I believe there haint nothin’ that will take the expression out of
anybody’s eyes, like havin’ poetry read for a hour and a half, unless it
is to have your head screwed back into a pair of tongs, and be told to
look at nothin’ and wink at it as much as you are a mind to. Under both
of these circumstances, it didn’t suprise me a mite that one of my eyes
was took blind. But as Mr. Gansey said as he looked admirin’ly on it,
with the exception of that one blind eye, it was a perfect and strikin’
picture. I paid him his dollar and started off home, and I hope now that
Josiah and the children will be satisfied.
[Illustration: THE PICTURE.]
OUR SURPRIZE PARTIES.
About one week after this picture eppysode, there was a surprise party
appointed. They had been havin’ ’em all winter, and the children had been
crazy to have me go to ’em--everybody went, old and young, but I held
back. Says I: “I don’t approve of ’em, and I won’t go.”
But finally they got their father on their side; says he: “It won’t hurt
you Samantha, to go for once.”
Says I: “Josiah, the place for old folks is to home; and I don’t believe
in surprise parties anyway, I think they are perfect nuisances. It stands
to reason if you want to see your friends, you can invite ’em, and if
anybody is too poor to bake a cake or two, and a pan of cookies, they
are too poor to go into company at all.” Says I: “I haint proud, nor
never was called so, but I don’t want Tom, Dick and Harry, that I never
spoke to in my life, feel as if they was free to break into my house at
any time they please.” Says I: “it would make me feel perfectly wild, to
think there was a whole drove of people, liable to rush in here at any
minute, and I won’t rush into other people’s housen.”
“It would be fun, mother,” says Thomas J.; “I should love to see you and
Deecon Gowdey or old Bobbet, playin’ wink ’em slyly.”
“Let ’em wink at me if they dare to,” says I sternly; “let me catch ’em
at it. I don’t believe in surprise parties,” and I went on in about as
cold a tone as they make. “Have you forgot how Mrs. Gowdey had her parlor
lamp smashed to bits, and a set of stun china? Have you forgot how four
or five stranger men got drunk to Peedicks’es, and had to be carried
up stairs and laid out on her spare bed? Have you forgot how Celestine
Wilkins fell with her baby in her arms, as she was catchin’ old Gowdey,
and cracked the little innocent creeter’s nose? Have you forgot how
Betsey Bobbet lost out her teeth a runnin’ after the editor of the Augur,
and he stepped on ’em and smashed ’em all to bits? Have you forgot these
coincidences?” Says I: “I don’t believe in surprise parties.”
“No more do I,” says Josiah; “but the children feel so about our goin’,
sposen’ we go, for once! No livin’ woman could do better for children
than you have by mine, Samantha, but I don’t suppose you feel exactly as
I do about pleasin’ ’em, it haint natteral you should.”
Here he knew he had got me. If ever a woman wanted to do her duty by
another woman’s children, it is Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was
Smith. Josiah knew jest how to start me; men are deep. I went to the very
next party, which was to be held two miles beyond Jonesville; they had
had ’em so fast, they had used up all the nearer places. They had heard
of this family, who had a big house, and the women had been to the same
meetin’ house with Betsey Bobbet two or three times, and she had met her
in a store a year before, and had been introduced to her, so she said she
felt perfectly free to go. And as she was the leader it was decided on.
They went in two big loads, but Josiah and I went in a cutter alone.
We got started ahead of the loads, and when we got to the house we see it
was lit up real pleasant, and a little single cutter stood by the gate.
We went up to the door and knocked, and a motherly lookin’ woman with a
bunch of catnip in her hand, came to the door.
“Good evenin’,” says I, but she seemed to be a little deaf, and didn’t
answer, and I see, as we stepped in, through a door partly open, a room
full of women.
“Good many have got here,” says I a little louder.
“Yes, a very good doctor,” says she.
“What in the world!”--I begun to say in wild amaze.
“No, it is a boy.”
I turned right round, and laid holt of Josiah; says I, “Start this
minute, Josiah Allen, for the door.” I laid holt of him, and got him to
the door, and we never spoke another word till we was in the sleigh, and
turned round towards home; then says I,
“Mebby you’ll hear to _me_, another time, Josiah.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so agravatin’,” says he.
Jest then we met the first load, where Tirzah Ann and Thomas Jefferson
was, and we told ’em to “turn round, for they couldn’t have us, they had
other company.” So they turned round. We had got most back to Jonesville,
when we met the other load; they had tipped over in the snow, and as we
drove out most to the fence to get by ’em, Josiah told ’em the same we
had the other load.
Says Betsey Bobbet, risin’ up out of the snow with a buffalo skin on her
back, which made her look wild,
“Did they say we _must not_ come?”
“No, they didn’t say jest that,” says Josiah. “But they don’t want you.”
“Wall then, my deah boys and girls,” says she, scramblin’ into the
sleigh. “Let us proceed onwards, if they did not say we _should not_
come.”
Her load went on, for her brother, Shakespeare Bobbet, was the driver.
How they got along I haint never enquired, and they don’t seem over free
to talk about it. But they kep’ on havin’ ’em, most every night. Betsey
Bobbet as I said was the leader, and she led ’em once into a house where
they had the small pox, and once where they was makin’ preparations for
a funeral. Somehow Tirzah and Thomas Jefferson seemed to be sick of ’em,
and as for Josiah, though he didn’t say much, I knew he felt the more.
This coinsidense took place on Tuesday night, and the next week a Monday
I had had a awful day’s work a washin’, and we had been up all night the
night before with Josiah, who had the new ralegy in his back. We hadn’t
one of us slept a wink the night before, and Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah
Ann had gone to bed early. It had been a lowery day, and I couldn’t hang
out my calico clothes, and so many of ’em was hung round the kitchen on
lines and clothes bars, and nails, that Josiah and I looked as if we
was a settin’ in a wet calico tent. And what made it look still more
melancholy and sad, I found when I went to light the lamp, that the
kerosene was all gone, and bein’ out of candles, I made for the first
time what they call a “slut,” which is a button tied up in a rag, and put
in a saucer of lard; you set fire to the rag, and it makes a light that
is better than no light at all, jest as a slut is better than no woman at
all; I suppose in that way it derived its name. But it haint a dazzlin’
light, nothin’ like so gay and festive as gas.
I, beat out with work and watchin’, thought I would soak my feet before
I went to bed, and so I put some water into the mop pail, and sot by the
stove with my feet in it. The thought had come to me after I got my
night-cap on. Josiah sot behind the stove, rubbin’ some linament onto his
back; he had jest spoke to me, and says he,
“I believe this linament makes, my back feel easier, Samantha, I hope I
shall get a little rest to-night.”
Says I, “I hope so too, Josiah.” And jest as I said the words, without
any warning the door opened, and in come what seemed to me at the time to
be a hundred and 50 men, wimmen, and children, headed by Betsey Bobbet.
Josiah, so wild with horror and amazement that he forgot for the time
bein’ his lameness, leaped from his chair, and tore so wildly at his
shirt that he tore two pieces right out of the red flannel, and they
shone on each shoulder of his white shirt like red stars; he then backed
up against the wall between the back door and the wood box. I rose up and
stood in the mop pail, too wild with amaze to get out of it, for the same
reason heedin’ not my night-cap.
“We have come to suprize you,” says Betsey Bobbet, sweetly.
I looked at ’em in speechless horror, and my tongue clove to the roof of
my mouth; no word did I speak, but I glared at ’em with looks which I
suppose filled ’em with awe and dread, for Betsey Bobbet spoke again in
plaintive accents,
“Will you not let us suprize you?”
Then I found voice, and “No! no!” says I wildly. “I won’t be suprized!
you sha’n’t suprize us to-night! We won’t be suprized! Speak, Josiah,”
says I, appealin’ to him in my extremity. “Speak! tell her! will we be
suprized to-night?”
“No! no!” says he in firm, decided, warlike tones, as he stood backed up
against the wall, holdin’ his clothes on--with his red flannel epaulettes
on his shoulders like a officer, “no, we won’t be suprized!”
“You see, deah friends,” says she to the crowd, “she will not let us
suprize her, we will go.” But she turned at the door, and says she in
reproachful accents, “May be it is right and propah to serve a old friend
and neighbah in this way--I have known you a long time, Josiah Allen’s
wife.”
“I have known you plenty long enough,” says I, steppin’ out of the pail,
and shettin’ the door pretty hard after ’em.
Josiah came from behind the stove pushin’ a chair in front of him, and
says he,
“Darn suprize parties, and darn--”
“Don’t swear, Josiah, I should think you was bad enough off without
swearin’--”
“I _will_ darn Betsey Bobbet, Samantha. Oh, my back!” he groaned, settin’
down slowly, “I can’t set down nor stand up.”
“You jumped up lively enough, when they come in,” says I.
[Illustration: THE SURPRISE PARTY.]
“Throw that in my face, will you? What could I du? And there is a pin
stickin’ into my shoulder, do get it out, Samantha, it has been there all
the time, only I haint sensed it till now.”
“Wall,” says I in a kinder, soothin tone, drawin’ it out of his shoulder,
where it must have hurt awfully, only he hadn’t felt it in his greater
troubles--“Less be thankful that we are as well off as we be. Betsey
might have insisted on stopin’. I will rub your shoulders with the
linament, and I guess you will feel better; do you suppose they will be
mad?”
“I don’t know, nor I don’t care, but I hope so,” says he.
And truly his wish come to pass, for Betsey was real mad; the rest didn’t
seem to mind it. But she was real short to me for three days. Which shows
it makes a difference with her who does the same thing, for they went
that night right from here to the Editor of the Augur’s. And it come
straight to me from Celestine Wilkins, who was there, that he turned ’em
out doors, and shet the door in their faces.
The way it was, his hired girl had left him that very day, and one of
the twins was took sick with wind colic. He had jest got the sick baby
to sleep, and laid it in the cradle, and had gin the little well one
some playthings, and set her down on the carpet, and he was washin’ the
supper dishes, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, and a pink bib-apron
on that belonged to his late wife. They said he had jest finished, and
was wringin’ out his dishcloth, when he heard a awful screamin’ from the
well twin, and he rushed out with his dishcloth hangin’ over his arm,
and found that she had swallowed a side-thimble; he ketched her up, and
spatted her back, and the thimble flew out half way across the floor. She
screamed, and held her breath, and the sick one waked up, and sot up in
the cradle and screamed fearfully, and jest then the door bust open, and
in come the suprize party headed by Betsey Bobbet. They said that he,
half crazy as he was, told Betsey that “if she didn’t head ’em off that
minute, he would prosecute the whole of ’em.” Some of ’em was mad about
it, he acted so threat’nin’, but Betsey wasn’t, for in the next week’s
Augur these verses came out:
IT IS SWEET TO FORGIVE.
It is sweet to be--it is sweet to live,
But sweeteh the sweet word “forgive;”
If harsh, loud words should spoken be,
Say “Soul be calm they come from he--
When he was wild with toil and grief,
When colic could not find relief;
Such woe and cares should have sufficed,
Then, he should not have been surprized.”
When twins are well, and the world looks bright,
To be surprized, is sweet and right,
But when twins are sick, and the world looks sad,
To be surprized is hard and bad,
And when side thimbles swallowed be,
How can the world look sweet to he--
Who owns the twin--faih babe, heaven bless it,
Who hath no own motheh to caress it.
Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above,
Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love.
My own heart runs o’er with tenderness,
But its deah father tries to do his best,
But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand,
Oh! how he needs a helping hand.
Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown,
It is sad for a deah man to be alone.
[Illustration]
A DAY OF TROUBLE.
Sugerin’ time come pretty late this year, and I told Josiah, that I
didn’t believe I should have a better time through the whole year, to
visit his folks, and mother Smith, than I should now before we begun to
make sugar, for I knew no sooner had I got that out of the way, than it
would be time to clean house, and make soap. And then when the dairy work
come on, I knew I never should get off. So I went. But never shall I
forget the day I got back. I had been gone a week, and the childern bein’
both off to school, Josiah got along alone. I have always said, and I say
still, that I had jest as lives have a roarin’ lion do my house-work, as
a man. Every thing that could be bottom side up in the house, was.
I had a fortnight’s washin’ to do, the house to clean up, churnin’ to do,
and bakin’; for Josiah had eat up everything slick and clean, the buttery
shelves looked like the dessert of Sarah. Then I had a batch of maple
sugar to do off, for the trees begun to run after I went away and Josiah
had syruped off--and some preserves to make, for his folks had gin me
some pound sweets, and they was a spilein’. So it seemed as if everything
come that day, besides my common house-work--and well doth the poet
say--“That a woman never gets her work done up,” for she don’t.
Now when a man ploughs a field, or runs up a line of figgers, or writes
a serming, or kills a beef critter, there it is done--no more to be
done over. But sposen’ a woman washes up her dishes clean as a fiddle,
no sooner does she wash ’em up once, than she has to, right over and
over agin, three times three hundred and 65 times every year. And the
same with the rest of her work, blackin’ stoves, and fillin’ lamps, and
washin’ and moppin’ floors, and the same with cookin’. Why jest the idee
of paradin’ out the table and tea-kettle 3 times 3 hundred and 65 times
every year is enough to make a woman sweat. And then to think of all the
cookin’ utensils and ingredients--why if it wuzzn’t for principle, no
woman could stand the idee, let alone the labor, for it haint so much the
mussle she has to lay out, as the strain on her mind.
Now last Monday, no sooner did I get my hands into the suds holt of one
of Josiah’s dirty shirts, than the sugar would mount up in the kettle and
sozzle over on the top of the furnace in the summer kitchen--or else the
preserves would swell up and drizzle over the side of the pan on to the
stove--or else the puddin’ I was a bakin’ for dinner would show signs
of scorchin’, and jest as I was in the heat of the warfare, as you may
say, who should drive up but the Editor of the Agur. He was a goin’ on
further, to engage a hired girl he had hearn of, and on his way back, he
was goin’ to stop and read that poetry, and eat some maple sugar; and he
wanted to leave the twins till he come back.
Says he, “They won’t be any trouble to you, will they?” I thought of the
martyrs, and with a appearance of outward composure, I answered him in a
sort of blind way; but I won’t deny that I had to keep a sayin’, ‘John
Rogers! John Rogers’ over to myself all the time I was ondoin’ of ’em,
or I should have said somethin’ I was sorry for afterwards. The poetry
woried me the most, I won’t deny.
After the father drove off, the first dive the biggest twin made was
at the clock, he crep’ up to that, and broke off the pendulum, so it
haint been since, while I was a hangin’ thier cloaks in the bedroom. And
while I was a puttin’ thier little oversocks under the stove to dry, the
littlest one clim’ up and sot down in a pail of maple syrup, and while I
was a wringin’ him out, the biggest one dove under the bed, at Josiah’s
tin trunk where he keeps a lot of old papers, and come a creepin’ out,
drawin’ it after him like a hand-sled. There was a gography in it, and a
Fox’es book of martyrs, and a lot of other such light reading, and I let
the twins have ’em to recreate themselves on, and it kep’ ’em still most
a minute.
I hadn’t much more’n got my eye off’en that Fox’es book of Martyrs--when
there appeared before ’em a still more mournful sight, it was Betsey
Bobbet come to spend the day.
I murmured dreamily to myself “John Rogers”--But that didn’t do, I had to
say to myself with firmness--“Josiah Allen’s wife, haint you ashamed of
yourself, what are your sufferin’s to John Rogers’es? Think of the agony
of that man--think of his 9 children follerin’ him, and the one at the
breast, what are your sufferin’s compared to his’en?” Then with a brow of
calm I advanced to meet her. I see she had got over bein’ mad about the
surprise party, for she smiled on me once or twice, and as she looked at
the twins, she smiled 2 times on each of ’em, which made 4 and says she
in tender tones,
“You deah little motherless things.” Then she tried to kiss ’em. But the
biggest one gripped her by her false hair, which was flax, and I should
think by a careless estimate, that he pulled out about enough to make
half a knot of thread. The little one didn’t do much harm, only I think
he loosened her teeth a little, he hit her pretty near the mouth, and I
thought as she arose she slipped ’em back in thier place. But she only
said,
“Sweet! sweet little things, how ardent and impulsive they are, so like
thier deah Pa.”
She took out her work, and says she, “I have come to spend the day. I saw
thier deah Pa bringin’ the deah little twins in heah, and I thought maybe
I could comfort the precious little motherless things some, if I should
come over heah. If there is any object upon the earth, Josiah Allen’s
wife, that appeals to a feelin’ heart, it is the sweet little children
of widowers. I cannot remember the time when I did not want to comfort
them, and thier deah Pa’s. I have always felt that it was woman’s highest
speah, her only mission to soothe, to cling, to smile, to coo. I have
always felt it, and for yeahs back it has been a growin’ on me. I feel
that you do not feel as I do in this matter, you do not feel that it is
woman’s greatest privilege, her crowning blessing, to soothe lacerations,
to be a sort of a poultice to the noble, manly breast when it is torn
with the cares of life.”
This was too much, in the agitated frame of mind I then was.
“Am I a poultice Betsey Bobbet, do I look like one?--am I in the
condition to be one?” I cried turnin’ my face, red and drippin’ with
prespiration towards her, and then attacked one of Josiah’s shirt sleeves
agin. “What has my sect done,” says I, as I wildly rubbed his shirt
sleeves, “That they have got to be lacerator soothers, when they have got
everything else under the sun to do?” Here I stirred down the preserves
that was a runnin’ over, and turned a pail full of syrup into the sugar
kettle. “Everybody says that men are stronger than women, and why should
they be treated as if they was glass china, liable to break all to pieces
if they haint handled careful. And if they have got to be soothed,” says
I in an agitated tone, caused by my emotions (and by pumpin’ 6 pails of
water to fill up the biler), “Why don’t they get men to sooth’em? They
have as much agin time as wimmen have; evenin’s they don’t have anything
else to do, they might jest as well be a soothin’ each other as to be a
hangin’ round grocery stores, or settin’ by the fire whittlin’.”
I see I was frightenin’ her by my delerious tone and I continued more
mildly, as I stirred down the strugglin’ sugar with one hand--removed
a cake from the oven with the other--watched my apple preserves with a
eagle vision, and listened intently to the voice of the twins, who was
playin’ in the woodhouse.
“I had jest as soon soothe lacerations as not, Betsey, if I hadn’t
everything else to do. I had jest as lives set down and smile at Josiah
by the hour, but who would fry him nut-cakes? I could smoothe down his
bald head affectionately, but who would do off this batch of sugar?
I could coo at him day in and day out, but who would skim milk--wash
pans--get vittles--wash and iron--and patch and scour--and darn and
fry--and make and mend--and bake and bile while I was a cooin’, tell me?”
says I.
Betsey spoke not, but quailed, and I continued--
“Women haint any stronger than men, naturally; thier backs and thier
nerves haint made of any stouter timber; their hearts are jest as liable
to ache as men’s are; so with thier heads; and after doin’ a hard day’s
work when she is jest ready to drop down, a little smilin’ and cooin’
would do a woman jest as much good as a man. Not what,” I repeated in the
firm tone of principle “Not but what I am willin’ to coo, if I only had
time.”
A pause enshued durin’ which I bent over the wash-tub and rubbed with
all my might on Josiah’s shirt sleeve. I had got one sleeve so I could
see streaks of white in it, (Josiah is awful hard on his shirt sleeves),
and I lifted up my face and continued in still more reesonable tones, as
I took out my rice puddin’ and cleaned out the bottom of the oven, (the
pudden had run over and was a scorchin’ on), and scraped the oven bottom
with a knife,
“Now Josiah Allen will go out into that lot,” says I, glancein’ out of
the north window “and plough right straight along, furrow after furrow,
no sweat of mind about it at all; his mind is in that free calm state
that he could write poetry.”
“Speaking of poetry, reminds me,” said Betsey, and I see her hand go into
her pocket; I knew what was a comin’, and I went on hurriedly, wavin’
off what I knew must be, as long as I could. “Now, I, a workin’ jest
as hard as he accordin’ to my strength, and havin’ to look 40 ways to
once, and 40 different strains on my mind, now tell me candidly, Betsey
Bobbet, which is in the best condition for cooin’, Josiah Allen or me?
but it haint expected of him,” says I in agitated tones, “I am expected
to do all the smilin’ and cooin’ there is done, though you know,” says I
sternly, “that I haint no time for it.”
“In this poem, Josiah Allen’s wife, is embodied my views, which are
widely different from yours.”
I see it was vain to struggle against fate, she had the poetry in her
hand. I rescued the twins from beneath a half a bushel of beans they had
pulled over onto themselves--took off my preserves which had burnt to the
pan while I was a rescuin’, and calmly listened to her, while I picked up
the beans with one hand, and held off the twins with the other.
“There is one thing I want to ask your advice about, Josiah Allen’s
wife. This poem is for the Jonesville Augah. You know I used always to
write for the opposition papah, the Jonesville Gimlet, but as I said
the othah day, since the Editah of the Augah lost his wife I feel that
duty is a drawing of me that way. Now do you think that it would be any
more pleasing and comforting to that deah Editah to have me sign my
name Bettie Bobbet--or Betsey, as I always have?” And loosin’ herself
in thought she murmured dreamily to the twins, who was a pullin’ each
other’s hair on the floor at her feet--
“Sweet little mothahless things, you couldn’t tell me, could you, deahs,
how your deah Pa would feel about it?”
Here the twins laid holt of each other so I had to part ’em, and as I did
so I said to Betsey, “If you haint a fool you will hang on to the Betsey.
You can’t find a woman nowadays that answers to her true name. I expect,”
says I in a tone of cold and almost witherin’ sarcasm, “that these old
ears will yet hear some young minister preach about Johnnie the Baptist,
and Minnie Magdalen. Hang on to the Betsey; as for the Bobbet,” says I,
lookin’ pityingly on her, “that will hang on for itself.”
I was too well bread to interrupt her further, and I pared my potatoes,
pounded my beefsteak, and ground my coffee for dinner, and listened. This
commenced also as if she had been havin’ a account with Love, and had
come out in his debt.
OWED TO LOVE.
Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife,
With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life,
Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be,
Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?
And if he have any companions lost--if they from earth have risen,
Ah, I could weep tears of joy--for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en;
Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties,
Ah, _how willingly_ on the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would
sacrifice.
I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling,
And live for love--and live to cling.
Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,
His smile on me--my sweet smile on he.
There was pretty near twenty verses of ’em, and as she finished she said
to me--