Josiah had been to Jonesville, to the post-office and got the last number
of my magazine, and I was just lookin’ at the pictures, which are always
as pretty a pink, when happenin’ to cast my eyes out of the window, I saw
Miss Gowdey and her little boy comin’ up the road.
Now, some children I am attached to, and some I ain’t; and, when I ain’t,
I don’t want to touch ’em with a 40-foot pole. Or—I don’t know—sometimes
I would like to touch ’em with one. I have seen children that was so
sweet-looking and innocent, that it seemed as if they wouldn’t want much
fixin’-over to make angels of ’em; but Johnny Gowdey would want an awful
sight done to him, to make an angel of him. Thomas Jefferson says he had
as leave have a young tornado let loose on the farm as to have him come
here a-visitin’—and his mother always brings him.
Wal, as I said, I see ’em comin’ up the road; and, jest as I expected,
they came up to the door and knocked. I got up and opened the door, and
set ’em some chairs, and sez I: “Lay off your things, won’t you?”
Sez she: “I can’t stop long.” But she sot about half an hour; and, jest
before she went, she took up the magazine, the Christmas number it was,
that lay on the stand, and sez she: “I should be dreadful glad to borrer
this for a day or 2.”
“I hain’t read a word in it,” sez I, “fer I jest got it.”
“Should you be likely to read any in it to-night?” sez she. I told her
I didn’t know as I should. “Wall,” sez she, “if you’ll let me take it,
I’ll send it home by to-morrow noon at the outside, and I’ll try not to
let you come after it, as you have your other ones.”
“I suppose you can take it,” sez I, in a cold tone; “but I wish you would
be careful of it, for I want to get ’em bound.”
She said she would lay it right on to the parlor-table, and, when she
read in it, she would hold a paper around it. Sez I: “You needn’t do
that,” and I must confess, from that very minute I had my mind. I always
mistrust folks that are 2 good; there is a mejum course that I rather
see folks pursue. I always love to see folks begin as they can hold out,
and folks that are 2 good hardly ever hold out. When I see such folks, I
always think of the poor sick woman that lay sufferin’ in total darkness
for a week, vainly urgin’ her husband to buy some candles, till finally
he went, one night, when she was asleep, and bought 12 candles, and
lit ’em all and sot ’em in a row in front of her bed. She, dreamin’ of
conflegrations, widly started up to see what was the matter, and sunk
back, sayin’ in low and faint axents: “Daddy, when you are good, you are
2 good.”
When Miss Gowdey said she would keep it on the parlor table, I had my
doubts, and when she said she would hold a paper round it when she read
it, I thought more’n as likely as not the book was lost; but I didn’t say
nothin’, I kep’ in, and done up the book and handed it to her. She took
a large clean handkercher out of her pocket, and folded it round it and
started up to go.
If you will believe it, it run along as much as 2 or 3 weeks and no book
sent home; and one night, when Josiah and I was a-settin’ there alone—the
children was out to one of the neighbors’—I jest broke out, and sez I:
“It is a shameful piece of business, and I won’t stan’ it.”
“What is the matter?” sez Josiah, layin’ down his new paper.
“Miss Gowdey is the matter! My magazine is the matter,” sez I. “There she
has kep’ it ’most 3 weeks, and she knew I hadn’t read a word in it,” sez
I. “It is a burnin’ shame.”
“Wal, what made you let it go?” sez he. “Deacon Gowdey is worth 3 times
as much as I be. Why don’t they take their own magazines? What made you
let ’em have it?”
The next day, after I done up my mornin’s work, I went down to Deacon
Gowdey’s; I wanted to know about my magazine. There wasn’t anybody in the
settin’-room, when I went in, but Johnny; he was settin’ on the floor,
playin’ with some pictures.
Sez I: “Where is your ma, Johnny?”
Sez he: “She’s in the kitchen, huskin’ some beans fer dinner; but see
what I’ve got, Aunt Allen,” and he come up in front of me, with the
picture of a woman cut out of a book. As he come up close to me, and held
it up in front of me by the head, I knew it in a minute; it come out of
my magazine—it was the very handsomest figger in the fashion plate. For a
minute, I was speechless; but these thoughts raged tumultuously through
my brain: “If the child is father to the man, as I heard Thomas Jefferson
readin’ about, here is a parent that I would like to have the care of fer
a short time.” At this crisis in my thoughts, he spoke up agin:
“I am goin’ to cut her petticoats down into pantaloons, and paint some
whiskers on her face and make a pirate of her.”
Then the feelin’s I had long curbed broke forth, and I said to him in
awful tones: “You will be a pirate yourself, young man, if you keep on—a
bloody pirate on the high seas,” sez I. “What do you mean by tearin’
folks’es books to pieces in this way?”
Just at this minute, Miss Gowdey came in, and heerd my last words. She
jest said: “How d’ye do?” to me, and then she went at Johnny:
“You awful child, you! How dare you touch that book? How dare you unlock
the parlor-door, and climb up on the best table, and take the clean paper
off of it, or handle it? How dare you, John Wesley?”
“You give it to me yourself, ma; you know you did, last night, when the
minister was here. You said, if I wouldn’t tease fer any more honey,
you’d lem’me take it. And can’t I have some honey now? Say, ma, can’t you
gim’me some?”
“I’ll give you honey that you won’t like,” sez she: “takin’ the advantage
of your ma, and tearin’ folks’es books to pieces in this way—books that
you know your ma is so careful of.” And she took him by the collar of
his little gray roundabout, and led him into the kitchen, and, by the
screamin’ that I heerd from there shortly, I thought he didn’t like his
honey. She come back into the room in a few minutes and sez she; “I am
so mortified, I don’t know what to do; I never did see such a child. He
see me settin’ down shellin’ beans, and he took the advantage of me and
got the book. That’s jest the way with him: if I don’t keep my eyes on
him every minute, he’ll get the advantage of me. I am mortified ’most to
death,” sez she, gatherin’ up the pieces and puttin’ ’em into the book.
As she handed it to me, the leaves kinder fell apart, and I see, on one
of the patterns, a grease-spot as big as one of my hands. She see it
and broke out ag’n: “I declare, I am so mortified; I was goin’ to take
that all out with some powder I have got. My Sophrenie wanted to take
a pattern off, the night before she went away, and she hadn’t any thin
paper, and so she greased a piece of writin’-paper and laid on to it and
took it off. But I was going to take it all out, every speck of it. I
will give you some of the powder to take home with you.”
“I don’t care about any powder,” sez I, calmly; and I jest held on to
my tongue with all the strength I had; and, with that, I up and started
home’ards.
I never got over the ground and sensed it any less than I did then.
When I am mad, I tell you I always step pretty lively. Josiah was jest
startin’ fer Jonesville, when I got home. I jest walked right through the
kitchen and went straight to the buro-draw in my bed-room, and took out 2
shillin’s and sez I: “Go to the book-store and get me the last number of
that magazine.”
“Why, where is your’n?” sez he.
“There is where it is!” sez I, showin’ him the danglin’ leaves. “There is
where it is!” sez I, displayin’ the mutylated picture. “There is where it
is!” sez I, p’intin’ out the grease-spot.
“Wal,” sez he, “I wish you would button up my shirtsleeves.”
“You take it pretty cool,” sez I, as I threw off my shawl and complied
with his request.
“I knew just how it would be when you let her have it. You might ha’
known better than to let it go.” He spoke with aggravatin’ coolness.
“Wal, you might ha’ known better than to let old Peedick have your
horse-rake, and tear it all to bits,” sez I, aggravatin’ in turn.
“Throw that old rake in my face agin, will you?” sez he.
“How do you expect, Josiah Allen, that I am goin’ to button your
shirt-sleeves, if you don’t stand still,” sez I.
“Wal, then, don’t be so aggravatin’; you keep bringin’ up that old rake
every time I say anything,” sez he.
Josiah is a pretty even-tempered man, but he had a dreadful habit when
we was first married, if any of my plans come out unfortunit, of sayin’,
“I told you so,” “I knew jest how it would be,” “You might ha’ known
better.” I am breakin’ him of it, fer I will not stand it. But, before
I had time to pursue my remarks any further, there came a knock at the
door. I went and opened it, and there stood Betsey Bobbet. I see in a
minute somethin’ was the matter of her; she looked as if she had been
cryin’, but I didn’t say anything about it till Josiah had started off.
Now, I always notice, Mr. Editor, that when one thing happens, ’most
always something more like it happens right away; good-luck generally
comes in batches and swarms, likewise sorrers; when company gets to
comin’, they will come in droves, and when I break a dish, I am pretty
certain to break more. Havin’ noticed this fer years, what follers didn’t
surprise me so much. Betsey looked so cast down, that, to kinder take her
mind off, I told her what a tower I had had with Miss Gowdey about my
magazine.
“Truly, this is a coinsidance,” sez she; “that is jest my trouble.” And
she took out of her pocket a magazine which was worse off than mine, fer,
whereas mine was cut clean with shears, hers seemed to be chawed up.
“See,” sez she. “It looks nice now, don’t it? Look at that cover; only
a few days ago, there was a lady on it, with a guitar in her hand. Who
could make out a lady now, with her head cut off, and her hands chawed to
bits? And, as fer the guitar, where is it?” sez she, wildly.
“It ain’t there,” sez I, in a tone of sympathy; her story struck a
vibratin’ cord in my sole.
“And look there,” sez she, turnin’ over the mangled leaves and holdin’ up
the tattered remains of the most danglin’ one. “Look there! If it was
any other leaf but the one my poetry was on, I wouldn’t care so much; but
there it is, tore right into the middle, and the baby has chawed up half
the page. I hope it will lay on its stomach like a flatiron,” sez she,
vindictively.
“The baby ain’t to blame; it is his mother,” sez I.
“I hope she’ll have to walk the house with him every night for a week,
barefoot, on the cold floor! I should be glad of it. Mebby she’d feed him
on borrered magazines agin. It does seem to me,” sez she, relapsin’ into
her usual manner, “that fate is cruel to me; it seems to me that I am
marked out for one of her victims that she aims her fatal arrers at, in
the novels of the poet:
‘I never tamed a dear gazelle,
But ’twas the first to run away.’
“This is the first piece of poetry I ever had printed in a magazine. I
thought I was happy when I had my first poetry printed in the _Gimlet_.
But my feelin’s wasn’t any more to be compared to what they are now—than
a small-sized cook stove to a roarin’ volcano. To have a piece of poetry
printed in a magazine was a pinakel I always thought would make me happy
to set on; and, when I got up there, I was happy—I was too happy,” sez
she, claspin’ her hands together. “Fate loves a shinin’ mark; he aimed
another arrer at me and it has struck me here,” sez she, layin’ her bony
hand upon the left breast of her brown alpaka bask.
“I was jest as careful of this book as if it was so much gold,” she
continued. “I have refused to lend it to as much as two dozen persons;
but Miss Briggs, she that was Celestine Peedick, wanted to take it. She
said a cousin of hers, a young man, was comin’ there a-visitin’, and
she wanted him to read it; he was a great case fer poetry, and was
real romantick and wanted to get a romantick wife. And she urged me so
to let her have it, I consented. And now look at it,” sez she; “and he
didn’t come, and Celestine had a letter from him that he was married and
couldn’t come.” She looked as if she would burst out cryin’ agin; and
so, to kinder get her mind off her trouble—not that I care a straw for
poetry—I spoke up and sez I:
“What is the poetry? I suppose you can read it out of the fragments.”
“Yes,” sez she, in a plaintive axent, “I could rehearse it without
anything to look at.” When anybody has had considerable trouble, they
don’t mind so much havin’ a little more.
So sez I: “Rehearse it.” And she rehearsed, as follows:
STANZAS ON DUTY.
BY BETSEY BOBBET.
Unless they do their duty see,
Oh! who would spread their sail
On matrimony’s cruel sea,
And face its angry gale?
Oh! Betsey Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
Shall horses calmly brook a halter,
Who over fenceless pastures stray?
Shall females be dragged to the altar
And down their freedom lay?
No! no! B. Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
Beware! beware! oh, rabid lover,
Who pines for intellect and beauty;
My heart is ice to all your over-
tures, unless I see my duty.
For Betsey Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
Come not with keys of rank and splendor,
My heart’s cold portals to unlock;
’Tis vain to search for feelin’s tender—
Too late you’ll find you’ve struck a rock.
For Betsey Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
’Tis vain for you to pine and languish;
I cannot soothe your bosom’s pain.
In vain are all your groans: your blandish-
ments, I warn you, are in vain;
For Betsey Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
I cannot stanch your bosom’s bleedin’,
Sometimes I am a yieldin’ one,
Sometimes I’m turned by tears and pleadin’;
But here you’ll find that I am stun.
Ah, yes! B. Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
You needn’t lay no underhanded
Plots to ketch me—men, desist,
Or in the dust you will be landed,
For to the last I will resist;
For Betsey Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
Fond men, their ain’t no use in kickin’
Against the pricks; you’ll only tear
Your feet, for I am bound on stickin’
To what I’ve said. Beware! beware!
For Betsey Bobbet I’ll remain,
Unless I see my duty plain.
“You see I have come out in my right name,” sez she, as she concluded.
“When a person gets famous, there ain’t no use in concealin’ their name
any longer; it looks affected.”
“You be a nateral,” says I to myself; “a nateral fool.” But I didn’t
speak it audible—outwardly, I was calm; fer there was still a gloomy
shadder broodin’ over her eyebrow, and I didn’t want to bruise her
lacerated feelin’s any further. Pretty soon she spoke up ag’in.
“What do you think of the poetry?” sez she.
That was a tryin’ time fer me. As a general thing, I don’t mince matters.
I won’t; but now, fer reasons named, I didn’t come right out, as I should
on more festive occasions. I kinder turned it off by sayin’ in a mild,
yet impressive tone: “Betsey, I believe you want to do your duty; and I
believe you will, if it is ever made known to you by anybody’s askin’
you.”
Sez she: “Josiah Allen’s wife, duty has always been my aim.”
Any further remarks was cut short by old Mr. Bobbet’s goin’ past, and
Betsey’s hollerin’ to him to ride home with him. And she went in such a
hurry, she left her magazine behind.
When Josiah got home, which was ’most night, he threw a magazine into my
lap, as I sot knittin’, and sez he: “I’ll bet forty-five cents against
nothin’ that you’ll lend it to some woman in less than a fortnit.” I
looked at him with my most collected and stiddy gaze, and sez I; “Josiah
Allen, do you consider me any of a lunytick?” He didn’t say nothin’, and
agin I inquired firmly, with my eyes bent on his: “Josiah Allen, do you
see any marks of luny in my glance?”
Sez he: “You are in your right mind; no trouble about that.”
“Wal, then,” sez I, “know all men”—there wasn’t any other man or woman
around but Josiah, but I began jest as solemn as if I was writin’ my
will—“know all men, that I, Josiah Allen’s wife, have stood it jest
as long as I will, and, as fer havin’ my books ravaged to pieces, as
they’ve been, I won’t. I, who set such a store by my magazines and was
jest as careful to keep ’em whole and clean as I was of my Sunday bonnet,
now, after all my pains, have got a lot of books on my hands so dirty
that, to discern the readin’, the strongest spectacles are powerless in
spots; and I have had to trapze all over the neighborhood to get their
mangled remains together, to mourn over, rememberin’ what they was. Thank
fortune, when I borrer anything, I know enough to take care of it. But my
books!” sez I, as the memory of my wrongs flooded my sole. “My books! Old
men have burnt ’em by holdin of ’em too near the light, old women have
peppered ’em with Scotch snuff, young men have sowed ’em with tobacco
and watered ’em with tobacco-juice, young women have greased ’em for
patterns, children have stuck the leaves together with molasses and pried
’em open with their tongues; they have been cut with shears, gnawed by
babies and worried by pups; they have been blackened with candle-snuff
and whitened with taller; and I have had to spend money for new ones, to
pay for their ravagin’ my other ones to pieces. And now,” sez I, layin’
my hand on the magazine in as impressive a manner as if I was takin’ my
oath on it, “now, anybody that gets my magazines will get ’em over my
prostrate form. If they want my magazine, they must subscribe for it.”
“Wal,” sez Josiah, who was standing with his back to the fire, warmin’
him, “I wish you’d get me a little somethin’ to eat; I should think it
was about supper-time.”
I rose and walked with an even and majestic step into my bed-room, put
the magazine into the under buro-draw, locked the draw and hung the key
over my bed, and then, with a resolute face, I calmly turned and hung on
the tea-kettle.