When we bought our farm there wus a house on it, jist acrost the road
from our’n; it wus middlin’ small, and dretful kinder run down and
shakey, and I had entirely gin up the idee of enybody’s livin’ there.
But all of a sudden, Josiah started up, and said he was goin’ to fix up
that house, and rent it. “He believed he could make piles of money out of
it, a-rentin’ it, and he wanted some neighbors.”
Says I, “Josiah Allen, you’d better let well enough alone. You’d better
let the whole house stay as it is,” says I, “There is werse neighbors
than them that is stayin’ in the old house now.”
“What do you mean, Samantha?” And his eyes showed the whites all round
’em, he was that surprised.
But I says, “There are werse neighbors, and more troublesome creeters in
this world, Josiah Allen, than peace, and quiet, and repose.”
“Oh, shaw!” says he. “Why can’t you talk common sense, if you have got
any.” And he went on in a firm, obstinate way. “I am determined to fix
up the house, and rent it. Wimmens never can see into business. They
havn’t got the brains for it. You hain’t to blame for it, Samantha; but
you haven’t got the head to see how profitable I am goin’ to make it. And
then, our nearest neighbors now live well on to a quarter of a mile away.
How neat it will be to have neighbors, right here, by us all the time,
day and night.” And he added, dreamily, “I love to neighbor, Samantha, I
love to neighbor, dearly.”
But I held firm and told him, “He’d better let well enough alone.” But
he wus sot as sot could be, and went on a-fixin’ the house, and it cost
him nearer a hundred dollars than it did anything else, besides lamin’
himself, and blisterin’ his hands to work on it himself, and fillin’ his
eyes with plaster, and gettin’ creaks in his back a-liftin’ ’round and
repairin’.
But he felt neat through it all. It seemed as if the more money he laid
out, and the werse he got hurt, the more his mind soared up a-thinkin’
how much money he wus goin’ to make a-rentin’ it, and what a beautiful
time he wus a-goin’ to have a-neighborin’.
Wall, jist as soon as the house wus done, he sot out to find some one
to occupy it, for that man couldn’t seem to wait a minute. I told him
to keep cool. Says I, “You’ll make money by it, if you do.” But no; he
couldn’t wait till somebody came to him, and kept inquirin’ ’round; and
one day he came home from Janesville tickled most to death, seemingly.
He’d rented the house to a Mr. Bamber; the bargain wus all made.
Says I, coldly, “Is it the Bamberses that used to live in Loon Town?”
“Yes,” says he. “And they are splendid folks, Samantha; and I have made a
splendid bargain; they are goin’ to give me fifty dollars a year for the
house and garden. What do you think now? I never should have known they
wus a-lookin’ for a house, if I hadn’t been a-enquirin’ round. What do
you think, now, about my keepin’ cool?”
Says I, mildly, but firmly, “My mind hain’t changed from what it wus more
formally.”
“Wall, what do you think, now, about my lettin’ the old house run down,
when I can make fifty dollars a year, clean gain, besides more’n three
times that in solid comfort, a-neighborin’.”
Says I, firm as a rock, “My mind hain’t changed, Josiah Allen, so much as
the width of a horse-hair.”
Says he, “I always said, and knew, that wimmin hadn’t got no heads. But
it is aggravatin’, it is awful aggravatin’, when enybody has made such
a bargain as I have, to not have enybody’s wife appreciate it. And I
should think it wus about time to have supper, if you are goin’ have any
to-night.”
I calmly rose, and put on the tea-kettle, and never disputed a word with
him about whether I had a head, or not. Good Lord: I knew I had one,
and what was the use of arguin’ about it? I never said a word, but I
kept a-thinkin’ I had heard of the Bamberses before. It had come right
straight to me: Miss Ebenezer Scwelz, she that was Nably Spink’s nephew’s
wife’s stepmother, Miss Bumper, lived neighbors to ’em, and she had told
me, Nably had, that them Bamberses wus shiftless creeters.
But the bargain wus all made, and there wuzn’t no use in saying anything,
and I knew if I should tell Josiah what I had heard, he’d only go to
arguin’ agin that I hadn’t no head. So I didn’t say nothin’, and the very
next day they moved in. They had been stayin’ a spell to her folks’es, a
little way beyond Janesville. They said the house they had been livin’ in
at Loon Town was so uncomfortable, they couldn’t stay in it a day longer.
But we heard afterward, Miss Scwelz heard right from Miss Bumpers’es own
lips, that they wus smoked out, the man that owned the house had to smoke
’em out to get rid of ’em.
Wall, as I said, they come—Mr. Bamber and his wife, and his wife’s sister
(she wus Irish), and the children. And, oh! How neat Josiah Allen did
feel. He wus over there before they had hardly got sot down, and offered
to do anything under the sun for ’em and offered ’em everything we had in
the house. I, myself, kep’ cool and cullected together. Though I treated
’em in a liberal way, and in the course of two or three days, I made ’em
a friendly call, and acted well toward ’em.
But instead of runnin’ over there the next day, and two or three times a
day, I made a practice of stayin’ to home considerable; and Josiah took
me to do for it. But I told him that “I treated them jist exactly as I
wanted them to treat me.” Says I, “a megum course is the best course to
pursue in nearly every course of life, neighborin’ especially,” says I.
“I begin as I can hold out. I lay out to be kind and friendly to ’em, but
I don’t intend to make it my home with ’em, nor do I want them to make it
their home with me.” Says I, “once in two or three days is enough, and
enough, Josiah Allen, is as good as a feast.”
“Wall,” says he, “if I ever enjoyed anything in this world, I enjoy
neighberin’ with them folks,” says he. “They think the world of me. It
beats all how they wership me. The childern talk to me so they don’t want
me out of their sight hardly a minute. Bamber and his wife says they
think it is in my looks. You know I _am_ pretty-lookin’, Samantha. They
say the baby will cry after me so quick. It beats all, what friends we
have got to be, I and the Bamberses, and it is aggravatin’, Samantha, to
think you don’t seem to feel toward ’em that strong friendship that I
feel.”
Says I, “Friendship, Josiah Allen, is a great word.” Says I, “True
friendship is the most beautiful thing on earth; it is love without
passion, tenderness without alloy. And,” says I, soarin’ up into the
realm of allegory, where, on the feathery wings of pure eloquence, I
fly frequent, “Intimacy hain’t friendship.” Says I, “Two men may sleep
together, year after year, on the same feather bed, and wake up in the
mornin’, and shake hands with each other, perfect strangers, made so
unbeknown to them. And feather beds, nor pillers, nor nothin’ can’t bring
’em no nigher to each other. And they can keep it up from year to year,
and lock arms and prominade together through the day, and not be no
nigher to each other. They can keep their bodies side by side, but their
souls, who can tackle ’em together, unless nature tackled ’em, unbeknown
to them? Nobody.
“And then agin two persons may meet, comin’ from each side of the world;
and they will look right through each other’s eyes, down into their
souls, and see each other’s image there; born so, born friends, entirely
unbeknown to them. Thousands of miles apart, and all the insperations of
heaven and earth; all the influence of life, education, joy and sorrow,
has been fitting them for each other (unbeknown to them); twin souls, and
they not knowin’ of it.”
“Speakin’ of twin——” says Josiah.
But I wus soarin’ too high to light down that minute; so I kep’ on,
though his interruption wus a-lowerin’ me down gradual.
Says I, “Be good and kind to everybody, and Mr. Bambers’es folks, as you
have opportunity; but before you make bosom friends of ’em, wait and see
if your soul speaks.” Says I, firmly, “Mine don’t in the case of the
Bamberses.”
“Speakin’ of twin,” says Josiah, agin, “Did you ever see so beautiful a
twin as Mr. Bambers’es twin is? What a pity they lost the mate to it!
Their ma says it is perfectly wonderful the way that babe takes to me.
I held it all the while she was ironin’ this forenoon. And the two boys
foller me ’round all day, tight to my heels, instead of their father.
Bamber says they think I am the prettiest man they ever see.”
Before I had time to say a word back, Bamber’s wife’s sister opened the
door and come in unexpected, and said, “that Mrs. Bamber wanted to borrow
the loan of ten pounds of side pork, some flour, the dish-kettle, and my
tooth-brush.”
I let ’em all go, for I wus determined to use ’em well, but I told
Josiah, after she went off with ’em, “that I did hate to lend my
tooth-brush, the worst kind.”
And Josiah ’most snapped my head off, and muttered about my not bein’
neighborly, and that I did not feel a mite about neighberin’, as he did.
And I made a vow, then and there, (inside of my mind), that I wouldn’t
say a word to Josiah Allen on the subject, not if they borrowed us out
of house and home. Thinkses I, I can stand it as long as he can; if they
spile our things, he has got to pay for new ones; if they waste our
property, he has got to lose it; if they spile our comfort he’s got to
stand it as well as I have; and knowin’ the doggy obstinacy of his sect,
I considered this great truth that the stiller I kep’, and the less I
said about ’em, the quicker he’d get sick of ’em; so I held firm. And
never let on to Josiah but what it wus solid comfort to me to have ’em
there, all the time, a’most; and not havin’ a minute I could call my own,
and havin’ ’em borrow everything under the sun that ever wus borrowed;
garden-sass of all kinds, and the lookin’-glass, groceries, vittles,
cookin’ utensils, stove pipe, a feather bed, bolsters, bed-clothes, and
the New Testament.
They even borrowed Josiah’s clothes. Why, Bamber wore Josiah’s best
pantaloons more than Josiah did. He got so, he didn’t act as if he
could ster out without Josiah’s best pantaloons. He’d keep a-tellin’
that he wus goin’ to get a new pair, but didn’t get ’em, and would hang
onto Josiah’s. And Josiah had to stay to home a number of times, jist
on that account. And then he’d borrowed Josiah’s galluses. Josiah had
got kinder run out of galluses, and hadn’t got but one pair of sound
ones. And Josiah would have to pin his pantaloons onto his vests, and
the pins would loose out, and it wus all Josiah could do to keep his
clothes on. It made it awful bad for him. I know, one day, when I had a
lot of company, I had to wink him out of the room a number of times, to
fix himself, so he would look decent. But all through it, I kep’ still
and never said a word. I see we wus loosin’ property fast, and had lost
every mite of comfort we had enjoyed, for there wus some on ’em there
every minute of the time, a’most, and some of the time two or three of
’em. Why, Mrs. Bamber used to come over and eat breakfast with us lots
of times. She’d say she felt so manger that she couldn’t eat nothin’ to
home, and she thought mebby my vittles would go to the place. And besides
losin’ our property and comfort, I’ll be hanged if I didn’t think,
sometimes, that I should lose my pardner by ’em, they worked him so. But
I held firm. Thinkses I, to myself, it must be that Josiah will get sick
of neighborin’, after awhile, and start ’em off. For the sufferin’s that
man endured could never be told or sung.
Why before they had been there a month, as I told Miss Scwelz, she was
to our house a-visitin’, and Josiah was in the buttery a-churnin’, and
I knew he wouldn’t hear, says I, “They have borrowed everything I have
got, unless it is Josiah.” And if you’ll believe it, before I had got the
words out of my mouth, Mr. Bamber’ses sister opened the door, and walked
in and asked me “If I could spare Mr. Allen to help stretch a carpet.”
And I whispered to Miss Scwelz, and says I, “if they hain’t borrowed the
last thing now, if they hain’t borrowed Josiah.” But I told the girl “to
take him in welcome.” (I was very polite to ’em, and meant to be, but
cool).
So I tuk holt and done the churnin’ myself, and let him go.
But I must stop now for I see Josiah a-comin’ across the field to supper,
and curius to tell, he’s always hungry for supper. Boys and husbands
allus is hungry. Another time I’ll tell what came of borrowin’ Josiah.
[THE END.]
[Illustration: MRS. WINSLOW’S SOOTHING SYRUP