find a lie that there wont anybody father, and jest as sure as you live
and breathe, every time, you can track it back to old _They_. _They_
said it was so. And,” says I, growin’ almost wild again, “who ever see
him come up in a manly way and own up to anything? Who ever sot eyes on
him? A hidin’ himself, and a lyin’, is his strong pint. I _hate_ old
They! I perfectly _despise_ the old critter.”
I see my emotions was a renderin’ me nearly wild for the time bein’, and
with a fearful effort, I collected myself together, some, and continued
on in a more milder tone, but awful earnest, and convincing: “Fashion is
king and _They_ is his prime minister and factorum; and between ’em
both, wimmen is bound hand and foot, body and soul. And,” says I in a
sort of a prophecyin’ tone, “would that some female Patrick Henry or
George Washington would rise up and set ’em free from them tyrants.”
Says I, “It would be a greater victory for female wimmen, than the one
the male sect, mostly, are a celebratin’ to the Sentinal this summer.”
“Sentinal!” says she. “Celebrate!” she murmured in enquirin’ axents.
“Yes,” says I, “haint you heerd on it Mahala—the big Sentinal that is to
Filadelfy;” says I, in considerable dry axents, “I didn’t know as there
was a dog on the American continent but what had heerd of it, and talked
it over—with other dogs.” Says I, “They talked about it to Jonesville
more’n they did the weather, or their neighbors, or anything.”
“Well,” says she, “it seems as if I heerd the word once, when I was a
scrapin’ out the suller, or was it when I was a whitewashin’ the
wood-house. I can’t tell,” says she; “but anyway I know I was a cleanin’
sunthin’ or other, or makin’ ruffles, and a workin’ so hard that it
slipped completely out of my mind.”
I told her what the Sentinal was, and says I, “I want you to go Mahala.
Josiah and I are a goin’, and it will do you good to git away from home
a spell; you can git some good girl to keep house for you. S’posen you
go?”
She looked at me as if she thought I was as crazy as a loon.
“Go!” says she. “Go! why it will be right in fly time and spider time.
Do you s’pose that anybody that haint a perfect slouch of a housekeeper
would leave their house in fly time or spider web time? Thank fortin
nobody can find a spider web in my house nor my wood-house. I haint one
to let things go as _some_ will, and go off on pleasure towers right in
dog days.”
I see she was a twittin’ me of lettin’ things go, and bein’ off on a
tower, and my high mission goared me, and principle nerved me up to give
her a piece of my mind; and says I to her:
“There is cobwebs a hangin’ from your brain this minute Mahala Spicer,
more’n a yard long.” Says I, “You have chased me round with a mop, and
kinder limbered me up, so I feel like marchin’ forred nobly in the cause
of Right;—and I say to you, and I say it in a friendly way,—that if
there was _ever_ any brightness to your intellect, there is dust over it
now a inch thick. You twit me about lettin’ things go, and bein’ off on
a tower; you say _you_ wont let things go; in my way of thinkin’ you
_do_ let things go; you let all the beauty and brightness of life go;
all the peace and enjoyment and repose of home go; all your husband’s
and childern’s rest, and enjoyment, and love, and respect for you, go.
You say you don’t even git time to look into a book from one year’s end
to another. Think of that great world of delight and culture you leggo.
You say you don’t find time to step or look out of doors. Jest think of
God’s great picture-book that He spreads out before your blind eyes from
day to day—every page filled with wonder, surprise and admiration. Think
of how that book looks when the leaf is turned down to sunset, or when
it is turned over to bright Indian summer and etcetery.” My tone was
eloquent, very; and my hand waved out in noble waves as I went on:
“Jest think how from day to day the sun’ rises in splendor and goes down
in heavenly glory; how the white clouds like feathered out chariots for
the baby angels to ride out in, float over the beautiful blue sky
unbeknown to you; how the winds kinder rustle the green leaves in the
woods, and the sun shoots down her gold arrers through ’em, a chasin’
the cool shadders over the green moss, and never catchin’ of ’em. How
the white lilys fatigue their sweet selves a perfumin’ the air and the
roses and pinks blush crimson at their own prettiness, and the violets
hide their blue eyes down under the grass, so awful pretty that they are
fairly ashamed of themselves, and the ferns wave their green banners in
triumphant delight to let ’em know they have found ’em out. How the lake
changes to more’n forty pictures a day, every one handsomer than the
other, from the time it looks kinder blue, and hazy, and dreamy in the
mornin’ twilight, till the settin’ sun makes a shinin’ path on it, that
seems to lead right out into that city of golden streets.
“Think what low and kinder contented songs the brook sings to the pussy
willow, and what the willows whisper back to the brook. How the birds
chirp and twitter and sail and sing, a well behaved melodious orkustre
givin’ free tickets to everybody; and your ears as deaf as a stun to it
all. Think of all these things you leggo to pore over ruffles and knife
pleatin’s. You _used_ to be a fine musician—made first-rate music—and
that melodious job, the only piece of work you can begin on earth and
finish up in heaven, all that happiness for yourself and family, you
leggo. If you was obleeged to do all this, I should pity you; and if you
was obleeged to wear yourself down to a early grave—as I see you are a
doin’,—leavin’ your childern plenty of ruffles and no mother, I should
pity you; but your husband is abundantly able, and more’n willin’ to
hire help for you to do your work decently and comfortably, and leave
you time to make your home a place of delight and rest to him and the
childern. But instead of that, instead of throwin’ open the doors of
your heart and your house to the free air of heaven, and the
sunshine;—instead of keepin’ your husband’s and childern’s love and
makin’ their happiness and hisen and your own life beautiful by culture,
and sweet thoughts, and generous deeds; instead of liftin’ your eyes
heavenward and seein’ with the eyes of your soul some divine ideal and
pursuin’ after it, you have set your aim in life on a fly and chase that
aim blindly, and prefer to go through life on all fours with a scrub
rag.”
If you’ll believe it, that woman was mad; it does beat all how good
advice will make some folks squirm; but as we was on the very pint of
leavin’, I didn’t care a cent; and I didn’t feel in the least mite
beholden to her, for they come to our house when they was first married,
and stayed three weeks right along, and I guess they didn’t git treated
much as she treated Josiah and me. I done well by ’em—killed a hen most
every day—and made a fuss. That was before she took to chasin’ flies;
she was bright as a new dollar, didn’t act like the same critter, nor he
nuther; that was before he had the nip took out of him, by bein’ chased
round by a mop.
I kissed the little childern all a settin still in a row—or little old
wimmen I ort to say, bid Mahala a glad and happy good bye, and then we
went out to the barn and took leave of Philander in the manger, and sot
forred again on our tower.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
MELANKTON SPICER AND HIS FAMILY.
Philander Spicer told Josiah and me that he did wish we would stop and
visit his brother Lank, seein’ we had to pass right by his house.
Melankton Spicer, Philander’s twin brother, married Mahala’s sister
Delila Ann, makin’ ’em double and twisted relations, as you may say. And
we told him that seein’ it was right on our way we would stop a few
minutes, but I guessed we wouldn’t stay long for we wasn’t much
acquainted with ’em, though she had visited me years ago, and we had
seen ’em to Father Allen’s once or twice.
Philander told us mebby we hadn’t better stay long, for they had hard
work to git along; he said Delila Ann wasn’t a mite such a turn as
Mahala, for whereas Mahala, havin’ a husband that was well off, would
work and scrub every minute with no need on it, Delila Ann, havin’
married a poor man who needed help, wouldn’t work a mite; hadn’t been no
help to him at all sense they was married, only by puttin’ on
appearances, and havin’ seven girls and they bein’ growed up, and their
ma not allowin’ ’em to do a speck of work only to dress up to catch a
bo. Lank had to work from mornin’ till night in the store where he was a
clerk, and then set up half the night to copy papers for a lawyer, to
try to pay their milliner bills and the hired girls; but he couldn’t, he
was in debt to everybody. And he didn’t git no rest and peace to home,
for they was a teasin’ him the hull time for gold bracelets and silk
dresses and things; he said they lived poor, and their morals was all
run down.
Lank hadn’t ever been able to git enough ahead to buy a Bible; he hadn’t
nothin’ but the Pokrafy, and a part of the Old Testament that had fell
to him from his grandfather, fell so fur that the ’postles and all the
old prophets—except Malachi—had got tore to pieces, and _he_ was
battered considerable. Philander said Lank told him it was hard work to
bring up a family right, with nothin’ but the Pokrafy to go by, and he
wanted to git a Bible the worst way; and when he got his last month’s
wages he _did_ mean to git enough ahead to buy one, and a sack of flour;
but when he got his pay, his wife said she was sufferin’ for a new gauze
head-dress, and the seven girls had _got_ to have some bobinet
neck-ties, and some new ear-rings; that after they had got these
necessarys, then, if there was anything left, they would git a sack of
flour and a Bible. But there wasn’t, and so they had to git along with
the Pokrafy, and without the sack of flour; and he said that workin’ so
hard, and farin’ so awful bad, Lank was a most used up; he said Lank
wasn’t more’n two or three moments older than he was, but he looked as
if he was seventy-five years old, and he was afraid he wouldn’t stand it
more than several months longer if things went on so.
I said to myself, when Philander was tellin’ us this, here is mebby
another chance for me to burn myself up and brile myself on a gridiron
(as it were) in the cause of Right. I felt a feelin’ that mebby I could
win a victory, and advise Delila Ann for her good. And so I spoke up
mildly, but with a firm noble mean on me, and says to him: “Philander,
we will stop there an hour or two.”
When we got to the village where Lank lived, Josiah said he guessed he
would go right down to the store where Lank worked and see him, and I
might go in and call on Delila Ann. A small white-headed boy with tow
breeches held up by one lonely gallus told me he would show me the
way—the same boy offerin’ to hitch the mare.
[Illustration: “THAT DOOR WANTS MENDIN’ BAD.”]
It had been a number of years sense I had seen Delila Ann, and I didn’t
s’pose I should know her if I should see her in my porridge dish,
Philander said she had changed so. He said she had that sort of anxious,
haggard, dissatisfied, kinder sheepish, and kinder bold look—a mean that
folks always git by puttin’ on appearances; I’ve heerd, and I believe,
_that_ is jest about as wearin’ a job as anybody can git into to foller
from year to year. There didn’t seem to be anything hull and sound about
the front door, except the key-hole; but it had a new brass plate on it,
with a bell kinder fixed in it, and the plate bore Lank’s name in bold
noble letters which I s’pose was a comfort to the family, and rose ’em
up above the small afflictions of the snow and rain that entered at
will, and when they was a mind to.
The white headed boy, with the solitary and lonesome gallus, said to me
as he stood waitin’ for the five cent bill I was a gettin’ for him out
of my port-money: “That door needs mendin’ bad!”
I give him his bill and started him off, and I was jest a musin’ on his
last words, and thinkin’ that Lank’s best way would be to take the
key-hole and have a new door made to it, when the hired girl come to the
door. I told her who I was and she seemed to be kinder flustrated and
said she’d go and tell the family. And I, a standin’ there in the hall,
and not knowin’ how long she would be gone, thought I would set down—for
it always tires me to stand any length of time on my feet. There was a
elegant imposin’ lookin’ chair by the side of a real noble lookin’
table, but to my surprise and mortification when I went to set down, I
sot right down through it, the first thing; I catched almost wildly at
the massive table to try to save myself, and I’ll be hanged if that
didn’t give way and spilte on my hands, as you may say; it tottled and
fell right over onto me; and then I see it was made of rough shackly
boards, but upholstered with a gorgeous red and yeller cotton spread,
like the chair; they both looked splendid. I gathered myself up, and
righted the table murmurin’ to myself, “Put not your trust in princes,
nor turkey red calico, Josiah Allen’s wife; set not down upon them
blindly, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind, and lame in your
body.”
[Illustration: APPARIENTLY STRONG.]
I was jest a rehearsin’ this to myself, when the hired girl come back,
and says I:
“I am glad you have come, for I don’t know but I should have brought the
hull house down in ruins onto me, if you hadn’t come jest as you did.”
“And then she up and told me that that chair and table wasn’t made for
use, but jest for looks; she said they wanted a table and a reception
chair in the hall, and not bein’ able to buy sound ones, they had made
’em out of boards they had by ’em.”
“Well,” says I mildly, “I went right down through the chair the first
thing, and it skairt me.”
I got along through the hall first-rate after this, only I most fell
twice, for the floor bein’ carpeted with wall paper varnished (to be
oil-cloth appariently) and tore up, and the varnish makin’ it stiff, it
was as bad as a man-trap to catch folks in, and throw ’em.
Jest before we got to the parlor door I see, that in the agitation of
body and mind I had experienced sense I come in, I had dropped one of my
cuff buttons, nice black ones that I had bought jest before I started at
a outlay of 35 cents, and the hired girl said she would go back for it;
and while she was a lookin’ for it—the plasterin’ bein’ off
considerable, and the partition jest papered over—I heard ’em a sayin’
and they seemed to be a cryin’ as they said it:
“What did she want to come here for? I should think she would know
enough to stay away.”
“To think we have got to be tormented by seein’ her,” says another
voice.
“I hate to have her come as bad as you do children,” says a voice I knew
was Delila Ann’s; “but we must try to bear up under it; she wont stay
probable more’n two or three hours.”
“I thay, I hope she wont sthay two minith,” says another voice with a
lisp to it.
“We wont let her stay,” says a little fine voice.
I declare for’t, if it hadn’t been for my vow I would have turned right
round in my tracks; but I remembered it wasn’t the pious folks that
needed the most preachin’, and if ever promiscous advisin’ seemed to be
called for, it was now. And jest as I was a rememberin’ this, the hired
girl come back with my cuff button.
The minute she opened that parlor door, I see that I had got into the
house of mournin’. The room, which resembled the hall and the front door
as much as if they was three twins, seemed to be full of braize delaine,
and bobinet lace, and thin ribbin, all bathed in tears and sobs. When I
took a closer look, I see there was eight wimmen under the gauzes and
frizzles and folderols and etcetery; some of ’em held dime novels in
their hands, and one of ’em held a white pup.
The moment I went in, every one of ’em jumped up and kissed me, and
throwed their arms round me. Some of the time I had as many as six or
seven arms at a time round me in different places, and every one of ’em
was a tellin’ me in awful warm tones, how glad, how highly tickled they
was to see me; they never was so carried away with enjoyment and happy
surprise in their hull lives before; and says four of ’em tenderly:
“You must stay a week with us anyway.”
“A week!” says the little fine voice, “that haint nuthin’, you must stay
a month, we wont let you off a day sooner.”
“No, we wont!” says six warm voices, awful warm.
[Illustration: APPARIENTLY WELCOME.]
“Sthay all thummer—do,” says the lispin’ voice.
“Yes do!” says the hull seven.
And then Delila Ann threw both her arms round my neck, and says she:
“Oh if you could only stay with us always, how happy, happy we should
be.” And then she laid her head right down on my shoulder and begun to
sob, and weep, and cry; I was almost sickened to the stomach by their
actin’ and behavin’, but the voice of sorrow always appeals to my heart.
I see in a minute what the matter was; Lank had give out, had killed
himself with hard work; and though I knew she was jest as much to blame
as if she was made of arsenic and Lank had swallered her, still pity and
sympathy makes the handsomest, shineyest kind of varnish to cover up
folks’es faults with, and Delila Ann shone with it from head to foot, as
she lay there on my neck, wettin’ my best collar with her tears, and
almost tearin’ the lace offen it with her deep windy sithes. I pitied
Delila Ann, from pretty near the bottom of my heart; I forgot for the
time bein’ her actin’ and behavin’; I felt bad, and says I:
“Then he is gone Delila Ann, I feel to sympathize with you; I am sorry
for you as I can be.”
“Yes,” says she, pretty near choked up with emotion, “he is gone; we
have lost him.”
I wept; I thought of my Josiah, and I says in tremblin’ tones: “When
love is lost out of a heart that has held it, oh, what a goneness there
must be in that heart; what a emptyness; what a lonesomeness; but,” says
I, tryin’ to comfort her, “He who made our hearts knows all about ’em;
His love can fill all the deep lonesome places in ’em; and hearts that
He dwells in wont never break; He keeps ’em, and they are safe with an
eternal safety.”
All the hull of the girls was a sobbin’, and one of ’em sithed out: “Oh,
it does seem as if our hearts must break, right in to.”
Then I spoke up and says in tremblin’ tones: “If you are willin’ Delila
Ann, it would be a melancholly satisfaction to me to see the corpse.”
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF MOURNIN’.]
The girls led the way a sobbin’ and sithin’, and I follered on kinder
holdin’ up Delila Ann, expectin’ every minute she would faint away on my
hands. We was a mournful lookin’ procession; they led the way into the
next room, and led me up to a sofy, and there laid out on a gorgeous
yeller cotton cushin, lay a dead pup; I was too dumbfoundered to speak
for nearly half a moment.
Oh! what feelin’s I felt as I stood there a lookin’ on ’em, to think how
I had been a sympathizin’ and a comfortin’, a pumpin’ the very depths of
my soul to pour religious consolation onto ’em, and bewailin’ myself, a
sheddin’ my own tears over a whiffet pup. As I thought this over, my
dumbfounder begun to go off on me, and my mean begun to look different,
and awfuler; I thrust my cotton handkerchief back into my pocket again
with my right hand, and drew my left arm hautily from Delila Ann, not
carin’ whether she crumpled down and fainted away or not; I s’pose my
mean apauled ’em, for Delila Ann says to me in tremblin’ tones:
“All genteel wimmen dote on dogs.” And she added in still more tremblin’
tones, as she see my mean kep’ a growin’ awfuler, and awfuler every
minute: “Nothin’ gives a woman such a genteel air as to lead ’em round
with a ribbin.” And she says still a keepin’ her eye on my mean: “I
always know a woman is genteel the minute I see her a leadin’ ’em round,
and I never have been mistakin’ once; the more genteel a woman is, the
more poodle dogs she has to dote on.”
I didn’t say a word to Delila Ann nor the hull set on ’em, but my
emotions riz up so that I spoke right out loud, unbeknown to me; I
episoded to myself in a deep voice:
[Illustration: GENTILITY.]
“Fathers bein’ killed with labor, and a world layin’ in wickedness, and
wimmen dotin’ on dogs; hundreds of thousands of houseless and homeless
childern—little fair souls bein’ blackened by ignorance and vice with a
black that can’t never be rubbed off this side of heaven, and immortal
wimmen spendin’ their hull energies in keepin’ a pup’s hair white;
little tender feet bein’ led down into the mire and clay, that might be
guided up to heaven’s door, and wimmen utterly refusin’ to notice ’em,
so rampant and sot on leadin’ round a pup by a string. Good heavens!”
says I, “it makes me sweat to think on it;” and I pulled out my cotton
handkerchief and wiped my forred almost wildly. I s’pose my warm
emotions had melted down my icy mean a very little, for Delila Ann spoke
up in a little chirker voice, and says she:
“If you was one of the genteel kind, you would feel different about it;”
says she—a tryin’ to scare me—“I mistrust that you haint genteel.”
“That don’t scare me a mite,” says I, “I _hate_ that word and always
did,” says I still more warmly, “there is two words in the English
language that I feel cold, and almost hauty towards, and they are
‘affinity,’ such as married folks hunt after, and ‘genteel.’ I wish,”
says I, “that these two words would join hands and elope the country;
I’d love to see their backs, as they sot out, and bid ’em a glad
farewell.” She see she hadn’t skairt me, and the thought of my mission
goared me to that extent, that I rose up my voice to a high key and went
on wavin’ my right hand in as eloquent a wave as I had by me—I keep
awful eloquent waves a purpose to use on occasions like these—and says
I:
“I am a woman that has got a vow on me; I am a Promiscous Advisor by
trade, and I can’t shirk out when duty is a pokin’ me in the side; I
must speak. And I say unto you Delila Ann, and the hull on you
promiscous, that if you would take off some of your bobinet lace, empty
your laps of pups and dime novels, and go to work and lift some of the
burdens from the breakin’ back of Melankton Spicer, you would raise
yourselves in my estimation from 25 to 30 cents, and I don’t know but
more.”
“Oh,” says Delila Ann, “I want my girls to marry; and it haint genteel
for wimmen to work; they wont _never_ catch a bo if they work.”
“Well,” says I almost coldly, “I had ruther keep a clear conscience and
a single bedstead, than twenty husbands and the knowledge that I was a
father killer; but,” says I in reasonable tones—for I wanted to convince
’em—“it haint necessary to be lazy, to read dime novels, and lead round
pups, in order to marry; if it was, I should be a single woman to-day.”
“Oh I love to read dime novelth,” says the lispin’ one; “I love to be
thad and weep, it theemth tho thweet, tho thingularly thweet.”
Says I, “There is a tragedy bein’ lived before your eyes day after day
that you ort to weep over; a father killin’ himself for his wife and
childern—bearin’ burdens enough to break down a leather man—and they a
spendin’ their time a leadin’ round whiffet pups.”
“Whiffet pups!” says Delila in angry tones, “they are poodles.”
“Well,” says I calmly, “whiffet poodle pups, if that suits you any
better, it don’t make any particular difference to me.”
Says Delila Ann, “I paid seven dollars a piece for ’em, and they have
paid their way in comfortin’ the girls when they feel bad; of course my
girls have their dark hours and git low-spirited when they teaze their
pa for things that he wont buy for ’em; when they want a gold butterfly
to wear in their hair, are sufferin’ for it or for other necessaries,
and their pa wont git ’em for ’em; in such dark hours the companionship
of these dear dogs are such a comfort to ’em.”
“Why don’t they go to work and earn their own butterflies if they have
got to have ’em?” says I.
“Because they wont never marry if they demean themselves and work.”