Thomas Jefferson went to the school-house to meetin’ last night, and he
broke out to the breakfast-table:
“Betsey Bobbet spoke in meetin’ last night, father.” He addressed the
words to his father, for he knows I won’t uphold no kind of light talking
about serious things.
“She said she knew she was religious, because she felt she loved the
bretheren.” Then they both laughed in an idiotic manner. But I said, in a
tone of cool dignity, as I passed him his 3d cup of coffee, “She meant it
in a Scriptural sense, no doubt.”
“I guess you’d think she meant it in a earthly sense, if you had seen her
hang on to old Slimpsey last night; she’ll marry that old man yet, if he
don’t look out.”
“Oh, shaw!” says I, coolly. “She’s payin’ attention to the editor of the
_Gimlet_.”
“She’ll never get him,” says he. “She means to be on the safe side, and
get one or the other of ’em; how steady she has been to meetin’ sence
Deacon Slimpsey moved into the place.”
“You shall not make light of her religeen, Thomas Jefferson,” says I, in
a severe voice.
“I won’t, mother. I shouldn’t feel right to, for it is light enough now;
it don’t all consist in talkin’ in meetin’, mother. I don’t believe
in folks’es usin’ up all their religeen Sunday nights, and then goin’
without any all the rest of the week; it looks as shiftless in ’em as a
3-year-old hat on a female.”
Says I, in a tone of deep rebuke, “Instead of tendin’ other folks’s
motes, Thomas Jefferson, you had better take care of your own beams;
you’ll have plenty work enough to last you one spell.”
“And if you are through with your breakfast,” says his father, “you had
better go and give the cows something to eat.”
“Can’t they come here, father?” says he, leanin’ kinder lazy over the
table.
Says I, “That is pretty talk to your father, Thomas J. How do you suppose
your days will be long in the land if you don’t honor your father and
mother?”
“I do honor you, mother. I never see such long, wet, tedious days as
they have been ever sence I have been home from school, and I lay it to
honorin’ you and father so.”
Says I, “I won’t hear another light word this mornin’, Thomas
Jefferson—not one.” He read earnestness in my tone; and he rose with
alackrity and went to the barn, and his farther soon drew on his boots
and followed him, and with a pensive brow I turned out my dish water.
I hadn’t got my dishes more than half done, when, with no warnin’ of
no kind, the door burst open, and in tottered Deacon Slimpsey, pale as
a piece of white cotton shirt. I wildly wrung out my dish-cloth, and
offered him a chair, sayin’, in a agitated tone, “What is the matter,
Deacon Slimpsey?”
“Am I pursued?” says he, in a voice of low frenzy, as he sank into a
wooden-bottomed chair. I cast one or two eagle glances out of the window,
both ways, and replied in a voice of choked-down emotion:
“There haint nobody in sight. Has your life been attacked by burglers and
incendiarys? Speak, Deacon Slimpsey, speak!”
He struggled nobly for calmness, but in vain. And then he put his hand
wildly to his brow and murmured, in low and hollow accents:
“Betsey Bobbet!”
I see he was overcome by as many as seven different emotions of different
anguishes, and I give him pretty near a minute to recover himself; and
then, says I, as I sadly resumed my dish-cloth, “What of her, Deacon
Slimpsey?”
“She’ll be the death on me,” says he, “and that haint the worst on
it. My soul is jeopardied on account of her. Oh!” says he, groanin’
in an anguish, “Can you believe it, Miss Allen, that I, a deacon in
an autherdox church, could be tempted to swear? Behold that wretch! I
confess it, as I came through your gate, just now, I said to myself,
‘By Jupiter, I can’t stand it so much longer’; and only last night I
wished I was a ghost; for I thought if I were an apperition, I could have
escaped from her view. Oh!” says he, groanin’ agin, “I have got so low
as to wish I was a ghost!” He paused, and in a deep and brooding silence
I finished my dishes, and hung up my dish-pan. “She was rushing out of
Deacon Gowdey’s, as I came by, just now, to talk to me. She don’t give me
no peace—last night she would walk tight to my side all the way home, and
she looked hungry at the gate as I went through, and fastened it on the
inside.” Agin he paused overcome by his emotions, and I looked pityin’ly
on him. He was a small boned man of about seventy summers and winters.
Age, who had ploughed the wrinkles into his face, had turned the furrows
deep. The cruel fingers of time, or some other female, had plucked nearly
every hair from his head, and the ruthless hand of fate had also seen fit
to deprive him of his eye-winkers, not one solitary winker bein’ left
for a shade tree (as it were) to protect the pale pupils below, and they
bein’ a light watery blue, and the lids bein’ inflamed, they looked sad
indeed. Owing to afflictive providences, he was dressed up more than
men generally be, for his neck bein’ badly swelled, he wore a string of
yellow amber beads, and in behalf of his sore eyes he wore ear-rings.
But truly outside splender and glitter won’t satisfy the mind, or bring
happiness; I looked upon his mournful face, and my heart melted inside of
me, almost as soft as it could, almost as soft as butter in the month of
August, and I said to him in a soothin’ and encouragin’ tone:
“Mebby she’ll marry the editor of the _Gimlet_. She is payin’ attention
to him.”
“No, she won’t,” says he, in a solemn and affectin’ tone that brought
tears to my eyes, as I sat peelin’ my onions for dinner. “No, she won’t.
I shall be the one, I feel it. I was always the victim; I was always
down-trodden. When I was a baby, my mother had two twins both of ’em a
little older than me, and they almost tore me to pieces before I got into
trowsers. Mebby it would have been better for me if they had,” said he
in a musin’ and mournful tone—and then heavin’ a deep sigh, he resumed;
“When I went to school and we played leap-frog if there was a frog to be
squashed down under all the rest, I was that frog; it has always been so,
if ever there was a victim wanted, I was the victim, and Betsey Bobbet
will get round me yet, and see if she don’t; women are awful perseverin’
in such things.”
“Cheer up, Deacon Slimpsey, you haint obleeged to marry her—it is a free
country; folks haint obleeged to marry unless they are a mind to; it
don’t take a brass band to make that legal.” I quoted these words in a
light and joyous tone, hopin’ to rouse him from his despondancy—but in
vain, for he only repeated in a gloomy tone:
“She’ll get around me yet, Miss Allen, I feel it,” and as the shade
deepened on his eyebrow, he said, “Have you seen her verses in the last
week’s _Gimlet_?”
“No,” says I, “I haint.”
In a silent and hopeless way he took the paper out of his pocket, and
handed it to me and I read as follows: