was then, if he waited three months, as some men did.” Says she, “The
way on’t was, I was a praisin’ up his horse and wagon—a new double wagon
with a spring seat—when all of a sudden he spoke out in a real ardent
and lover like tone: ‘Widder Doodle, if you will be my bride, the wagon
is yourn, and the mares.’ Says he, ‘Widder, I throw myself onto your
feet, and I throw the wagon and mares onto ’em; and with them and me, I
throw eighty-five acres of good land, fourteen cows, five calves, four
three year olds and a yearlin’, a dwellin’ house, a good horse barn, and
myself. I throw ’em all onto your feet, and there we lay on ’em.’
“He waited for me to answer and it flustrated me so that I says: ‘Oh
Doodle! Doodle! if you was alive you would tell me what to do, to do
right.’” “And that,” says she, “seemed to mad him; he looked black and
hard as a stove pipe, his forward all wrinkled up, and he yelled out
that he didn’t want to hear nothin’ about no Doodle nor he wouldn’t
neither.” Says she, “He hollered it up so, and looked so threatnin’ that
I took out my snuff handkerchief and cried onto it, and he said he’d
overlook Doodle for once, and then he said again in a kind of a solemn
and warnin’ way: ‘Widder I am a layin’ on your feet, and my property, my
land, my live stock, my housen, and my housen stuff, are all a layin’ on
’em; make up your mind, and at once, for if you don’t consent I have got
other views ahead on me, which must be seen to at once, and instantly.
Time is hastenin’, and the world is full of willin’ wimmen, Widder, what
do you say?’
“And then,” says she, “I kinder consented, and he said we’d be married
and he’d turn off his hired girl, and I could go right there and do the
housework, and help him what I could out doors, and tend to the milk of
fourteen cows, and be perfectly happy. He thought,” says she, “as he was
hurried with his summer’s work, we had better be married on Sunday, so’s
not to break into the week’s work; so we was.”
Says I, “Be you perfectly happy, Widder?”
When I asked her this in sympathizin tones, she took her snuff
handkerchief right out, and bust out a cryin’ onto it, and said she
wasn’t.
“Does Solomon misuse you? Does he make you work too hard?”
“Yes,” says she, “I have to work hard, but that haint my worse trouble.”
And she sithed bitterly.
“Does he act hauty and domineerin’ and look down on you, as if you
wasn’t his equal?”
“Yes,” says she, “but I expected that, I could stand that if I didn’t
have no harder affliction.”
“Is he a poor provider, does he begreech you things?”
Says she, “He is a poor provider, and he begreeches things to me, but
that haint my worse trial; he wont let me talk about Doodle. And what is
life worth to me if I can’t speak of that dear man?” Says she, “I can’t
never forget that dear Doodle, never!”
“Well,” says I, “You ort to have thought of that before you promised
Solomon Cypher his bride you would be;” says I, “mournin’ for Doodle was
jest as honorable as anything could be; I never blamed you for it, I
stood firm. But a woman hadn’t ort to try to be a mourner for one man,
and a bride to another man at the same time; it haint reasonable; let
’em be fully perswaded in their own mind which business would be the
most happyfyin’ and profitable to ’em, and then go at it with a willin’
heart, and foller it up.”
Says I, “If you wanted to spend your days as a mourner you ort to have
done it as a Widder, and not as a bride.” Says I, “When a Widder woman
or a Widder man embarks in a new sea of matrimony, they ort to burn the
ship behind ’em that they sailed round with in them other waters. They
hadn’t ort to be a sailin’ round in both of ’em to once, it is
unreasonable; and it is gaulin’ to man or woman.”
On lookin’ at her closer I see what made her look so curious. She had
tried to dress sort a bridey, and at the same time was a mournin’ a
little for Doodle; she said she wouldn’t have Solomon know it, and git
to rarin’ round for nothin’ in the world; she put on the white bobinet
lace veil to please him, but says she, “though he don’t mistrust it, my
black bead collar and jest half of my weddin’ dress means Doodle.” It
was a black and white lawn, with big even checks; and she told me (in
strict confidence) that she had got a black bombazine pocket to her
dress, and had on a new pair of black elastic garters. Says she, “I
can’t forget Doodle, I never can forget that dear man.”
And she wont; I know she never will git over Doodle in the world.
Everything we see put her in mind of him. But about this time Josiah and
Solomon Cypher joined us, and the last named told us that the “Creation
Searchers” had all come on the day before, and was makin’ a great stir
in the village, the literary and scientific world. And he said that as
little a while as they had been here, they had found fault with a great
many things, pictures and statutes and the like; he said anybody had
_got_ to find fault and not seem to be satisfied with anything, in order
to be looked up to. He said it was a trade that, well follered up, give
anybody a great reputation.
“Yes,” says Josiah, “I know lots of folks that have got monstrous big
reputations for wisdom in jest that way.”
But I was sick of this talk and was glad enough when they sot off for
somewhere else. But his last words to me was:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, we shall probable be heerd from before we leave
the village.”
“Well,” says I, “I am willin’;” and I was. It never worries me to see
anybody git up in the world; I haint got a envious hair in my head—and I
have got a noble head of hair for one of my age.
[Illustration]
THE ARTEMUS GALLERY.
The next mornin’ we went onto the ground, (Mr. Fairmount’s farm, where
the Sentinal stands) in good season. I told Josiah we would go the first
thing to the Artemus Gallery.
“Artemus who!” says he. “I didn’t know as you knew any Artemus down
here.”
Says I with dignity, “I don’t know the gentleman’s other name myself;
they call him Art, but _I_ wont; I have too much respect for him to nick
name that noble man.” Says I, “When any man takes such pains as Artemus
has, to git such a splendid assortment of pictures and statutes together
for my pleasure, and the pleasure of the Nation, I admire and respect
him, and feel almost affectionate towards him.”
Presently, or soon after, the soft grey walls of that most magestic, and
beautifulest of housen, loomed up before us as we passed up into it by
some broad noble steps with a bronze horse on each side—lookin’
considerable in the face like our old mare—only higher headed with wings
to ’em. I told Josiah that if she (the mare) was fixed off like them
with wings, we shouldn’t be all day a goin’ a mile or two. And he said,
after lookin’ close and thoughtfully at the span, that he couldn’t take
a mite of comfort a ridin’ after ’em, they looked so curious. So we went
on, by them and two as big female statutes as I most ever see, with
their minds seeminly rousted up and excited about sunthin’. But we
hadn’t much more’n got inside the door, when we felt curious again, both
on us, a seein’ George Washington a ridin’ up to heaven on the back of a
eagle. George always looks good to me, but I never see him look heavier
than he did there; he would have been a good load for a elephant. Oh
what a time that eagle was a havin’! I never was sorrier for a fowl in
my hull life.
But oh! what lovely forms and faces was round me on every side, as I
moved on. Grace, and beauty, and sublimity, and tenderness, and softness
all carved out of hard stun marble for my delight; all painted out on
canvas and hung up for me to smile upon and weep over—for beauty always
affects me dretfully. One little piece of beauty that I could take up in
my hand, such as a bit of moss, or a sea shell, or a posey, has made me
happy for over half a day. A pussy willow bendin’ down to see its face
in the water, has reflected its grace and pretty looks right into my
soul. Why even a green grass blade in the spring of the year has had
power to cut the chains that bound my spirit down to unhappiness, and
let it soar up nobly, clear away from Jonesville, Betsey Bobbet, Widder
Doodle, and all other cares and worryments of life. And havin’ such
feelins for beauty, such a close affection for her that I was always a
lookin’ for her, even where I knew she wasn’t nor never would be; jest
imagine what my emotions must have been to walk right into acres and
acres of the most entrancin’ beauty; miles and miles of grace and
loveliness; dreams of immortal beauty caught by artist souls from heaven
knows what realm of wonder and glory, all wrought out in marble, and
painted on canvas for me to wonder at, and admire over, and almost weep
upon.
The tears did run down my face every few minutes all through that
Artemus Gallery, entirely unbeknown to me; and I shouldn’t have sensed
it at all if I had cried out loud, for I was perfectly carried away from
myself for the time bein’.
Oh what beautiful little white stun childern there was before me, in
every beautiful posture that childern ever got into—a laughin’ and a
cryin’, and a feedin’ birds, and a pickin’ thorns out of their feet and
a hidin’ and a seekin’. And one little bit of a girl baby was holdin’ a
bird in her hand, and she had bared her little chest on one side and was
squeezin’ up the flesh to form a breast, and holdin’ up the bird to
nurse. The roguish looks of her face would almost make a grindstun or
Zebulin Coffin smile. And there was one gittin’ ready for bed, and one
tellin’ his prayers when he didn’t want to. He looked exactly as Thomas
J. did when I married his pa. _He_ had run wild, and wouldn’t pray; I’d
git him all knelt down, and he’d say:
I _wont_ lay me down to sleep,
I _wont_ pray the Lord my soul to keep,
I _wont_ die before I wake,
I _wont_ pray the Lord my soul to take.
And when he’d say the Lord’s prayer, he’d say: “Lead us into
Temptation,” jest as loud as he could yell, and cross as a bear. Jest as
quick as I got him civilized down, he’d tell ’em off like a little
pasture. But oh! how cross and surly he did look at first, jest for all
the world, like this little feller. I hunched Josiah to take notice, and
he said if Thomas J. had been sculped in the act, it couldn’t look more
natteral.
And there was such lovely female wimmen faces, innocent as angels—one
with a veil over her face; only think on it, a marble veil, and I a
seeing’ right through it.
But there was some Italian statutes that instinctively I got between and
Josiah, and put my fan up, for I felt that he hadn’t ort to see ’em.
Some of the time I felt that he was too good to look at ’em, and some of
the time I felt that he wasn’t good enough; for I well knew when I come
to think it over, that human nater wasn’t what it once was, in Eden, and
it wasn’t innocence, but lack of innocence that ailed folks. But whether
he was too good, or not good enough, and I couldn’t for my life tell
which; either way I felt it wasn’t no place for him; so I hurried him
through on a pretty good jog.
[Illustration: SAMANTHA IN THE ART GALLERY.]
And among the statutes of my own Nation, was Aurora; it seems as if it
struck me about as hard a blow as any of ’em. To see that beautiful
figger of Mornin’ risin’ right up sailin’ over the earth with her feet
on nothin’; her arms over her head scatterin’ the brightness of day down
in roses upon the earth, and the stars and the shadders of night a
fallin’ away from her; it was as beautiful a marble thought, as I ever
laid eyes on—or I’d think so till I see some other one, and then I’d
think _that_ was the beautifulest. There was Nydia the blind girl of
Pompeii! What pain and helplessness was on her face, and what a divine
patience born of sufferin’. What a countenance that was! And then there
was two little Water Babies layin’ in a sea shell—I don’t believe there
was ever any cunniner little creeters in the hull world.
And havin’ such feelins for her, feelin’ so sort o’ intimate with her
and Hamlet, it was very affectin’ to me to see Ophelia, a lookin’ jest
as I have heerd Thomas J. read about her. She was standin’ holdin’ some
flowers in her dress with one hand, and with the other hand she was
holdin’ out a posey jest as if she was a sayin’:
“There’s rosemary, that’s for rememberance; pray you love remember, and
there’s pansies that’s for thoughts.” She was dressed up in store
clothes too, which was indeed a treat, and a sweeter face I don’t want
to see. And then there was a noble group—Death a tryin’ to kill Honor,
and couldn’t. Strength and Courage and Perseverance had gone down before
him, but Honor he couldn’t kill; it was a very noble and inspirin’
sight. And Media was another dretful affectin’ statute to me; what
trials and tribulations that woman did go through, killin’ her childern,
and ridin’ after serpents, and everything. I was some acquainted with
her (through Thomas Jefferson.)
And then there was Night and Mornin’; I never see ’em look better in my
life, either of ’em. And Ruth a gleanin’; she was a kneelin’ down on one
knee, and looked first-rate, though I did think it would have been
better if she had pulled her dress waist up where it belonged.
Howsumever, everybody to their own mind. There was two statutes of
Cleopatra, pretty nigh together, one by a man, and one by a woman. Mebby
you’ll think I am parshal to my sect, but if I wasn’t a woman—if I was a
man—I’d say and I’d contend for it that _her_ Cleopatra looked fur
handsomer and better than _hisen_. And there was a minute man, that
looked stern and noble, and as if he would be right there jest to the
minute.
But what’s the use of tryin’ to tell what pictures was the loveliest,
amidst such acres and acres of loveliness, such sweet and nearly
bewitchin’ faces, such lovely and almost glowin’ landscapes.
There was “Yankey Doodle” as interestin’ as I always knew that yankey
was; I never see him look better than he did here; there stood three
generations with the soul of 1776 a shinin’ through their faces, and the
oldest face of all was lit up with the deepest glow and inspiration. It
was a dretful animatin’ and inspirin’ picture to me and to Josiah. And
then there was another picture called “Elaine” that dealt both my mind
and my heart fearful blows. I had heerd Thomas J. read about her so much
that she seemed almost like one of the relations on the side of the
Smiths. She was a handsome girl, and likely as she could be, but she got
disappointed, fell in love with Mr. Launcelot—and he, bein’ in love with
another man’s wife, couldn’t take to her, so she died off. But her last
request was to be laid, after she died, in a boat with a letter in her
hand for him she died off for, biddin’ him good-bye; and that the
boat—steered by her father’s dumb hired man—should float off down to
Camelot where he was a stayin’ a visitin’. (I don’t s’pose I have told
it in jest exactly the words, Thomas J. reads so much, but I have
probable got the heads of the story right). And there she lay, perfectly
lovely—in her right hand, the lily, and in her left the letter; the dead
steered by the dumb, floatin’ down the still waters. It was exceedinly
affectin’ to me, and I was jest a goin’ to take out my white cotton
handkerchief to cry onto it, when all of a sudden I heerd behind me the
voice of the Editor of the Auger a sayin’:
“It is a false perspective.”
“Yes,” says Cornelius Cork, in the same fault-findin’ tone: “it’s awful
false, not a mite of truth in it.”
“A perfect lie,” says Shakespeare Bobbet.
“The tone is too low down,” says the Editor of the Auger again, in a
complainin’ way.
“Low down again as it ort to be,” says old Bobbet.
I declare for’t, I jest locked arms with Josiah and hurried him off, and
never stopped till we got clear into Austria. But on the way there, I
says, “How mad it makes me, Josiah Allen, to see anybody find fault and
sneer at things they can’t understand.”
“Well,” says Josiah mildly, “you know they have got a reputation to keep
up, and they are bound to do it. Why, they say if anybody haint dressed
up a mite, if you see ’em a lookin’ at handsome pictures, or statutes,
or anything of that sort, with a cold and wooden look to their faces,
and turning their noses up, and finding fault, you may know they are
somebody.” “I s’pose” says Josiah, “the ‘Creation Searchers’ can’t be
outdone in it; I s’pose they put on as hauty and superior-silly-ous
looks as anybody ever did, that haint had no more practice than they
have.”
Josiah will make a slip sometimes, and says I, “you mean super-silly,
Josiah.”
“Well, I knew there was a silly to it. They say,” says Josiah, “that
runnin’ things down is always safe; _that_ never hurts anybody’s
reputation. The pint is, they say, in not bein’ pleased with anything,
or if you be, to conceal it, look perfectly wooden, and not show your
feelins a mite; that is the pint they say.”
Says I, “The pint is, some folks always did make natteral fools of
themselves, and always will I s’pose.”
“Well,” says Josiah, “there must be _sunthin’_ in it, Samantha, or there
wouldn’t be such a lot a gittin’ up a reputation for wisdom in that
way.”
I couldn’t deny it without lyin’, and so bein’ in Austria, as I said, I
commenced lookin’ round me. Comin’ right out of the United States I
couldn’t help thinkin’ that Austria had a meller, rich look, sunthin’
like Autumn in the fall of the year, while the United States looked
considerable like Summer. The picture that arrested my attention first
and foremost in Austria was, “Venice paying homage to Caterina Cornaro.”
It was a noble big picture, as big as one hull side of our house a most.
I looked at that picture very admirinly and so did Josiah. We see a
Emperor on a bust, and other interestin’ statutes; we give a glance at a
sleepin’ Nymph—she was as handsome as a doll, but I thought then and I
think still, that if Nymphs would put on store clothes, they would look
better, and feel as well again.
“Convulsed with Grief,” was a beautiful picture but fur too affectin’
for my comfort. It was a bier all covered with flowers, and a dead child
lyin’ on it with a veil thrown over its face, but painted in such a way
that the beautiful white face was plain to be seen under it; and the
mother was settin’ by it with grief, and agony, all painted out on her
face. And as I looked on her, the tears jest started on a run down my
cheeks, for though I well knew it was one of the sweetest and holiest
things in life to become the mother of a baby angel, still I knew it was
one of the saddest things too. I knew that mother heart where the pretty
head had lain, was as empty and lonesome as a bird’s nest in winter; and
the shadder of the little low grave would be high enough to cast its
blackness and gloom over the hull earth. I felt for that mother so that
I come pretty near cryin’ out loud. But I didn’t; I took out my white
cotton handkerchief and wiped both of my eyes, and composed myself down.
And then feelin’ a little tired I seated myself on a bench in the middle
of the room, Josiah sayin’ that he wanted to look at the Alps, and one
or two convents, and a “Bull Dog.” But I watched him out of one corner
of my speck, and I see that he never went nigh ’em, but kep’ a lookin’
at a “Centeur carryin’ off a Nymph” and a “Siesta of a Oriental Woman”
and a “Nun’s Revery,” and a “Smilin’ Girl,” and some sirens, and other
females. But I didn’t care; I haint got a jealous hair in the hull of my
foretop, or back hair; and I well know the state of my pardner’s
morals,—brass is no sounder. And I couldn’t help takin’ it as a
compliment, and feelin’ flattered in behalf of my sect, to see all
through the Sentinal, how sot men did seem to be a lookin’ at the
pictures and statutes of wimmen. They looked at ’em as much again as
they did at the figgers of their own sect; and it showed plain to me,
that though they do some on ’em seem to feel rather hauty and
proud-spirited towards us, they do think a sight on us—as a race.
So there I sot bounded by beauty on every side of me, and happy as a
queen, when a likely lookin’ woman come in and sot down by me. Says she,
“I have jest been a lookin’ at the Gobelin tapistry.”
“Why how you talk!” says I, “I never believed there was any such things
as Gobelins or spooks.”
“I mean men;” says she, “men that foller the trade of the Gobelins.”
“Oh Gobblers?” says I in a enquirin’ tone.
“Weavers,” says she. “They set at the back of their frame and never see
the right side of their work till the picture is finished, and each
color they weave in has twenty different shades.”
“How you talk!” says I, and seein’ she had a kind of a knowin’ look, as
if she would understand episodin’; (I hate to episode to anybody that
don’t know what I’m a doin’.) I says to her, “That is a good deal like
our lives, haint it; we set in the dark a weavin’ in our actions day by
day, every act havin’ more’n forty different shades and motives to it,
and we can’t tell how the picture looks from the other side till our
work is done, and the frame laid down.”
“That is so,” says she. And then we both went to look at ’em, and Josiah
went too; and such weavin’ I never see before, nor never expect to
again. One of ’em was Mrs. Penelope settin’ a weavin’ her web. A likely
creeter she was. After her husband was dragged off to war she would set
and weave all day, and rip it all out at night, for she had promised to
marry again when she had got her weavin’ done; and hated to. I have
heerd Thomas J. read about her, and always took right to her. We had
jest finished lookin’ at her, and I was a goin’ to tackle some of the
pictures, when a slimmish sort of a girl, by the side of us says to
another one, in reply to a question:
“Yes, I have jest come from there; it is the greatest exhibition of
Antique art ever seen in this country. Pottery, crockery ware, marbles,
and jewelry, twenty-three hundred years old, some of it.”
Josiah hunched me, and give me a wink; as excited and agitated a wink as
I ever see wunk. And says I, “What is the matter Josiah, you scare me.”
Says he in a loud excitable whisper:
“Now is my time, Samantha. You have wanted me to buy sunthin’ for Tirzah
Ann to remember the Sentinal by, and I can probable git some things here
cheap as dirt, if they are as old as that, and they’ll be jest as good
for her as new; they’ll last till she gits sick of ’em. I will see old
Antique, and try to make a dicker with him.”
Says I, “If I had a only girl by my first wife, and was as well off as
_you_ be, I wouldn’t try to git second hand jewelry or old crockery for
’em, because I could git ’em for little or nothin’.”
But he was sot on it, and so we went in and looked round, tryin’ to find
sunthin’ that would suit her. There was lots and lots of things, but I
couldn’t see a article that I thought she would want and told him so;
there was some big platters with humbly faces painted on ’em, and bowls
and vases and jars. One little bowl was marked “Anno Jubilee 1600,” and
Josiah says, “Don’t you s’pose that would do, Samantha? S’posen Ann has
used it, she haint hurt it, and it would be handy to feed the—”
Says I, “Josiah Allen, it don’t look half so well as bowls she has got
by her now.”
“Well,” says he, “I could git it cheap, its bein’ so awful old, and I
believe it would be as good for her, as a new one.”
“Well,” says I, “before you decide, less look round a little more.”
It does beat all how many things was marked Anno Domina; Josiah said he
wondered what under the sun Ann wanted of so much jewelry and stuff, and
he thought it looked extravagant in her.
Says he with a dreamy look “Mebby Ann would have left sunthin’ to our
girl, if she had known she was named after her—as it were.”
Says I, “Josiah Allen don’t try to git off on that track.” Says I, “It
is bad enough to buy second-handed jewelry without plottin’ round tryin’
to git it for nothin’.”
So finally he picked out a ring of carved stone, sardonic, I think I
heerd it called, and says he: “this will be just as good for Tirzah Ann
as sunthin’ that would cost a dollar or ten shillin’,” says he “I will
give old Antique ten cents for it, and not try to beat him down. Do you
s’pose the old man would ask any more for it?” says he, addressin’ a
middle aged, iron grey man a standin’ near us. “He dug ’em out of old
graves and ruins, I hear; they can’t be worth much to him.”
“You can learn the price from Signor Alessandro Castellani.”
“Who?” says Josiah.
“The gentleman who owns the collection, the head of the Italian
Commission. There he is a comin’ this way now.” He was a good lookin’
chap, with a animated eager look to his face. And when he got up to us
Josiah says to him, “How much is that little sardonic ring?”
Says he, in a pleasant way though sort o’ foreign in axent, “That ring
sir, is eight hundred dollars.”
My pardner stood with his head bent forward, and his arms hangin’ down
straight, in deep dumb founder. Finally he spoke, and says he in low
agitated axents, “How much do you call the hull lot of old stuff worth?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars,” says he.
Says Josiah, “I thought five dollars would buy the hull. I guess we had
better be goin’ Samantha.” After we got out, I says “I guess, Josiah
Allen, you wish you had heerd to me.”
“Dummit! who thought they were such fools?” says he.