HOW true it is that though you may move the body round from place to
place, you can’t move round or move away from the emotions of the soul
that are firm and stabled.
You can change your climate, you can repair your dwellin’ house, you can
fill your teeth and color your hair, but you can’t make a ardent,
enthusiastic man into a sedate and stiddy one, or chain down a ambitious
one and make him forget his goles.
Now, Josiah Allen had been happy as a king ever sence he had come South
to our son’s beautiful home.
He had seemed to enjoy the change of scene, the balmy climate, and the
freedom from care and labor.
But that very freedom from toil, that very onbroken repose wuz what give
him and me a sore trial, as you can see by the incident I will tell and
recapitulate to you.
You see, Josiah Allen, not havin’ any of his usual work to do, and not
bein’ any hand to sew on fine sewin’, or knit tattin’, or embroider
tidies and splashers, etc., he read a sight—read from mornin’ till night
almost.
And with his ardent, enthusiastic nater he got led off “by many windy
doctrines,” as the text reads.
He would be rampant as rampant could be on first one thing and then
another—on the tariff, the silver bill, and silo’s, and air ships, etc.,
etc.
And he would air all his new doctrines onto me, jest as a doctor would
try all his new medicines on his wife to see if they wuz dangerous or
not. Wall, I spoze it wuz right, bein’ the pardner who took him for
worse as well as better.
And for family reasons I ever preferred that he should ventilate his
views in my indulgent ear before he let ’em loose onto society.
And one mornin’, havin’ read late the night before and bein’ asleep when
I come to bed, he begun promulgatin’ a new idee to me as he stood by the
washstand a washin’ him in the early mornin’ sunshine.
He wuz full of enthusiasm and eagerness, and did not brook anything of
the beautiful mornin’ scene that wuz spread out in the open winder
before him.
The cool, sweet mornin’ air a comin’ in through the clusters of climbin’
roses, and through the tall boughs of a big old orange-tree that stood
between him and the sunshine.
Its glossy green leaves wuz new washed by a shower that had fell over
night, and it looked like a bride decked for her husband, with garlands
of white and pink posies, and anon the round, shinin’ globes of the ripe
fruit hangin’ like apples of gold right in amongst the sweet blows and
green leaves.
And way beyend the fields and orchards of Belle Fanchon stood the
tree-crowned mountain, and the sun wuz jest over the top, so the
pine-trees stood out dressed in livin’ green aginst the glowin’ sky.
It wuz a fair seen, a fair seen.
But my companion heeded it not. He had read some eloquent and powerful
speech the evenin’ before, and his mind had started off on a new tact.
His ambition was rousted up agin to do and to dare, as it had been so
many times before (see accounts of summer boarders, tenants, political
honors, etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth).
And sez he, a holdin’ the towel dreamily in his hands, “Samantha, my
mind is made up.”
I had not roze up yet, and I sez calmly from my piller, where I lay a
drinkin’ in the fair mornin’ scene:
“It wuzn’t a very hefty job, wuz it?”
Sez he, with about as much agin dignity as he had used before:
“You can comment on the size of my mind all you want to, but you will
probable think different about the heft of it before I get through with
the skeme I am jest about to embark on.”
And he waved the towel some like a banner and wiped his whiskers out in
a aggressive way, and stood up his few hairs over his foretop in a sort
of a helmet way, and I see by his axent and demeanors that he really wuz
in earnest about sunthin’ or other, and I beset him to tell me what it
wuz. For I am deathly afraid of his plans, and have been for some time.
But he wouldn’t tell me for quite a spell. But at last as he opened the
chamber-door for a minute, and the grateful odor of the rich coffee and
the tender, brown steak come up from below, and wuz wafted into his
brain and gently stimulated it, he sort o’ melted down and told me all
about it.
He wanted to jine the Pan American Congress as a delegate and a worker.
Sez he, “Samantha, I want to go and be a Pan American. I want to like a
dog.”
“What for?” sez I. “What do you want to embark into this enterprise for,
Josiah Allen?”
“Wall,” sez he, “I will tell you what for. I want to enter into this
project because I am fitted for it,” sez he, “I have got the intellect
for it, and I have got the pans.”
Wall, I see there wuz some truth in this latter statement. For the
spring before, nuthin’ to do but Josiah had to go and get pans instead
of pails to use in a new strip of sugar bush we had bought on.
I wanted him not to, but he wouldn’t give in. And of course they wuz so
onhandy he couldn’t use ’em much of any, and there we wuz left with our
pans on our hands—immense ones, fourteen-quart pans. The idee!
Wall, the pans wuzn’t of any earthly use to us, only I could make a few
on ’em come handy about the house, and I had give a few on ’em to the
girls, Tirzah Ann and Maggie.
And then they wuz packed away up on the store-room shelves—most seven
dozen of ’em; and truly, take them with our dairy pans, why I do spoze
we had more pans than anybody for miles round either way.
[Illustration:
“AND I HAVE GOT THE PANS.”
]
Wall, he wuz jest bound to go; he said he felt a call. Sez he, “There is
things a goin’ on there amongst them Pan Americans that ought to be
broke up; and,” sez he, “they need a firm, noble, manly mind to grapple
with ’em. Most the hull talk of all of ’em that come from different
countries is about our pleasant relations with one another; and they own
up that their chief aim is to draw our relations closter together.
Samantha, that has got to be stopped.”
And he went on with a look of stern determination onto his eyebrow that
it seldom wore.
“No man begun life with a firmer determination than I did to do well by
the relations on your side, and as for the relations on my own side, I
laid out to jest pamper ’em if I had the chance; but,” sez he, as a
gloomy shadder settled down onto his countenance, “enuff is enuff. I
have had Lodema Trumble fourteen weeks at one hitch; I have had Cousin
Peter on my side, and Cousin Melinda Ann on yours, and aunts of all
sorts and sizes, and have been grandsoned till I am sick on’t, and
uncled till I despise the name; and as for cousinin’, why I’ve had ’em,
first, and second, and third, and fourth, up to sixth and seventh; I
have been scolded at, complained on, groaned over, and prayed at, and
sung to, and tromboned, and pickelowed, and nagged, and fluted, and
preached at—“
Sez I sternly, “Don’t you go to sayin’ a word aginst John Richard Allen,
that angel man.”
“I hain’t said nothin’ aginst that angel man, have I? Dumb him, he’d
talk anybody to death.”
“What are you doin’ now, this minute, Josiah Allen?”
“I am a talkin’ sense, hard horse sense, and you know that I have been
fifed, and base-drummed, and harrowed, and worried, and eat up, and
picked to pieces down to my very bones by relations on both of our two
sides, and I have stood it like a man. I hain’t never complained one
word.”
I groaned aloud here at this awful story.
“Wall, I hain’t never complained much of any. But when the Nation takes
it in hand and wants to draw our relations closter and closter, then I
will interfere. For that is their main talk and effect, from what I can
make out from this speech,” sez he, a pintin’ to a newspaper.
“I will interfere, Samantha Allen, and you can’t keep me from it. I will
stop it if a mortal man can. Anyway, I will boldly wade in and tell ’em
my harrowin’ experience, and do all I can to break it up. For as I told
you, Samantha Allen, I have had more experience with relations than any
other human bein’ on the face of the globe; I have got the intellect and
I have got the pans.”
Oh, how I did have to talk to Josiah Allen to try to diswaide him from
this rash enterprise!
“Why,” sez I, “this meetin’ hain’t a goin’ on now; you are mistook.”
But he knew he wuz in the right on’t. And anyway, he said he could tell
his trials to some of the high officers of that enterprise and influence
’em.
“I want to influence somebody, Samantha,” sez he, “before it is too
late.”
And so he kep’ on; he didn’t say nuthin’ before our son and daughter,
but every time he would get me alone, whether it wuz in the seclusion of
our bed-chamber, or in a buggy, or on the beautiful grounds of Belle
Fanchon, then he would begin and talk, and talk, and talk.
The family never mistrusted what wuz a goin’ on. Lots of times to the
table, or anywhere, when the subject came round anywhere nigh to that
that wuz uppermost in his brain, he would give me a wink, or step on my
foot under the table.
[Illustration:
“I AM NEEDED THERE.”
]
They never noticed the wink, and their feet didn’t feel the crunch of
his boot toe—no, I bore it in silence and alone.
For how could they see the tall mountain peaks of ambition that loomed
up in front of that peaceful, bald-headed man—precipitous mounts that he
wuz in fancy scalin’, with the eyes of a admirin’ world lookin’ up to
him?
No; how little can them a settin’ with us round the same table see the
scenes that is passin’ before the mental vision of each. No, they can’t
do it; the human breast hain’t made with a winder in it, or even a swing
door.
No; I alone knew what wuz a passin’ and a goin’ on in that beloved
breast.
To me, as he always had, he revealed the high bubbles he wuz a throwin’
up over his head, and had always throwed ever and anon, and even
oftener, bubbles wrought out of the foamin’ suds of hope and ambition,
and propelled upwards out of the long-stailed pipe of his fancy, floated
by the gusty wind of his vain efforts.
And it wuz to me he turned for comfort and solace when them bubbles bust
over his head in a damp drizzle (metafor).
But to resoom and continue on.
He talked, and he talked, and he talked; he said he wuz bound to start
for Washington, D. C.
Sez I, “Are you crazy?”
Sez he, “It hain’t no further from here than it is from Jonesville, and
I am needed there.”
Sez he, “I am goin’ there to offer my services as a International
Delegate, as a Delegate Extraordinary,” sez he.
And I sez, “I should think as much; I should think you would be a
extraordinary one.”
“Wall,” sez he, “in national crysisses they have delegates by that
name—I have read of ’em.”
[Illustration:
“THE BUTTER-MAKER UP IN ZOAR.”
]
“Wall,” sez I, “they couldn’t find a more extraordinary one than you are
if they combed the hull country over with a rubber comb.”
Wall, the upshot of the matter wuz that I had to call in the help of
Thomas Jefferson. I knew he wuz all in the family and would hush it up,
jest as much as I would.
He interfered jest as his father wuz a packin’ his portmanty to start
for Washington, D. C., to offer his services as a extraordinary
delegate, and set up as a Pan American.
Thomas J. argued with his Pa for more than a hour. He brung up papers to
convince him he wuz in the wrong on’t. He argued deep, and bein’ a
lawyer by perfession, he knew how to talk rapid and fluent. And finally,
after a long time, by our two united efforts, we quelled him down, and
he onpacked his shirt and nightcap from his portmanty and settled down
agin into a private citizen.
And owin’ to Thomas J.’s efforts and mine, undertook at once by letter
(for we feared the effects of delay), we sold the most of them pans at a
good price to the butter-maker up in Zoar, and a letter wuz writ to Ury
and Philury to deliver ’em.
So, some good come out of the evil of my skair and my pardner’s skeme.
[Illustration:
“JOSIAH GIVE UP.”
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------