And” says I almost wildly—for I grew more and more agitated
every minute, and eloquent—“the female sect are to blame for this state
of affairs;” says I, “men as a general thing, all good men, have better
idees in this matter than we do, enough sight. Wimmen are to
blame—meetin’ house wimmen and all,—you and I are to blame sister
Minkley,” says I. “As a rule the female sect wink at men’s sins, but not
a wink can you ever git out of them about our sins. Not a wink. _We_
have got to toe the mark in morals, and we ort to make _them_ toe the
mark. And if we did, we should rise 25 cents in the estimation of every
good man, and every mean one too, for they can’t respect us now, to
toady and keep a winkin’ at ’em when they wont at us; they can’t respect
us. We ort to require as much purity and virtue in them, as they do in
us, and stop winkin’.” Says I, “Winkin’ at men’s sins is what is goin’
to ruin us all, the hull caboodle of us; ruin men, ruin wimmen,
Jonesville, and the hull nation. Let the hull female race, fur and near,
bond and free, in Jonesville and the world, stop winkin’.”
I don’t believe I had been any more eloquent sense war times; I used to
get awful eloquent then, talkin’ about the colored niggers. And I
declare I don’t know where, to what heights and depths my eloquence
would have flown me off to, if I hadn’t jest that minute heard a low,
lady-like snore—sister Minkley was asleep. Yes, she had forgot her
troubles; she was leanin’ up ag’inst the high pile of rag carpetin’,
that kinder fenced us in, fast asleep. But truly, she haint to blame.
She has bad spells,—a sort of weakness she can’t help. But jest at that
very minute my Josiah came up and says he:
“Come Samantha! haint you about ready to go?”
“Yes,” says I, for truly principle had tuckered me out. Josiah’s voice
had waked up sister Minkley, and she give a kind of a start, and says
she:
“Amen, sister Allen! I can say amen to that with all my heart. You
talked well sister Allen, especially towards the last. You argued
powerful.”
I wasn’t goin’ to twit her of not hearin’ a word of it. Brother Minkley
jest that minute sent in word that he was ready, and to hurry up, for
the colts wouldn’t stand. (He had hired a neighborin’ team.) And so we
two wimmen, sister Minkley and I started home from ’lection.
I don’t know as I ever see Josiah Allen in any better spirits, than he
was, as we started off on our tower homewards. He had been to the
clothin’ store and bought him a new Sentinal neck-tie, red, white and
blue. It was too young for him by forty years, and I told him so; but he
said he liked it the minute he sot his eyes on it, it was so dressy.
That man is vain. And then ’lection bid fair to go the way he wanted it
to. He was awful animated, his face was almost wreathed in a smile, and
before the old mare had gone several rods, he begun what a neat thing it
was, and what a lucky hit for the nation, that wimmen couldn’t vote. And
he kep’ on a talkin’, that man did, as he was a carryin’ me home from
’lection, about how it would break a woman’s modesty down to go to the
pole, and how it would devour her time and so 4th, and so 4th. And I was
that tired out and fatigued a talkin’ to sister Minkley that I let him
go on for more’n a mile, and never put in my note at all. Good land! I’d
heerd it all over from him, word for word, more’n a hundred times, and
so I sot still. I s’pose he never thought how it was my lungs that ailed
me, that I had used ’em almost completely up in principle, how I was
almost entirely out of wind. And though a woman’s will may be good, and
her principles lofty, still she can’t talk without wind. For truly in
the words of a poem, I once perused:
“What’s Paul, or Pollus, when a sinner’s dead? dead for want of breath.”
I don’t s’pose he thought of my bein’ tuckered out, but honestly s’pose
he thought he was convincin’ of me; for his mean grew gradually sort of
overbearin’ like, and contemptible, till he got to be more big feelin’
and hauty in his mean than I had ever known him to be, and
independenter. And he ended up as follers:
“Now, we have purity, and honesty, and unswervin’ virtue, and
incorruptible patriotism at the pole. Now, if corruption tries to stalk,
honest, firm, lofty minded men stand ready to grip it by the throat. How
can it stalk, when it is a chokin’? Wimmen haint got the knowledge, the
deep wisdom and insight into things that we men have. They haint got the
lofty idees of national honor, and purity, that we men have. Wimmen may
mean well—”
He was feelin’ so neat that he felt kinder clever towards the hull
world, hemale, and female. “Wimmen _may_ mean well, and for arguments
sake, we’ll say they _do_ mean well. But that haint the pint, the pint
is here—”
And he pinted his forefinger right towards the old mare. Josiah can’t
gesture worth a cent. He wouldn’t make a oriter, if he should learn the
trade for years. But ever sense he has been to the Debatin’ school, he
has seemed to have a hankerin’ that way. “The pint is here. Not knowin’
so much as we men know, not bein’ so firm and lofty minded as we be, if
wimmen should vote corruption would stalk; they not havin’ a firm enough
grip to choke it off. They would in the language of the ’postle be
‘blowed about by every windy doctor.’ They would be tempted by filthy
lucre to ‘sell their birth-right for a mess of pottery,’ or crockery, I
s’pose the text means. They haint got firmness; they are whifflin’,
their minds haint stabled. And if that black hour should ever come to
the nation, that wimmen should ever go to the pole—where would be the
lofty virtue, the firm high-minded honesty, the incorruptible patriotism
that now shines forth from politics? Where would be the purity of the
pole? Where? oh! where?”
I’ll be hanged if I could stand it another minute, and my lungs havin’
got considerable rested, I spoke up, and says I:
“You seem to be havin’ a kind of a enquiry meetin’ in politics, Josiah
Allen, and I’ll get up in my mind, and speak in meetin’.” And then I
jest let loose that eloquent tone I keep by me expressly for the cause
of principle; I used the very loftiest and awfulest one I had by me, as
I fastened my specks immovably on hisen. “Where is that swaller tailed
coat of Father Allen’s?”
And in slower, sterner, colder tones, I added:
“With the brass buttons. Where is it Josiah Allen? Where? oh! where?”
Oh! What a change came over my companion’s mean. Oh, how his feathers
drooped and draggled on the ground speakin’ in a rooster and allegory
way. Oh, what a meachin’ look covered him like a garment from head to
foot. I declare for’t if his boots didn’t look meachin’, and his hat and
his vest. I never seen a meachener lookin’ vest than hisen, as I went
on:
“I’d talk Josiah Allen about men bein’ so pure-minded, and honest. I’d
talk about wimmens bein’ whifflin’ and their minds not stabled. I’d talk
about the purity of the pole. I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s wife buyin’
votes; bribin’ Miss Gowdey or sister Minkley away from the paths of
honesty and virtue, with a petticoat or a bib apron. I’d love to see
George Washington offerin’ his jack knife to Patrick Henry to get him to
vote his ticket; or Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson sellin their
votes for store clothes. I should be ashamed to go to the Sentinal
Josiah Allen, if I was in your place. I should be perfectly ashamed to
set my eyes on that little hatchet that George Washington couldn’t tell
a lie with. I should think that hatchet would cut your conscience clear
to the bone—if you have got a conscience, Josiah Allen.
“Oh! Did I ever expect to see the companion of my youth and middle age,
betrayin’ his country’s honor; trafficin’ in bribery and sin; dickerin’
with dishonesty; tradin’ in treason; buyin’ corruption; and payin’ for
it with a swaller tailed coat, with his old father’s blue swaller tailed
coat that his lawful pardner wanted for carpet rags. Oh, the agony of
this half an hour, Josiah Allen! Oh, the feelin’s that I feel.”
[Illustration: JOSIAH FINDS HIS SECRET IS KNOWN.]
But Josiah had begun to pick up his crumbs again. Truly it is hard work
to keep men down in the valley of humiliation. You can’t keep ’em worked
up and mortified for any great length of time, do the best you can. But
I continued on in almost dretful axents.
“You ort to repent in sackcloth and ashes, Josiah Allen.”
“We haint got no sackcloth Samantha,” says he, “and we have sold our
ashes. Probable the man wouldn’t want me to be a repentin’ in ’em. It
would be apt to leach ’em, too much lie for ’em.”
“I’d try to turn it off into a joke, Josiah Allen, I’d laugh if I was in
your place about lyin’. Your tears ort to flow like a leach barrell. Oh
if you could realize as I do the wickedness of your act. Destroyin’ your
country’s honor. Sellin’ your father’s coat when I wanted it for carpet
rags.” Says I, “I am as good a mind as I ever was to eat, to color the
hull thing black, warp and all, makin’ a mournin’ carpet of it, to set
down and bewail my pardner’s wickedness from year to year.”
“It would look pretty solemn Samantha.” I see the idee worried him.
“It wouldn’t look no solemner than I feel, Josiah Allen.”
And then I kep’ perfectly still for a number of minutes, for silence is
the solemn temple with its roof as high as the heavens, convenient for
the human soul to retire into, at any time, unbeknown to anybody; to
offer up thanksgivin’s, or repent of iniquities. And I thought my Josiah
was repentin’ of hisen.
But truly as I said men’s consciences are like ingy rubber, dretful easy
and stretchy, and almost impossible to break like a bruised reed. For
while I was a hopin’ that my companion was a repentin’, and thought
mebby he would burst out a cryin’, overcome by a realizin’ sense of his
depravities; and I was a thinkin’ that if he did, I should take up a
corner of his bandanna handkerchief and cry on it too—that man for all
his back slidin’s is so oncommon dear to me—he spoke out in jest as
chirp a way as I ever seen him, and for all the world, jest as if he
hadn’t done nothin’:
“I wonder if sister Doodle will have supper ready, Samantha. I meant to
have told her to fried a little o’ that beef.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HOW WE BOUGHT A SEWIN’ MACHINE AND ORGAN.
We done dretful well last year. The crops come in first-rate, and Josiah
had five or six heads of cattle to turn off at a big price. He felt
well, and he proposed to me that I should have a sewin’ machine. That
man,—though he don’t coo at me so frequent as he probable would if he
had more encouragement in it, is attached to me with a devotedness that
is firm and almost cast-iron, and says he, almost tenderly: “Samantha, I
will get you a sewin’ machine.”
Says I, “Josiah, I have got a couple of sewin’ machines by me that have
run pretty well for upwards of—well it haint necessary to go into
particulars, but they have run for considerable of a spell anyway”—says
I, “I can git along without another one, though no doubt it would be
handy to have round.”
But Josiah hung onto that machine. And then he up and said he was goin’
to buy a organ. Thomas Jefferson wanted one too. They both seemed sot
onto that organ. Tirzah Ann took hern with her of course when she was
married, and Josiah said it seemed so awful lonesome without any Tirzah
Ann or any music, that it seemed almost as if two girls had married out
of the family instead of one. He said money couldn’t buy us another
Tirzah Ann, but it would buy us a new organ, and he was determined to
have one. He said it would be so handy for her to play on when she came
home, and for other company. And then Thomas J. can play quite well; he
can play any tune, almost, with one hand, and he sings first-rate, too.
He and Tirzah Ann used to sing together a sight; he sings bearatone, and
she sulfireno—that is what they call it. They git up so many new fangled
names now-a-days, that I think it is most a wonder that I don’t make a
slip once in a while and git things wrong. I should, if I hadn’t got a
mind like a ox for strength.
But as I said, Josiah was fairly sot on that machine and organ, and I
thought I’d let him have his way. So it got out that we was goin’ to buy
a sewin’ machine, and a organ. Well, we made up our minds on Friday,
pretty late in the afternoon, and on Monday forenoon I was a washin’,
when I heard a knock at the front door, and I wrung my hands out of the
water and went and opened it. A slick lookin’ feller stood there, and I
invited him in and sot him a chair.
“I hear you are talkin’ about buyin’ a musical instrument,” says he.
“No,” says I, “we are goin’ to buy a organ.”
“Well,” says he, “I want to advise you, not that I have any interest in
it at all, only I don’t want to see you so imposed upon. It fairly makes
me mad to see a Methodist imposed upon; I lean towards that perswasion
myself. Organs are liable to fall to pieces any minute. There haint no
dependence on ’em at all, the insides of ’em are liable to break out at
any time. If you have any regard for your own welfare and safety, you
will buy a piano. Not that I have any interest in advising you, only my
devotion to the cause of Right; pianos never wear out.”
“Where should we git one?” says I, for I didn’t want Josiah to throw
away his property.
“Well,” says he, “as it happens, I guess I have got one out here in the
wagon. I believe I threw one into the bottom of the wagon this mornin’,
as I was a comin’ down by here on business. I am glad now I did, for it
always makes me feel ugly to see a Methodist imposed upon.”
Josiah came into the house in a few minutes, and I told him about it,
and says I:
“How lucky it is Josiah, that we found out about organs before it was
too late.”
But Josiah asked the price, and said he wasn’t goin’ to pay out no 300
dollars, for he wasn’t able. But the man asked if we was willin’ to have
it brought into the house for a spell—we could do as we was a mind to
about buyin’ it; and of course we couldn’t refuse, so Josiah most broke
his back a liftin’ it in, and they set it up in the parlor, and after
dinner the man went away.
Josiah bathed his back with linement, for he had strained it bad a
liftin’ that piano, and I had jest got back to my washin’ again (I had
had to put it away to git dinner) when I heerd a knockin’ again to the
front door, and I pulled down my dress sleeves and went and opened it,
and there stood a tall, slim feller; and the kitchen bein’ all cluttered
up I opened the parlor door and asked him in there, and the minute he
catched sight of that piano, he jest lifted up both hands, and says he:
“You haint got one of them here!”
He looked so horrified that it skairt me, and says I in almost tremblin’
tones:
“What is the matter with ’em?” And I added in a cheerful tone, “we haint
bought it.”
He looked more cheerful too as I said it, and says he “You may be
thankful enough that you haint. There haint no music in ’em at all; hear
that,” says he, goin’ up and strikin’ the very top note. It did sound
flat enough.
Says I, “There must be more music in it than that, though I haint no
judge at all.”
“Well, hear that, then,” and he went and struck the very bottom note.
“You see just what it is, from top to bottom. But it haint its total
lack of music that makes me despise pianos so, it is because they are so
dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” says I.
“Yes, in thunder storms, you see;” says he, liftin’ up the cover, “here
it is all wire, enough for fifty lightnin’ rods—draw the lightnin’ right
into the room. Awful dangerous! No money would tempt me to have one in
my house with my wife and daughter. I shouldn’t sleep a wink thinkin’ I
had exposed ’em to such danger.”
“Good land!” says I, “I never thought on it before.”
“Well, now you _have_ thought of it, you see plainly that a organ is
jest what you need. They are full of music, safe, healthy and don’t cost
half so much.”
Says I, “A organ was what we had sot our minds on at first.”
“Well, I have got one out here, and I will bring it in.”
“What is the price?” says I.
“100 and 90 dollars,” says he.
“There wont be no need of bringin’ it in at that price,” says I, “for I
have heerd Josiah say, that he wouldn’t give a cent over a 100 dollars.”
“Well,” says the feller, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Your countenance
looks so kinder natural to me, and I like the looks of the country round
here so well, that if your mind is made up on the price you want to pay,
I wont let a trifle of 90 dollars part us. You can have it for 100.”
“Well, the end on’t was, he brung it in and sot it up the other end of
the parlor, and drove off. And when Josiah come in from his work, and
Thomas J. come home from Jonesville, they liked it first rate.”
But the very next day, a new agent come, and he looked awful skairt when
he catched sight of that organ, and real mad and indignant too.
“That villain haint been a tryin’ to get one of them organs off onto
you, has he?” says he.
“What is the trouble with ’em?” says I, in a awe-struck tone, for he
looked bad.
“Why,” says he, “there is a heavy mortgage on every one of his organs.
If you bought one of him, and paid for it, it would be liable to be took
away from you any minute when you was right in the middle of a tune,
leavin’ you a settin’ on the stool; and you would lose every cent of
your money.”
“Good gracious!” says I, for it skairt me to think what a narrow chance
we had run. Well, finally, he brung in one of hisen, and sot it up in
the kitchen, the parlor bein’ full on ’em.
And the fellers kep’ a comin’ and a goin’ at all hours. For a spell, at
first, Josiah would come in and talk with ’em, but after a while he got
tired out, and when he would see one a comin’, he would start on a run
for the barn, and hide, and I would have to stand the brunt of it alone.
One feller see Josiah a runnin’ for the barn, and he follered him in,
and Josiah dove under the barn, as I found out afterwards. I happened to
see him a crawlin’ out after the feller drove off. Josiah come in a
shakin’ himself—for he was all covered with straw and feathers—and says
he:
[Illustration: AVOIDING A NUISANCE.]
“Samantha there has got to be a change.”
“How is there goin’ to be a change?” says I.
“I’ll tell you,” says he, in a whisper—for fear some on ’em was prowlin’
round the house yet—“we will git up before light to-morrow mornin’, and
go to Jonesville and buy a organ right out.”
I fell in with the idee, and we started for Jonesville the next mornin’.
We got there jest after the break of day, and bought it of the man to
the breakfast table. Says Josiah to me afterwards, as we was goin’ down
into the village:
“Let’s keep dark about buyin’ one, and see how many of the creeters will
be a besettin’ on us to-day.”
So we kep’ still, and there was half a dozen fellers follerin’ us round
all the time a most, into stores and groceries and the manty makers, and
they would stop us on the sidewalk and argue with us about their organs
and pianos. One feller, a tall slim chap, never let Josiah out of his
sight a minute; and he follered him when he went after his horse, and
walked by the side of the wagon clear down to the store where I was, a
arguin’ all the way about his piano. Josiah had bought a number of
things and left ’em to the store, and when we got there, there stood the
organ man by the side of the things, jest like a watch dog. He knew
Josiah would come and git ’em, and he could git the last word with him.
Amongst other things, Josiah had bought a barrel of salt, and the piano
feller that had stuck to Josiah so tight that day, offered to help him
on with it. And the organ man—not goin’ to be outdone by the other—he
offered too. Josiah kinder winked to me, and then he held the old mare,
and let ’em lift. They wasn’t used to such kind of work, and it fell
back on ’em once or twice, and most squashed ’em; but they nipped to,
and lifted again, and finally got it on; but they was completely
tuckered out.
And then Josiah got in, and thanked ’em for the liftin’; and the organ
man, a wipin’ the sweat offen his face—that had started out in his hard
labor—said he should be down to-morrow mornin’; and the piano man, a
pantin’ for breath, told Josiah not to make up his mind till _he_ came;
he should be down that night if he got rested enough.
And then Josiah told ’em that he should be glad to see ’em down a
visitin’ any time, but he had jest bought a organ.
I don’t know but what they would have laid holt of Josiah, if they
hadn’t been so tuckered out; but as it was, they was too beat out to
look anything but sneakin’; and so we drove off.
The manty maker had told me that day, that there was two or three new
agents with new kinds of sewin’ machines jest come to Jonesville, and I
was tellin’ Josiah on it, when we met a middle-aged man, and he looked
at us pretty close, and finally he asked us as he passed by, if we could
tell him where Josiah Allen lived.
Says Josiah, “I’m livin’ at present in a Democrat.”
Says I, “In this one horse wagon, you know.”
Says he, “You are thinkin’ of buyin’ a sewin’ machine, haint you?”
Says Josiah, “I am a turnin’ my mind that way.”