“She that was Alzina Ann Allen is comin’ here a-visitin’. She wrote me
three weeks ahead, so’s to have me prepared. And here she is liable to
come in on us any minute, now, and ketch us all unprepared,” says I.
“I wouldn’t have had it happen for a ten-cent bill, to had one of the
relations, on your side, come and ketch me in such a condition. Then the
curtains are all down in the spare room. I washed ’em yesterday, and they
hain’t ironed. And the carpet in the settin’-room up to mend; and not
a mite of fruit cake in the house, and she a-comin’ here to-day. I am
mortified ’most to death, Josiah Allen. And if you’d give me that letter,
I should have hired help, and got everything done. I should think your
conscience would smart like a burn, if you have got a conscience, Josiah
Allen.”
“Wall, less have a little sunthin’ to eat, Samantha, and I’ll help
’round.”
“Help! What’ll you do, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh! I’ll do the barn chores, and help all I can. I guess you’d better
cook a little of that canned sammon, I got to Janesville.”
Says I, coldly, “I believe, Josiah Allen, if you wus on your way to the
gallus, you make ’em stop and get vittles for you, meat vittels, if you
could.”
I didn’t say nothin’ more, for, as the greatest poets has sung, “the
least said, the soonest mended.” But I ’rose, and with outward calmness,
put on the tea kettle and potatoes, and opened the can of salmon, and
jist as I put that over the stove, with some sweet cream and butter, if
you’ll believe it, that very minute, she that was Alzina Ann Allen drove
right up to the door, and come in.
You could have knocked me down with a hen’s feather (as it were) my
feelin’s wus such; but I concealed ’em as well as I could, and advanced
to the door, and says I:
“How do you do, Miss Richerson?”—she is married to Jenothen Richerson,
old Daniel Richerson’s oldest boy.
She is a tall, “spindlin’ lookin’” women, light complected, sandy-haired,
and with big, light blue eyes. I hadn’t see her for nineteen yeers, but
she seemed dredful tickled to see me, and says she:
“You look younger, Samantha, than you did the first time I ever seen you.”
“Oh, no!” says I, “that can’t be, Alzina Ann, for that is in the
neighborhood of thirty years ago.”
Says she, “It is true as I live and breathe; you look younger and
handsomer than I ever see you look.”
I didn’t believe it, but I thought it wouldn’t look well to dispute her
any more, so I let it go; and mebby she thought she had convinced me
that I did look younger than I did, when I was eighteen or twenty. But I
only said, “That I didn’t feel so young anyway. I had spells of feelin’
mauzer.”
She took off her things, she was dressed up awful slick, and Josiah
helped bring in her trunk. And I told her just how mortified I wus about
Josiah’s forgettin’ her letter, and her ketchin’ me unprepared. But,
good Lord! she told me that she never in her hull life see a house in
the order mine wus, never, and she had seen thousands and thousands of
different houses.
Says I, “I feel worked up, and almost mortified, about my settin’-room
carpet bein’ up.”
But she held up both hands (they wus white as snow, and all covered
with rings). And says she, “If there is one thing that I love to see,
Samantha, more than another, it is to see a settin’-room carpet up, it
gives such a sort of a free, noble look to a room.”
Says I, “The curtains are down in the spare bed-room, and I am almost
entirely out of cookin’.”
Says she, “If I had my way, I never would have a curtain up to a window.
The sky always looks so pure and innocent somehow. And cookin’,” says
she, with a look of complete disgust on her face. “Why, I fairly despise
cookin’; what’s the use of it?” says she, with a sweet smile.
“Why,” says I, reesonably, “if it wasn’t for cookin’ vittles and eatin’
’em, guess we shouldn’t stand it a great while, none on us.”
I didn’t really like the way she went on. Never, never, through my hull
life, was I praised up by anybody as I wus by her, durin’ the three
days that she stayed with us. And one mornin’, when she had been goin’
on dretfully, that way, I took Josiah out one side, and told him; “I
couldn’t bear to hear her go on so, and I believed there was sunthin’
wrong about it.”
“Oh, no,” says he. “She means every word she says,” says he. “She is one
of the loveliest creeters this earth affords. She is most a angel. Oh!”
says he, dreamily, “what a sound mind she has got.”
Says I, “I heard her tellin’ you this mornin’, that you wus one of
the handsomest men she ever laid eyes on, and didn’t look a day over
twenty-one.”
“Well,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect. “She thinks so,”
and says he, in firm axents, “I am a good lookin’ feller, Samantha. A
crackin’ good-lookin’ chap, but I never could make you own up to it.”
I didn’t say nothin’, but my grey eye wandered up, and lighted on his
bald head. It rested there searchinly, and very coldly for a moment or
two, and then says I, sternly; “Bald heads and beauty don’t go together
worth a cent. But you wus always vain, Josiah Allen.”
Says he, “What if I wus?” and says he, “She thinks different from what
you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye on her head for beauty. She
is very smart, very. And what she says, she means.”
“Wall,” says I, “I am glad you are so happy in your mind. But, mark my
words, you won’t always feel so neat about it, Josiah Allen, as you do
now.”
Says he, in a cross, surly way; “I guess I know what I do know.”
I hain’t a yaller hair in the hull of my foretop, but I thought to
myself, I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s eyes opened; for I knew as well
as I knew my name was Josiah Allen’s wife, that that woman didn’t think
Josiah wus so pretty and beautiful. But I didn’t see how I was goin’
to convince him, for he wouldn’t believe me when I told him, she wus a
makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so
there it wus. But I hold firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by
her.
That very afternoon we wus invited to tea, that wus Sylphina Allen’s,
Miss Nathen Spooner’s, us and Alzina Ann Allen. Sylphina didn’t use to be
the right sort of a girl. She wus a kind of helpless, improvenden thing,
and threw herself away on a worthless, drunken feller, that she married
for her first husband, though Nathen Spooner wus a dyin’ for her, even
then. But when her drunken husband died, and she wus left with that boy
of hers, about six years old, she up and jined the Methodist church. I
didn’t use to associate with her at all, and Josiah didn’t want me to,
though she wus a second cousin on his father’s side. But folks began to
make much of her. So I and Josiah did everything for her we could, to
help her do well, and be likely. And last fall, she wus married to Nathen
Spooner, who hadn’t forgotten her in all this time.
They make a likely couple, and I shouldn’t wonder if they do well. Nathen
Spooner is bashful; he looks as if he wanted to sink if any one speaks to
him; but Sylphina is proud-spirited and holds him up.
They hain’t got a great deal to do with, and Sylphina bein’ kind
o’ afraid of Alzina Ann, sent over and borrowed her mother-in-law’s
white-handled knives, and, unbeknown to Alzina Ann, I carried her over
some tea-spoons, and other things for her comfort, for if Sylphina
means to do better, and try to git along, and be a provider, I want to
encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.
Wall, no sooner had we got seated over to Mrs. Spooner’ses, than Alzina
Ann begun:
“How much!—how much that beautiful little boy looks like you, Mr.
Spooner,” she cried, and she would look first at Nathen, and then at the
child, with that enthusiastic look of her’s.
Sylphina’s face wus red as blood, for the child looked as like her first
husband as two peas, and she knowed that Nathen almost hated the sight
of the boy, and only had him in the house for her sake. And truly, if
Nathen Spooner could have sunk down through the floor into the seller,
right into the potato bin or pork barrel, it would have been one of the
most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed. I could see that by his
countenance.
If she had just said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina
Ann never’ll do that; she had to enlarge in her idees, and she would ask
Sylphina if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look to
him that Nathen had. And Sylphina would stammer, and look annoyed more’n
ever, and get as red in the face as a red woollen shirt. And then Alzina
Ann, looking at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathen’s, which was
a sort of Roman one, and the best feetur in his face, as Josiah says,
would ask Nathen if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy
resembled his pa. And Nathen would look this way and that, and kind o’
frown; and it did seem as if we couldn’t keep him out of the seller, to
save our lives. And there it wuz.
Wall, when it came supper time, more wuz in store for him. Sylphina,
bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life,
made a practice of makin’ Nathen ask a blessin’. But he, bein’ so
uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they had company.
He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on him. He looked
as if he would sink all the while Sylphina wus settin’ the table, for he
knew what wus before him. He seemed to feel worse and worse all the time,
and when she wus a-settin’ the chairs round the table, he looked so bad
that I didn’t know but he would have to have help to get to the table.
And he’d give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks to Sylphina that ever
wus, but she shook her head at him, and looked decided, and then he’d
look as if he’d wilt right down again.
So when we got set down to the table, Sylphina gave him a real firm look
and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and Sylphina and
me and Josiah put on a becomin’ look for the occasion, and shet up our’n,
when, all of a sudden, Alzina Ann, she never asked a blessin’ in her own
house, and forgot other folks did, leastways that Nathen did. Alzina Ann,
I say, spoke out in a real loud, admirin’ tone, and says she:
“There! I will say it I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in my
hull life. White-handled knives is suthin’ I always wanted to own, and
always thought I would own. But never did I see any that wus so perfectly
beautiful as these ’ere.”
And she held out her knife at arm’s length, and looked at it admirin’ly,
and almost rapturously.
Nathen looked bad—dretful bad, but we didn’t none on us reply to her, and
she seemed to sort o’ quiet down, and Sylphina gave Nathen another look,
and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she, and me and
Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathen wus just a-beginnin’ agin, when Alzina
Ann broke out afresh, and says:
“What wouldn’t I give, if I could own some knives like them? What a proud
and happy woman it would make me.”
That roasted us all up agin, and never did I see—unless it wus on a
funeral occasion—a face look as Nathen’s face looked. Nobody could have
blamed him if he had gin up, then, and not made another effert. But
Sylphina, bein’ so awful determined to do jist right, and start right in
the married life, she winked to Nathen agin, a real sharp and encouragin’
wink, and shet up her eyes, and Josiah and I done as she done, and shet
up our’n.
And Nathen (feelin’ as if he _must_ sink,) got all ready to begin agin.
He had jest got his mouth opened, when says Alzina Ann, in that rapturous
way of her’n:
“Do tell me, Sylphina, how much did you give for these knives, and where
did you get ’em?”
Then it wus Sylphina’s turn to feel as if she must sink, for being so
proud sperited, it wus like pullin’ out a sound tooth, to tell Alzina
Ann they wus borrowed. But bein’ so set in tryin’ to do right, she would
have up and told her. But I, feelin’ sorry for her, branched right off,
and asked Nathen “if he lived out to vote Republican, or Democrat, or
Greenback.” So we had no blessin’ asked after all, that day.
Sylphina sithed, and went to pourin’ out the tea. And Nathen brightened
up and said, “if things turned out with him as he hoped they would that
fall, he calculated to vote for old Peter Cooper.”
I could see from his mean, that Josiah was gettin’ kinder sick of Alzina
Ann, and (though I hain’t got a jealous hair in hull of my back hair and
foretop) I didn’t care a mite if he wuz. But, truly, werse wus to come.
After supper, Josiah and me wus a-settin’ in the spare-room, close to the
winder, a-lookin’ through Sylphina’s album; when we heered Alzina Ann and
Sylphina, out under the winder, a-lookin’ at Sylphina’s peary bed, and
Alzina Ann was a talkin’, and says she:
“How pleasant it is here, to your house, Sylphina, perfectly beautiful!
Seein’ we are both such friends to her, I feel free to tell you what a
awful state I find Josiah Allen’s wife’s house in. Not a mite of a carpet
in her settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look
as that. She said it wus up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t
believe a word of it. I believe it wus up for some other purpose. And
the curtains wus down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first night
in that condition. I might jest as well have sat up, it looked so. And
when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they wusn’t nothin’ but plain white
muslin. I should think she could afford somethin’ a little more decent
than that for her spare-room. And she hadn’t a mite of fruit cake in the
house, only two kinds of common-lookin’ cake. She said Josiah forgot to
give her my letter, and she didn’t get word I wus comin’ till the day I
got there, but between you and me, I never believed that for a minute.
I believe they got up that story between ’em, to excuse it off, things
lookin’ so. If I wuzn’t such a friend of hern, and didn’t think such a
sight of her, I wouldn’t mention it for the world. But I think everything
of her, and everybody knows I do, so I feel free to talk about her. How
humbly she has growed! Don’t you think so? And her mind seems to be a
kind o’ runnin’ down. For how, under the sun, she can think so much
of that simple old husband of hern, is a mystery to me, unless she is
growin’ foolish. He wus always a poor, insignificent lookin’ creeter; but
now, he is the humblest and meekest lookin’ creeter, I ever seen in human
shape. And he looks as old as grandfather Richerson, every mite as old,
and he is most 90. And he is vain as a peahen.”
I jest glanced round at Josiah, and then, intentively, looked away
again. His countenance wus perfectly awful. Truly, the higher we are up
the worse it hurts us to fall down. Bein’ lifted up on such a height of
vanity and vain glory, and fallin’ down from it so sudden, it most broke
his neck, (speakin’ in a poetical and figurative way.) I, myself, havin’
had doubts of her all along, didn’t feel nigh so worked up and curious;
it mere sort o’ madded me, it kind o’ operated in that way on me. And so
when she begun agin, to run Josiah and me down to the very lowest noch,
called us all to naught, made out we wuzn’t hardly fit to live, and wus
most fools. And then says agin:
“I wouldn’t say a word againt ’em for the world, if I wusn’t such a
friend to ’em——”
Then I rose right up, and stood in the open winder, and it came up in
front of me, some like a pulpit, and I s’pose my mean looked considerable
like a preacher’s when they get carried away with the subject, and almost
by the side of themselves.
Alzina Ann quitted the minute she sot her eyes on me, as much or more
than any minister ever made a congregation quail, and says she, in
trembling tones:
“You know I do think everything in the world of you. You know I shouldn’t
have said a word againt you, if I wusn’t such a warm friend of yourn.”
“Friend!” says I, in awful axents. “Friend, Alzina Ann Richerson, you
don’t know no more about that word than if you never see a dictionary.
You don’t know the true meanin’ of that word, no more than an African
babe knows about slidin’ down hill.”
Says I, “The Bible gives a pretty good idea of what it means; it speaks
of a man layin’ down his life for his friend. Dearer to him than his
own life. Do you s’pose such a friendship as that would be a mistrustin’
round, a-tryin’ to rake up every little fault they could lay holt of, and
talk ’em over with everybody? Do you s’pose it would creep round under
winders, and back-bite, and slander a Josiah?”
I entirely forgot, for the moment, that she had been a-talkin’ about me,
for truly, abuse heaped upon my pardner seems ten times as hard to bear
up under, as if it wus heaped upon me.
Josiah whispered to me, “That is right, Samantha! Give it to her!” and
upheld by duty, and that dear man, I went on, and says I:
“My friends, those I love and who love me, are sacred to me. Their
well-being and their interest is as dear to me as my own. I love to have
others praise them, prize them as I do; and I should jist as soon think
of goin’ ’round, tryin’ to rake and scrape sunthin’ to say against myself
as against them.”
Agin I paused for breath, and agin Josiah whispered:
“That is right, Samantha; give it to her!”
Worshippin’ that man as I do, his words wus far more inspirin’ and
stimulatin’ to me than root beer.
Agin I went on, and says I:
“Maybe it hain’t exactly accordin’ to Scripture; there is sunthin’
respectable in open enmity, in beginnin’ your remarks about anybody
honestly, in this way. (Now, I detest and despise that man, and I am
goin’ to try to relieve my mind by talkin’ about him, jist as bad as I
can), and then proceed and tear him to pieces in a straightforward, manly
way. I don’t s’pose such a course would be upheld by the ’postles. But,
as I say, there is a element of boldness and courage in it, ammountin’
almost to grandeur, when compared to this kind of talk. ‘I think
everything in the world of that man. I think he is jist as good as he
can be, and he hain’t got a better friend in the world than I am.’ And
then go on, and say everything you can to injure him. Why, a pirate runs
up his skeleton and cross-bars, when he is goin’ to rob and pillage. I
think, Alzina Ann, if I wus in your place, I would make a great effort,
and try to be as noble and magnanimous as a pirate.”
Alzina Ann looked like a white holley hawk, that had been withered by
an untimely frost. But Sylphina looked tickled (she hadn’t forgot her
sufferens, and the sufferens of Nathen Spooner). And my Josiah looked
proud and triumphant in mean. And he told me, in confidence, a-going
home, “that he hadn’t seen me look so good to him, as I did when I stood
there in the winder, not for upwards of thirteen years.” Says he:
“Samantha, you looked, you did, almost perfectly beautiful.”
That man worships the ground I walk on, and I do his’n.