Nancy Cypher is dead. Yes, Solomon has lost his wife with the typus. She
was a likely wemen, had a swelled neck, but that wusn’t nothin’ aginst
her, I never laid it up against her for a moment.
I told Thomas Jefferson, when he brought me the news, that I wished “he
and I was as likely a wemen as she was,” for it came sudden onto me, and
I wanted to praise her up. And, says I, still more warmly, “If the hull
world was as likely a woman as she was, there wouldn’t be so much cuttin’
up and actin’, as there is now. And,” says I, “Thomas Jefferson, it
stands us on hand to be prepared.”
But sometimes, I get almost discouraged with that boy. I can’t solemnize
him down, and get him to take a realizin’ sense of things. His morals
are as sound as brass. But he has, a good deal of the time, a light and
triflin’ demeanor, and his mind don’t seem so sound and stabled as I
could wish it to be.
I don’t s’pose anybody would believe me, but the very day after that boy
told me of Nancy Cypher’s death, that boy began to poke his aunt Doodle
about the relict.
I told him I never see nothin’, in my hull life, so wicked and awful, and
I asked him, where he s’posed “he’d go to?”
He was fixin’ on a paper collar, to the lookin’-glass, and he says, in a
kind of cherk, genteel way, and with a polite tone.
“I s’pose I shall go to the weddin’.”
You might jist as well exhort the winds to stop blowin’ when it is out on
a regular spree, as to stop him when he gets to behavin’. But I guess he
got the worst of it in this affair. I guess his aunt Doodle skeert him,
she took on so, when he segested the idea of her marryin’ to another man.
She bust right out a cryin’, took her handkerchief out, and rubbed both
her eyes with both hands, her elbows standin’ out most straight. She took
on awful.
“Oh, Doodle! Doodle!” says she. “What if you had lived to hear your
relict laughed at about marryin’ to another man. Oh! what agony it would
have brought to your dear linements. Oh! I can’t bear it, I can’t. Oh!
when I think of that dear man, how he worshipped the ground I walked on,
and the neighbors said he did, they said he thought more of the ground,
than he did of me; but he didn’t, he worshipped us both; and what his
feelings be, if he had lived, to hear his widder laughed at about another
man?”
She sobbed like an infant babe, and I came to the buttery door, I was a
makin’ some cherry pies and fruit-cake, and I came to the door, with my
nutmeg-grater in my hand, and winked at Thomas, not to say another word
to hurt her feelin’s. I winked twice or three times at him, real, severe
winks. And he took up one of his law books, and went to readin’, and I
went back to my cake. But I kep’ one eye out at her, not knowin’ what
trouble of mind might lead her into. She kep’ her handkerchief over her
eyes and groaned badly for nearly nine minutes, I should judge. And then
she spoke out from under it:
“Do you call Solomon Cypher good lookin’, Tommy?”
“Oh! from fair to middlin’,” says Thomas J.
And then she bust out again. “Oh! when I think what a linement Mr. Doodle
had on him, how can I think of any other man? I can’t! I can’t!”
And she groaned out the loudest she had yet. And Thomas J., feelin’
sorry, I guess, for what he had done, got up, and said, “He guessed he’d
go out to the barn, and help his father a spell.” Josiah was puttin’ some
new stanchils on the stable.
Thomas J. hadn’t more’n got to the barn, and I had finished my cake, and
had got my hands into the pie crust, a mixin’ it up, when there came a
knock at the door, and my hands bein’ in the condition they was, the
widder wipes up, and went to the door, and opened it. It was Solemen
Cypher, came to borry my bembazine dress and crape veil for some of
the mourners. I made a practice of lendin’ ’em. The veil was one I had
mourned for father Allen in, and the dress was one I had mourned for
grandmother Smith in. They was as good as new. I thought, seein’ the
widder and he was some acquainted with each other, I wouldn’t go out till
I had got my pies done.
And so I kep’ on a mixin’ up my crust, and pretty soon, I heard him say
to her after she had set him a chair, and they had set down, and he had
told his errant, says he,
“This is a dreadful blow to me, widder.”
“Yes,” says she, “I can feel to sympathize with you. I know well what
feelin’s I felt, when I lost my Doodle.”
Not one word does she say about brother Timothy. But I hold firm, and so
does Josiah. We do well by the widder.
“I believe you never wus acquainted with the corpse, was you, widder?”
says Solemen.
“No,” says she. “But I have heard her well spoke of. Sister Samantha wus
jest a sayin’ that she was a likely wemen.”
“She wus, widder! she wus. My heart-strings was completely wrapped round
that wemen. Not a pair of pantaloons have I hired made, sense we wus
married, nor a vest. I tell you it is hard to give her up. It is the
hardest day’s work, I ever done in my life. Nobody but jest me knows
what, for a wemen, she wus. She was healthy, savin’, hard workin’, pious,
equinomical. And I never knew how dear she was to me—how I loved her, as
I did my own soul, till I see I had got to give her up, and hired a girl
at two dollars a week; and they waste more’n their necks are worth.”
And he sithed so loud, that it sounded considerable like a groan. Solemen
takes her death hard. He sithed two or three times right along; and the
widder sithed too. It was dretful affectin’ to hear ’em go on; and if I
hadn’t been so busy, I don’t know but it would have drawed tears from me.
But I was jest puttin’ in my sweetnin’ into my cherry pies, and I felt it
my duty to be calm. So I composed myself, and kep’ on with my work, and
heard ’em a talkin’ and a sympathizin’ with each other.
“Oh!” Solemen, in a mournful voice, “I can tell you, widder Doodle,
there are tender memories in my heart for that wemen. When I think how
good dispositioned she was, how she would get up and build fires in the
winter, without saying a word, it seemed as if my heart must break.”
“I love to build fires,” says sister Doodle. “I always used to build the
fire, when I was a livin’ with my Doodle.”
“Did you, widder? I wished you had known the corpse. I believe you would
have loved each other like sisters.”
His tone sounded considerable chirker than it had sounded, and he went
on. “I believe you look like her, widder. You look out of your eyes as
she looked out of her’n; you put me in mind of her.”
The widder’s voice seemed something chirker, too, and, says she, “You
must chirk up, Mr. Cypher, you must look forward to happier days.”
“I know it,” and he put on the tone he used to evenin’ meetin’s. “I know
there is another spear, and I try to keep my mind on it; a happy spear,
where hired girls are unknown, and partin’s are no more.”
“I hate hired girls,” says sister Doodle, almost warmly.
“Do you, widder? Do you hate ’em?” says he, in almost glad tones, and
then says he, in real convinced axents, “You do look like her, I know
you do; I can see it plainer and plainer every minute. Oh! what a wemen
she was! So afraid of infringin’ on men. She new her place so well.
I couldn’t have made that wemen think she was my equal; not if I had
knocked her down. How many times she had said to me that no wemen was
strong enough to go to the poles, and she had rather dig potatoes any
time, than to vote. She was as good as a man at that. Many a time, when I
would get backward with my fall’s work, she would go out on the lot, and
dig as fast as I could.”
“I love to dig potatoes,” says sister Doodle, “and no money would have me
to vote.”
“You do look like her, widder. If my own father disputed me on it, I’d
stand my ground. You look like her, you make me think on her.”
“Well, then, you must think on me all you can; don’t be delicate about it
at all. I’d love to think I could chirk you up, and be a comfort to you,
in that way, or any other.”
“You do chirk me up, widder. I feel better than I did feel, when I came
here to-day.”
“Well, then, you must come and be chirked up, oftener.”
“I will, widder.”
“Come Sunday night, or any time.”
“I will, widder, I will.”
I must say, that, as I heard her go on, I couldn’t help askin’ myself
this mathematical question, and doin’ in my mind, this little sum in
figures:
“Samantha, ort from ort, leaves how many? And how many to carry?”
And though I answered myself, calmly and firmly, “ort,” still I realized
that figures wus made to differ from each other in value and glory, from
figure one, clear up to figure nine, and “orts,” unbeknown to them. And
if sister Doodle wouldn’t never be killed for knowin’ too much, still
she was a clever critter, and what little sense she had run to goodness,
and that is more than could be said of some folks’ essense; some runs to
meanness every mite of it.
I was jest a thinkin’ this over, as I finished up my last pie; and I
washed my hands at the sink, and went and carried ’em out, and put ’em
into the oven. And, as I did so, I said, “Good-mornin’, Mr. Cypher,” in
jest as friendly and sympathizin’ a way as them words wus ever said. I
then went and done up the dress and veil ready for him and laid them on
the table. And, thinkin’ that I must say sumthin’ to comfort him up, I
says to him, in consolin’ axents, “That she was a likely wemen, and I
dared presume to say, was better off than she was here.”
But though my words wus said with such a good motive, he didn’t seem to
like ’em, and he spoke right up, and says he:
“I don’t know about that, I don’t know about her bein’ better off. It was
only a year ago, last winter, that I bought her a new calico dress, and
carried it home to her unexpected. And on her last sickness, she took it
into her head that she could eat some chicken, and, though we had half a
barrel of pork in the house, I went right out that same day and killed a
hen. I done well by her, and I don’t know about her bein’ better off, I
don’t know about it.”
I heerd my pies a sizzlin’ over in the oven, and I hastened to their
relief. And while I wus a turnin’ ’em round, Solemen took the bundle
offer the table and started off. The widder, that clever criter, went to
the door with him. She said sumthin’ to him, I couldn’t really hear what
it wus, as I wus turnin’ my last pie, as she said it, but I heard his
last words, as he went down the stept. They wus:
“I feel better, widder, I feel better than I did feel.”