the eye of a wave. But that wont do, Julia; when we look at an idee we
must look at it from more than one side; we must look at it with several
pair of eyes in order to git the right light onto it;” says I, “I don’t
blame you for lookin’ at it with the eye of a wave—a noble, sublime eye,
full of power, and might, and glory, calm and stiddy as eternity. And
then to be fair, we ort to look at it with the eye of a obstacle,
pleadin’, and frightened, and melancholly, with a prophecy of comin’
doom. And when we s’posen the case, it wont do for us to s’posen
ourselves waves all the hull time, we must, in order to be just, s’posen
ourselves obstacles part of the time. And s’posen you was a obstacle,
Julia, and your Ulysses was one, and s’posen I was one, and my Josiah
was another one; this wouldn’t hinder us from bein’ faint when we hadn’t
nothin’ to eat; and our legs from achin’ when we had been drove clear
from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and our hearts from greivin’ when we
was forced from our homes to let our enemies live there; and our eyes
from rainin’ floods of tears when they see our loved ones fallin’ by our
side for defendin’ our homes from what we look upon as a invader. It
wouldn’t hinder our hearts from breakin’ when we was drove off and
denied the right even to weep over the graves where our hopes was a
lyin’ buried up with our beloved obstacles.”
Julia was almost in tears, but she reminded me that they only used the
land for low, triflin’ pursuits; such as huntin’ and other worthless
amusements; that we put it to better use.
Says I, “Julia, I haint a denyin’ of it, I haint said, and I haint a
goin’ to say that it wasn’t necessary to plough up and smooth out their
graveyards to make race courses and base ball and crokay grounds for our
nobler race; I haint denied it; I was only remindin’ you, that it seemed
to be uncommon tough on ’em; that is all. I think on ’em a sight;” says
I, “how they used to own the hull of this continent; a friendly,
peaceable set Columbus said they was; would have done anything for him,
knelt right down and worshipped him, they was so glad to see him. It
seems sort o’ pitiful to me, to think they looked with such reverent
admirin’ eyes on the comin’ race that was to destroy ’em; knelt down and
kissed the white hands that was to strike ’em such fearful blows;
thought they come right down from heaven; and how soon they didn’t think
so—how soon they thought they come from a different place. I s’pose they
was a simple, well meanin’, childlike lot, livin’ so near to Nater, that
they got nearer to her heart than we can ever think of gittin’. And the
mountains and waters cling to their names yet; it seems as if they don’t
forget ’em; the Alleghany’s seem to be a liftin’ up their heads a
lookin’ for the Alleghanies and wonderin’ what has become of ’em. The
Deleware seems to be a rushin’ along clear to the sea, a huntin’ for the
Delewares; and Huron and Erie git fairly mad, and storm and rage a
hollerin’ for the Hurons and Eries; and old Ontario, I never see her but
what she seems to be a murmurin’ and whisperin’ sunthin’ about the
Ontarios; her blue waters have a sort of a mournful sound to me; a
nevermore sounds in the wave as it swashes up on the beach, as if it was
a cryin’ out to me, askin’ me what we have done with ’em. Her great
breast seems to be a heavin’ up and sithin’ for the fate of them whose
canoes used to float on her bosom—them light canoes that have floated
off further and further, till pretty soon the last one will float off
into that ocian whose further shore we haint never seen.”
Says Julia, “I will speak to my husband on the subject at once.”
Says I, “So do; and choose the time when he is cleverer than common,
jest as I would deal with my Josiah.”
Then I told her, that I would be glad to stay right by her all the
afternoon, I felt such a friendship for her but, says I, “you know Julia
that even respect and admiration, when they come in conflict with love,
have to stand back; and my companion I know is almost famishin’ with
hunger, and I have got the key to the satchel bag containin’ our lunch;”
and says I, “you know what ravages hunger makes in a man.” She said she
knew it well and that I was perfectly excusable. And I bid her good-bye
and started on towards the place where I promised to meet my Josiah. I
found him a watchin’ the satchel bag, with a gloomy and fractious face,
but after he eat, he looked well and happy again. His plan for the
afternoon was to see all the live stock on the ground, all the iron
work, the mineral annex, the warlike preparations of the different
nations, their ships and farmin’ tools, the dairy, brewery, the model of
Paris, the newspaper offices, the lighthouses, cheese factory, wagon
shops, wind mills and the different tarverns, and he sot right out.
[Illustration: A SHORT ROLL.]
[Sidenote: MY SUCCESS AS P. A. AND P. I.]
The statement of his plan—added to my meanderins and outlay of
eloquence—had wearied me nearly out, but I knew well where to go and git
rested. I knew what could take me right up—though my heft was great—and
waft me off into a land where weariness was never admitted through its
gate, where pain and tiredness and care never climbed over its fence. I
didn’t know whether to go and be lifted up to this beautiful realm by
the music in the glen, or the piano and organ concert in the Main
Buildin’; but finally I chose the latter. And seatin’ my body on a seat
I peacefully left this weary world, and for about a half or three
quarters of an hour I was a triumphant and blessed citizen of that other
world which is so near to ours that we can be transported to it in half
a moment, and so fur off that no one can ever find the path a leadin’ to
it, or tell how it is bounded, or how big it is, or who made it, or why
it was made, or anything. But that it is a land of entrancin’ beauty and
delight, _that_ we all know; and I don’t know but I should have lingered
in it all day, if a rollin’ chair containin’ a woman hadn’t rolled right
onto me as I sot on the end of the seat; and bein’ rousted up and
brought down to the world again, thinks’es I, I will take a short roll
round the buildin’ myself. So I beconed to a young feller whose chair a
lady had jest got out of, and took her place; but the move wasn’t a
happyfyin’ one to me; I got to thinkin’; thinks’es I who knows where
he’ll roll me off to—no knowin’ but what all of a sudden he’ll take a
start and run with me clear out of sight. I put in a appearance of calm,
and I thought I’d try to stand it a little longer, for I knew he’d think
strange my gittin’ out so soon. But I couldn’t seem to sense a thing I
see; I kep’ a thinkin’ of Josiah and the peril he was in mebby; I turned
round and looked at the chap, and I mistrusted he looked sort o’ wild
out of his eye; and I told him in agitated axents that if he was
willin’, I’d pay him for the hull hour I bargained for, and git out on
the spot. He seemed willin’, and I descended down out of the chair—and
was glad of the chance.
Then I went and sot down on a bench by the noble fountain of Moses and
Temperance, and I was episodin’ to myself what a hard time Mr. Moses did
have in the wilderness, and how he made water flow out of a rock. And I
wondered dreamily if he was here now if he wouldn’t have to give a
harder knock ag’inst rocky hearts and the rocks of selfishness and
custom, before he made water flow instead of likker; when first I knew,
Josiah come and sot right down by me, and says he: “You know I told you
this mornin’ Samantha, about the ‘Creation Searchers’ all wanderin’ off
last night a searchin’ round and gittin’ lost again, and how Shakespeare
Bobbet estimated that they had travelled in the neighborhood of one
hundred and forty miles, and that he thought his father and old Dagget
would be bed rid for life; and how that Shakespeare had shipped ’em home
this mornin’ by car load—he goin’ along to lift ’em round, and keep ’em
together—all but Solomon Cypher, Cornelius Cork, and the Editor of the
Auger.”
“Yes,” says I, “you told me of it, but what of it?”
“Well,” says he, “the three ‘Creation Searchers’ that was left are in
jail.”
“In jail, Josiah Allen?”
“Yes, in jail for playin’ horse and disturbin’ the peace. Sam Snyder has
jest told me the particulars. They got to thinkin’ I s’pose, how many
scrapes they had got into sense they was here as a body; how much money
they had lost, and how much fun had been made of ’em; and they seemed to
lose every mite of dignity, and every spec of decency they had got about
’em, and they all got drunk as fools—”
[Sidenote: THE SENTINAL PROMISCOUS]
Says I warmly, “I _told_ the Nation jest how it would be, and I told
_you_ Josiah, but you wouldn’t believe me, neither on you, and now there
is Solomon Cypher drunk as a fool; mebby you’ll hear to me another time,
Josiah Allen.”
Says Josiah with a gloomy look, “I don’t see what you want to lay it all
to _me_ for; their sellin’ likker here to the Sentimental wasn’t _my_
doin’s.”
“Well, you sort o’ upholded the Nation in it; did they catch ’em here to
the Sentinal, Josiah?”
“No, they got their likker here, and then they went down into the
village a cuttin’ up and actin’ every step of the way; and when they
catched ’em they was playin’ horse right in front of the meetin’ house.
Cornelius and the Editor was horses and old Cypher they say had got holt
of their galluses a drivin’ ’em double; and he was a yellin’ and
cluckin’ to ’em to git up, and they was a prancin’ and a snortin’, and
the Editor of the Auger was pretendin’ to be balky, and was a kickin’ up
and a whinnerin’; the likker had made three perfect fools of ’em. And
what gauls me,” says he with a deprested look, “is, that a relation of
ourn by marriage should be in the scrape; it will make such talk; and we
mixed up in it.”
[Sidenote: THE “CREATION SEARCHERS” IN JAIL]
Says I calmly but firmly, “He must have a bail put onto him.”
[Illustration: “THE SENTINAL LICENSED.”]
“_I_ won’t put it on,” says he—and he added in a loud mad tone—“he won’t
git no bails put onto him by me, not a darned bail.”
“Well,” says I, “if you haint no pity by you, you can probable stop
swearin’ if you set out to. They are relations on _your_ side Josiah
Allen.”
“Throw the Widder in my face again will you!” says he, “if she was fool
enough to marry him, she may take care of him for all of me, and if she
wants any bails put onto him, she may put ’em on herself.”
Says I lookin’ my pardner calmly in the eye. “Ort from ort leaves how
many Josiah Allen?”
“Ort,” says he, and snapped out, “what of it? What do you go a prancin’
off into Rithmatic for, such a time as this?”
Says I mildly, for principle held my temper by the reins, a leadin’ me
along in the harness first-rate, “When you reckon up a row of orts and
git ’em to amount to anything, or git anything from ’em to carry, then
you can set the bride to doin’ sunthin’ and expect to have it done;”
says I, “won’t Sam Snyder succor him?”
“No he won’t; he says he won’t and there haint a Jonesvillian that will;
you won’t catch ’em at it.”
“Well,” says I firmly, with a mean that must have looked considerable
like a certain persons at Smithfield when he was bein’ set fire to; “if
you nor nobody else won’t go and help put a bail onto Solomon Cypher,
_I_ shall.”
And then Josiah hollered up and asked me if I was a dumb fool, and
twitted me how hauty and overbearin’ Solomon had been to wimmen, how he
had looked down on me and acted.
But says I calmly, “Josiah Allen, you have lived with me month after
month, and year after year, and you don’t seem to realize the size and
heft of the principles I am a carryin’ round with me, no more than if
you never see me a performin’ with ’em on a tower. Rememberance of
injuries, ridicule, nor Josiah can’t put up no bars accrost the path of
Right high enough to stop Samantha. She is determined and firm; she will
be merciful and heap coals of fire on the head of the guilty Cypher, for
the sake of duty, and that weepin’ ort.”
And then Josiah pretended not to understand my poetic and figgerative
speech, and said that—Solomon bein’ so bald—I’d have a chance to give
him a good singein’ and he hoped I’d blister his old skull good.
And I walked off with dignity, and wouldn’t demean myself by sayin’
another word. He had told me where the bride was, and I started off; and
though memory (as well as Josiah) hunched me up to remember how hauty
the “Creation Searchers” had all been as a body, and how rampant they
had been that a woman shouldn’t infringe on ’em, or come in contract
with ’em, still the thought that they was moulderin’ in jail made me
feel for them and their weepin’ brides.
The female elements in politics would be, as you may say, justice
tempered down with mercy; justice kep’ a sayin’ to me, “Solomon Cypher
is in jail and he ort to be, for truly he played horse and disturbed the
peace;” but mercy whispered to me in the other ear: “If he is humbled
down and willin’ to do better, give him a chance.”
Punishment if it means anything means jest that; it hadn’t ort to be
malicious enjoyment to the punishers; it ort to be for the reformin’ of
the criminals, and makin’ of ’em better. And that is why I never could
believe that chokin’ folks to death was the way to reform ’em, and make
better citizens of ’em.
I found the bride a settin’ like a statute of grief on a bench, a
groanin’ and weepin’ and callin’ wildly on Doodle, and sayin’ if he was
alive she wouldn’t be in that perdickerment—which I couldn’t deny, and
didn’t try to. But I told her firmly that this was no time to indulge in
her feelins, or call on Doodle, and if she wanted a bail put onto
Solomon Cypher, we must hasten to his dungeon.
So we hurried onwards, and right in the path we met Gen. Hawley; and
even then, in that curious time, I thought I never did see a handsomer,
well meaniner face than hisen. And now it looked better than ever for it
had pity onto it, which will make even humblyness look well. That man
respects me deeply; he see the mission I was a performin’ on, and the
hefty principles I was a carryin’ round with me on a tower, and now as
he looked at my agitated face and then at the weepin’ bride, he stopped
and says in that honest good way of hisen, and with that dretful clever
look to his eyes:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, you are in trouble; can I help you in any way?”
“No,” says I, “not _now_ you can’t.” I put a awful meanin’ axent onto
that ‘now,’ and says he:
“Do I understand you to say Madam that at some future time I can? You
know you can command me.”
(A better dispositioned, accommodatiner, well meaniner man, never walked
afoot; I knew that from the first on’t.) But duty and justice hunched me
up, one on each side, and says I sadly, “My advice wasn’t took, the
Sentinal was licenced, and Solomon Cypher is drunk as a fool.”
He felt bad; he sithed, to think after all I had said and done about it,
the Sentinal was licenced, and some of my folks had got drunk. It
mortified him dretfully I know, but I wouldn’t say anything to make him
feel any worse, and I only says, says I:
“The Nation wouldn’t take my advice, and you see if it don’t sup sorrow
for it; you see if it don’t see worse effects from it than Solomon
Cypher’s gittin’ drunk and playin’ horse. And if you see me to the next
Sentinal, Joseph, you jest tell me if I haint in the right on’t.”
But I hadn’t no time to multiply any more words with him, for the bride
groaned out agonizinly, and called on Doodle and his linement in such a
heartbreakin’ way, they was enough to draw tears from a soap stun.
But I will pass over my sufferins of mind, body and ears, only sayin’
that they was truly tegus, till at last we stood before the recumbard
form of Solomon Cypher a layin’ stretched out on the floor in as
uncomfortable a position as I ever sot my eyes on; he looked almost
exactly like a sick swine that Josiah had in the spring. But I hope to
goodness the swine won’t never hear I said so, if it should, I should be
ashamed and apologize to it, for that got sick on sweet whey, which is a
far nobler sickness than likker sickness. And then the Lord had made
that a brute by nater, and it hadn’t gone to work and made itself so as
Solomon had.
But oh! how the bride did weep and cry as she looked down on him, and
how heartrendin’ she did call on Doodle, sayin’ if he had lived she
wouldn’t have been in that perdickerment; it was a strange
time,—curious.
And we left him after leavin’ some money to have him let out jest as
quick as he could walk. I didn’t try to do anything for Cornelius Cork
or the Editor of the Auger’ses case. I was completely tuckered out; and
in the mornin’ I was so lame that I couldn’t hardly stand on my feet. My
back was in a awful state; it wasn’t so much a pain as I told Josiah,
but there seemed to be a creek a runnin’ down through my back, as
curious a feelin’ as I ever felt; and though we hadn’t seen half or a
fourth of what we wanted to see, I told Josiah that we must start for
home that day; had it not been for the creek runnin’ down my back we
should have staid two days longer at least.
Josiah rubbed my back with linement before we started, almost tenderly;
but right when he was rubbin’ in the linement the most nobby he says to
me: “This creek wouldn’t never have been Samantha, if you hadn’t helped
put a bail onto anybody.”
[Sidenote: THE END OF OUR TOWER]
Says I, “When anybody is preformin’ about a mission like mine, on a
tower, and gits hurt; their noble honor, their happy conscience holds
’em up even if their own pardner tries to run ’em down.”
Says I, “Mebby it is all for the best, our goin’ home this mornin’, for
that hen is liable to come off now any minute, and I ort to be there.”
He said he had been ready for a week, which indeed he had, for truly the
price he had to pay for our two boards was enormous; I never see nor
heerd of such costly boards before. So we started about half-past eight
o’clock, calculatin’ to git home the second day, for we was goin’ home
the shortest way, stayin’ one night to a tarvern.
And the next night about sundown my Josiah and me arrove home from the
Sentinal, and it seemed as if old Nater had been a lottin’ on our comin’
and fixed up for us and made a fuss, everything looked so uncommon
beautiful and pleasant. There had been a little shower that afternoon,
and the grass in the door yard looked green and fresh as anything. The
sweet clover in the meadow made the air smell good enough to eat if you
could have got holt of it; our bees was a comin’ home loaded down with
honey, and the robins in the maples and the trees over in the orchard
sang jest as if they had been practicin’ a piece a purpose to meet us
with, it was perfectly beautiful. And the posy beds and the mornin’
glories at the winders and the front porch, and the curtains at our
bed-room winder, and the door step, and everything, looked so good to me
that I turned and says to my pardner with a happy look:
“Home is the best place on earth, haint it Josiah Allen?” says I,
“towers are pleasant to go off on, but they are tuckerin, especially
high towers of principle such as I have been off a performin’ on.”
But Josiah looked fractious and worrysome, and says he:
“What I want to know is, what we are goin’ to have for supper; there
haint no bread nor nothin’, and I’d as lives eat bass-wood chips and
shingles as to eat Betsey Slimpsey’s cookin’.”
But I says in tender tones, for I knew I could soothe him down
instantly:
“How long will it take your pardner, Josiah Allen, to make a mess of
cream biscuit, and broil some of that nice steak we jest got to
Jonesville, and mash up some potatoes? And you know,” says I in the same
gentle axents, “there is good butter and cheese and honey and canned
peaches and everything right in the suller.”
All the while I was speakin’, my Josiah’s face begun to look happier and
happier, and more peaceful and resigned, and as I finished, and he got
down to help me out, he looked me radiantly and affectionately in the
face, and says he:
“It is jest as you say, Samantha; there’s no place like home.”
[Sidenote: HOME AFFAIRS]
Says I, “I knew you would feel jest so; home when it is the home of the
heart as well as the body, is almost a heaven below. And,” I added in
the same tones, or pretty nigh the same, “mebby you had better git me a
little kindlin’ wood Josiah, before you unharness.”
He complied with my request and in about an hour’s time we sot down to a
supper good enough for a king, and Josiah said it was. He acted happy,
very, and exceedinly clever; he had found everything right to the barn,
and I also to the house, and we felt well. And though we had held firm,
and wouldn’t have took no rash means to git rid of our trouble, it did
seem such a blessed relief to be at rest from David Doodle; it seemed so
unutterably sweet not to have his linement throwed in our faces every
moment.
Thomas J. wasn’t comin’ home till Saturday. We see him and Tirzah Ann as
we come through Jonesville, and they said the last of the ‘Creation
Searchers’ had got home, but their conduct had leaked out through the
bride and the Editor of the Auger’ses wife, and they dassant go out in
the street, any one of ’em, they had so much fun poked at ’em. Betsey
come in at night; she had been to Miss Daggets to work, and she had a
flour sack with some beans, and other provisions.
Says I in pityin’ axents, “How do you do, Betsey?”
Well she said she enjoyed real poor health; she had got the shingles the
worst kind, and a swelled neck, and the newraligy, and the ganders, and
says she, “Havin’ to support a big family in this condition makes it
hard for me.”
“Don’t your husband help you any, Betsey?” says I.
“Oh!” says she, “he is down with the horrers the hull time,” says she,
“my work days haint half so bad as the hard times I have nights,” she
said she didn’t git no sleep at all hardly.
Says I, “Haint you most sorry Betsey that you ever tried to git
married?”
She felt so bad and was so discouraged and down-hearted that she come
out the plainest I ever see her, and says she:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, I’ll tell you the truth! If it wasn’t for the name
of bein’ married, and the dignity I got by bein’ in that state, I should
be sorry as I could be; but,” says she as she lifted her flour sack of
provisions onto her tired shoulders previous to startin’ home, “I
wouldn’t part with the dignity I got by bein’ married, not for a ten
cent bill, as bad as I want money, and as much as I need it.”
[Illustration]
THE REUNION.
The mornin’ of the fourteenth of September dawned fair and peacefully.
The sun rose up considerable early in the mornin’, and looked down with
a calm and serene face upon Jonesville and the earth. And not fur from
the same time, I too, rose up and with as calm and serene a face as
hisen, I went to work and got a excellent breakfast for my Josiah and
me. It was the day we had looked forred to for a year. The deed that was
to give our Tirzah Ann and her pardner a handsome home lay in security
in the depths of my Josiah’s vest pocket, and in the buttery was a big
basket full of as good vittles as was ever baked by woman—enough to last
’em a week. The new carpets and housen stuff had been privately carried
into the house, unbeknown to them; and that very afternoon was the time
we was a goin’ to make ’em almost perfectly happy. Oh! how serene and
noble I felt as I poured out my dish-water and washed my breakfast
dishes.
And as I washed and wiped I thought of the childern; thought how well
Thomas J. was a doin’, and how Tirzah Ann and Whitfield had been
prospered ever sense they took their bridal tower. I s’pose they had a
dretful hard time then; I s’pose they suffered as much agony on that
bridal tower, as any two bridals ever suffered in the same length of
time. Tirzah Ann haint got over that tower to this day, and Whitfield
looks mad every time he hears the word mentioned. They have both told me
sense (in strict confidence) at two separate times, that if they was a
goin’ to be married twenty-five times a piece, they had gone off on
their last tower.