When Josiah and me was to Ebenezer Spicer’s a-visitin’, Ebenezer told
us he did wish that we would stop and see his brother Lank, seein’
we had to pass right by his house. Melankton Spicer, Ebenezer’s twin
brother, married Ebenezer’s wife’s sister, makin’ ’em double and twisted
relations, as you may say.
And we told him that seein’ it was right on our way, we would stop a few
minutes. I told him I guessed we wouldn’t stay long, for I wuzn’t much
acquainted with ’em, though they had visited me years ago, and I had seen
her to Mother Smith’s once or twice.
Ebenezer told us mebbe we hadn’t better stay long, for they had hard
work to get along. He said Delilah Ann wasn’t a mite like his wife,
Malinda, only in one way—they both despised a mejum course and follored
their own way blindly and to the end of the chain. But their chains was
fur different. For whereas, Malinda, havin’ a husband that was well
off, would scrub and work every minute, with no need on’t; Delilah Ann,
havin’ married a poor man that needed help, wouldn’t work a mite. Hadn’t
been no help to him at all since they was married, only in talkin’ on
appearances, and havin’ seven girls. And they bein’ growed up, and their
ma not allowin’ ’em to do a spec of work, only to dress up to ketch a
bo. Lank had to work from mornin’ till night in the store where he was a
clerk, and then set up half of the night to copy papers for a lawyer, to
try to pay their milliner’s bills and the hired girls. But he couldn’t;
he was in debt to everybody. And he didn’t get no rest to home, for the
girls and their mother was teazin’ him every minute for gold bracelets,
and diamond rings and silk dresses. He said they lived poor and their
morals was all run down, Lank not havin’ been able to get enough ahead
to buy a Bible. He hadn’t nothin’ but the Pokraphy and a part of the
Old Testament, that had fell to him from his father. Fell so fur, that
all the old prophets had got tore to pieces, except Malachi, and he was
battered awfully.
Ebenezer said that Lank told him that he had hard work to bring up
children right and nothin’ but Pokraphy to go by. He said Lank told him
when he got his last month’s wages, he did mean to get enough ahead to
buy a Bible and a sack of flour; but when he got his pay, his wife said
she was sufferin’ for a new gauze head-dress and the seven girls had got
to have some bebinet neckties and new ear-rings. He said Delila Ann said,
after they had got these necessarys, then, if there was anything left
they would get a sack of flour and a Bible. But there wasn’t and so they
had to get along with the Pokraphy, and the second sort of flour. And he
said that workin’ so hard and farin’ so hard, Lank was most used up.
He said he wasn’t more’n two or three minutes older than he was, but
he looked as if he was seventy-nine years of age. And he was afraid he
wouldn’t stand it more’n several months longer, if things went on so.
I felt bad when Ebenezer was a-tellin’ us this. I felt sorry for Lank,
as sorry as could be. And I was awful indignant at Delila. These wus my
first two thoughts, and then it wusn’t probably more’n half a moment
before I thought to myself, mebbe here is a chance for me to shoot
another shot at old Emer, and win another victory in that cause of right.
I felt a feeling that I could advise Delila Ann for her good. And so I
spoke up, mildly, but with a firm and noble mean, on me, that we would
stop there for an hour or two.
This conversation took place the evenin’ previous to our departure from
Ebenezer’ses, but I did not forget it. And when we arrived at the village
where Lank lived, it being after ten o’clock, Josiah said he guessed he
would go right down to the store where he worked, so’s to see him and I
might go in and call on Delila Ann. A small white-headed boy, with two
breeches held up by one gallus, told me where they lived, the same boy
offerin’ to hitch my horse fer me.
It had been a number of years since I had seen Delila Ann and I didn’t
s’pose I should know her, Ebenezer said she had changed so. He said she
had that sort of anxious, haggard, dissatisfied, kinder sheepish, kinder
bold look, that folks always get by puttin’ on aperiences. I’ve hearn
and I believe it is as wearin’ a job as you can get into, to foller from
year to year. And Delila Ann havin’ been puttin’ ’em on (the aperiences)
for upwards of twenty years, was wore down, as Ebenezer said, to skin and
bone.
The hull house and furniture had the look it always wears when anybody
is engaged in the aperience business. A sort of gaudy and flashy cut,
dreadful thin and hazy look. The front door had it bad. The knob was
broke off; the latch was gone; two of the panels was ready to fall out,
besides a place to the bottom big enough for a cat to crawl under. It
rode back on one hinge and that was as shaky as shaky could be. There
didn’t seem to be anything whole and secure about the door, except the
key-hole. But they had a bran new bell on it and a new brass plate,
bearin’ Lank’s name in bold, noble letters, which, I s’pose, was a
comfort to the family and lifted ’em above the small afflictions of the
snow and rain that entered at will, and when it was a mind to.
The white-haired boy, with the solitary and lonesome gallus, says to me,
as he stood waitin’ for the ten-cent bill I wuz a-gettin’ for him out of
my pork-money: “That door needs mendin’ bad.”
I gave him his bill, and he started off and I was just a-musin’ over
his last words, and thinkin’ dreamily, that Lank’s best way would be to
take the key-hole and get a new door made to it, when the hired girl
came to the door. I could see, that by livin’ in a house devoted to the
aperiences, she, too, had ketched the same look. She had the same sort of
thin, hazy look onto her, besides bein’ in poor order as to flesh, real
bony and haggard. Her face was done up in an old green baize veil, for
the toothache.
I told her who I was and she seemed to be kinder frustrated and said
she’d go in and tell the family. Left me right there a-standin’ on my
feet; and I, not knowin’ how long she would be gone, thought I would
set down, for it always tires me to stand any length of time on my feet.
There was an elegant, imposin’ lookin’ chair set there, by the side of a
noble lookin’ table. But to my surprise, and almost mortification, when I
went to set down, I set right down through it the first thing. I ketched,
almost wildly, at the massive table to try to save myself, and that gave
way and split on my hands, as you may say, and fell right over onto me.
And then, I see it was made of rough, shackly boards, but upholstered
with a gorgeous red and yellow cotton spread, like the chair. They both
looked noble.
I gathered myself up and righted up the table as well as I could,
murmuring almost mechanically to myself:
“Put not your trust in princes, nor turkey red calico, Josiah Allen’s
wife. Set yourself not down upon them blindly, lest you be wearied and
faint in your mind and lame in your body.”
I was just a-rehearsin’ this to myself, when the hired girl came back,
and says I:
“I am glad you have come, for I don’t know but I should have brought the
hull house down in ruins onto me, if you hadn’t come jest as you did.”
And then she up and told me that that chair and table wasn’t made for
use, but jest for looks. She said they wanted a table and a reception
chair in the hall, and not bein’ able to buy a sound one, they had made
’em out of boards they had by ’em.
“Well,” says I, mildly, “I went right down through the chair, the first
thing; it skint me.” I got along through the hall first-rate after this,
only I most fell twice. For the floor being carpeted with wall-paper,
varnished to be oil cloth aperiently, and the water and snow comin’ in so
free at the front door, it had soaked it all up in spots, and bein’ tore
up in places, and the varnish makin’ it kinder stiff, it was as bad as a
man-trap to ketch folks’ feet in and throw ’em.
Jest before we got to the parlor door, I see that, in the agitation of
body and mind I had experienced since I came in, I had dropped one of
my cuff buttons, nice, black ones, that I had purchased jest before we
started, at an outlay of thirty-seven and a half cents. And the hired
girl said she would go back and look for it.
And while she was a-lookin’, the plasterin’ bein’ off considerable, and
the partition jest papered over, I heard ’em a-sayin’, and they seemed to
be a-cryin’ as they said it:
“What did she want to come here for? I should think she would know enough
to stay away!”
“To think we have got to be tormented by seein’ her!” says another voice.
“I hate to have her come as bad as you do, children,” says another voice
that I knew was Delila’s. “But we must try to bear up under it. She won’t
probably stay more than two or three hours.”
“I thay, I hope she won’t sthay two minith,” says a lispin’ voice.
“We won’t let her stay,” says a little fine voice.
I declare for’t, if it hadn’t been for my principles and my vow, I
would have turned right round in my tracks. But I remembered that it
wusn’t the most pious folks that needed the most preachin’, and if ever
premiscues advisin’ seemed to be called for, it was now. And jest as I
was a-rememberin’ this, the hired girl came back.
The minute she opened that parlor door, I see that I had got into the
house of mournin’. The room, which resembled the hall and front door,
as if they was three twins, seemed to be full of baraze delaine and
bebinet lace, and thin ribbon, all bathed in tears and sobs. When I took
a closer look, I see there was eight or nine wimmen under the gauzes, and
frizzles, and folderols and et cetery. Some of ’em had dime novels in
their hands and one of ’em held a white pup.
The moment I entered, every one of ’em jumped up and kissed me, and
throwed their arms right round me. Some of the time I had as many as six
or seven arms at a time round me in different places. And every one was
a-tellin’ me in awful, warm tones, how too glad, how highly tickled they
was to see me. They never was so carried away with enjoyment before in
their hull lives, they said.
And says four of ’em, speakin’ up, tenderly, bendin’ their eight eyes,
beseechingly, upon my specks, “You will stay a week with us, won’t you?”
“One week!” says the little fine voice. “That hain’t nothin’; you must
stay a month.”
“We won’t let you off a day sooner,” says six warm voices, awful warm.
“Sthay all thummer, do,” says the lispin’ voice.
“Yes, do!” says the hull eight.
And then Delila Ann throwed both her arms round my neck; and says she,
“Oh, if you could only stay with us always, how happy, happy, we should
be.”
And then she laid her head right down on my shoulder, and began to sob,
and weep, and cry. I was a’most sickened to the death by their behavior
and actin’, but the voice of sorrow always appeals to my heart. And I see
in half a minute what the matter was—Lank had gin out, had killed himself
a-workin’. And though I knew she was jest as much to blame as if she was
made of arsenic, and Lank had swallowed her, still, pity and sympathy
makes the handsomest, shinyest kind of varnish to cover up folks’ faults
with, and Delila Ann shone with it from head to foot, as she lay there on
my neck, wettin’ my best collar with her tears, and almost tearin’ the
lace offen it with her deep windy sithes. I pitied Delila Ann from pretty
near the bottom of my heart. I forgot, for the time bein’, her actin’ and
behavin’. I felt bad, and says I:
“Then he is gone, Delila Ann, I feel to sympathize with you, though I
never seen him. I am sorry for you as I can be sorry.”
“Yes!” says she, pretty near choked up with emotion; “He is gone; we have
lost him. You don’t know how we loved him. It seems as if our hearts will
break.”
I sithed; I thought of my Josiah; and I says, in tremblin’ tones: “When
love is lost out of a heart that has held it, oh, what a soreness there
must be in that heart; what an emptiness; what a lonesomeness. But,”
says I, tryin’ to comfort her, “He who made our hearts, knows all about
’em. His love can fill all the deep lonesome places in ’em, and hearts
that he dwells in will never break. He keeps ’em; they are safe with an
eternal safety.”
But all the while I was pourin’ these religious consolations onto her,
this thought kept a-governin’ me, “What if it was my Josiah?” And while I
held Delila Ann up with my left arm (for she seemed dreadful withy, and I
expected nothin’ less than she would crumple right down on my hands), I
held my white cotton handkerchief in my right hand and cried onto it for
pretty nigh half a minute. I felt bad. Dretful. I thought of Josiah; and
I well knew that, though the world held many a man that weighed more by
the steelyards, and was far more hefty in mind, still, life without him
would be like a lamp without a wick, or the world without a sun.
All the seven girls was a sobbin’, and a number of ’em sithed out, “Oh,
it does seem as if our hearts must break right in two.”
Then I spoke up in tremblin’ tones: “If you are willin’, Delila Ann, it
would be a melancholy satisfaction to me to see the corpse.”
The seven girls led the way, sobbin’ as if their hearts would break
right in two, and I followed on, kinder holdin’ up Delila Ann, expectin’
every minute she would faint away on my hands. We was a mournful lookin’
procession. They led the way into the next room, and led me up to a sofy,
upholstered with gorgeous pillar cotton, and there, on a cushion, lay a
dead pup.