I was a sittin’ near the open back door enjoyin’ the pleasant prospect,
and also washin’ some new potatoes for dinner. Truly it was a fair
scene. The feathered hens was a singin’ in their innocent joy as they
scratched the yieldin’ turf after bugs and worms. Old “Hail the Day”
was proudly struttin’ round, standin’ first on one foot and then on the
other, and crowin’ joyfully in his careless freedom and glee. The breezes
blew sweetly from the west, and I thought with joy that my clothes on
the clothes line would be ready to iron by the time I got dinner out
of the way. The sun shone down out of a blue and cloudless sky, and I
looked pensively at my green gages, and thought fondly how the sun was a
ripenin’ ’em. All nature was peaceful and serene, and my mind as I gently
scraped the large fair potatoes, and thought how good they was goin’ to
be with the baked lamb I had got in the oven, was as peaceful and serene
as the same. Suddenly I heard the gate click to and I saw old Mr. Bobbet
comin’ up to the house. He seemed dreadfully agitated, and I could hear
him talkin’ to himself. He came right into the door and took his hat off
in one hand, holdin’ his crooked cane in the other and swung ’em both
over his head to once, and says he,
“It’s done! It’s done!”
“What’s done,” says I droppin’ my knife onto the floor.
“Betsey’s gone!” shouted he, and he run out the door like a luny.
I was a most skairt to death, and remained motionless nigh onto a minute,
when I heard Josiah comin’ in. Little did I dream what a blow was comin’
onto me. He come and stood right in front of me, and I thought at the
time, he looked at me dreadful curious, but I kep’ on a scrapin’ my
potatoes, (I had got ’em most done.)
Finally all at once Josiah spoke up and says he,
“Betsey Bobbett is married.”
I dropped the pan of potatoes right down onto the floor for I was as weak
as a weak white cat. “Who! Josiah Allen! who! is the man?”
“Simon Slimpsey,” says he, “They was married last night--as I was comin’
by the old cider mill----”
“I see all through it,” says I mournfully. “He and seven or eight of his
children have been sick, and Betsey would go and take care of ’em.”
“Yes,” says Josiah, “As I was comin’ past the old cider mill----”
Says I with spirit, “It ought to be looked into. He was a helpless old
man, and she has took the advantage of him.” I went on warmly, for I
thought of his gloomy fourbodin’s, and I always felt for the oppressted
and imposed upon. I had went on I presume as much as 2 minutes and a ½
when Josiah says he,
“I wouldn’t take on so about it Samantha, anybody to hear you talk would
think you was a perfect farrago.”
Says I, “If I was a goin’ to abuse my wife and call her names I would do
it accordin’ to grammar, you mean “virtigo” Josiah.”
“Wall I said virtigo, didn’t I?” Josiah never will own that he is in the
wrong.
“And I didn’t say you _was_ a virtigo Samantha, only anybody would take
you for a virtigo, that didn’t know you.”
I remained almost lost in sad thoughts for pretty nigh ½ a minute, and
then I says, in mournful tones,
“Have you heard any of the particulars Josiah? Have you seen any of the
relatives? was the old man any more reconciled to the last?”
“Yes,” says Josiah, “As I was comin’ by the old cider mill--”
“Wall do for conscience sake _come_ by the old cider mill, and be done
with it,” says I, feelin’ worried out in my mind and by the side of
myself.
“How be I goin’ to _get_ by Samantha? you are so agravatin’, you’ll never
let me finish a story peacible, and I should think it was about dinner
time.”
“So ’tis,” says I, soothin’ly, hangin’ on the tea-kettle, and puttin’ the
potatoes over the stove in the summer kitchen. For a long and arduous
study of the sect has convinced me that good vittles are more healin’
than oil to pour onto a man’s lacerated feelin’s. And the same deep study
has warned me _never_ to get mad at the same time Josiah does, on these
2 great philisofical laws, hangs all the harmony of married life. Then I
stepped out onto the stoop agin, and says to him in calm, affectionate
accents,
“What is it about the old cider mill, Josiah?”
“Nothin’” says he, “Only I met one of the first mourners--I mean one of
old Slimpsey’s sisters there, and she told me about it, she said that
sense the Editer of the Auger was married, and sense Betsey had got back
from New York she had acted like a wild critter. She seemed to think it
was now or never. The awful doom of not bein’ married at all, seemed to
fall upon her, and craze her with wild horror. And findin’ Slimpsey who
was a weak sort of a man any way, and doubly weakened now by age and
inflamatory rheumatism, she went and took care of him, and got the upper
hand of him, made him a victim and married him, at his own house, Sunday
night at half past seven.”
I was so lost in sorrowful thought as Josiah continued the mournful tale,
that Josiah says, in a soothin’ tone,
“You ought to try to be reconciled to it Samantha, it seems to be the
Lord’s will that she should marry him.”
“I don’t believe in layin’ every mean low lived thing to the Lord,
Josiah, I lay this to Betsey Bobbet;” and I agin plunged down into gloomy
thought, and was roused only by his concludin’ words,
“Seems to me Samantha, you might have a few griddle cakes, the bread--I
see this mornin’--was gettin’ kinder dry.”
Mechanically I complied with his request, for my thoughts wasn’t there,
they was with the afflicted, and down trodden.
One week after this I was goin’ up the post office steps, and I come face
to face with Simon Slimpsey. He had grown 23 years older durin’ the past
week. But he is a shiftless, harmless critter hurtin’ himself more’n
any body else. He was naturally a small boned man. In the prime of his
manhood he might have come up to Betsey’s shoulders, but now withered by
age and grief the highest hat was futile to bring him up much above her
belt ribbon. He looked sad indeed, my heart bled for him. But with the
instinctive delicacy inherient to my sect, I put on a jokeuler tone, and
says I, as I shook hands with him,
“How do you do, Simon? I hain’t seen you before, sense you was married,
Simon Slimpsey.”
He looked at me almost wildly in the face, and says he in a despairin’
tone,
“I knew it would come to this, Miss Allen! I knew it. I told you how it
would be, you know I did. She always said it was her spear to marry, I
knew I should be the one, I always was the one.”
“Don’t she use you well, Simon Slimpsey?”
“She is pretty hard on me,” says he. “I hain’t had my way in anything
sense the day she married me. She begun to ‘hold my nose to the
grindstone,’ as the saying is, before we had been married 2 hours. And
she hain’t no housekeeper, nor cook, I have had to live on pancakes most
of the time sense it took place, and they are tougher than leather; I
have been most tempted to cut some out of my boot legs to see if they
wouldn’t be tenderer, but I never should hear the end of it, if I did.
She jaws me awfully, and orders me round as if I was a dog, a yeller
dog--” he added despairin’ly, “if I was a yeller dog, she couldn’t seem
to look down on me any more, and treat me any worse.”
Says I, “I always did mistrust these wimmen that talk so much about not
wantin’ any rights, and clingin’ and so forth. But,” says I, not wantin’
to run anybody to thier backs, “she thought it was her spear to marry.”
“I told you,” says he, in agonizin’ tones, “I told you that spear of
hern would destroy me, and it has.”
He looked so sorrowful that I says to him in still more jokeuler tones
than I had yet used, “Chirk up Simon Slimpsey, I wish you joy.” I felt
that he needed it indeed. He give me an awful look that was jest about
half reproach, and half anguish, and I see a tear begin to flow. I turned
away respectin’ his feelin’s. As he went down the steps slowly, I see
him put his hands in his pockets, as if searchin’ for his handkerchief,
seemin’ly in vain. But he had on a long blue broadcloth swallow tailed
coat that he was married in the first time long years ago, and as he went
round the corner he took up the skirts of his coat and wiped his eyes. I
said to myself with a deep sithe, “And this is woman’s only spear.” And
the words awakened in my breast as many as 19 or 20 different emotions,
and I don’t know but more.
I murmured mewsin’ly to myself, “It seems to me, if I was a woman I
should about as lives be a constable.”
While I was still mewsin’, Betsey, his wife tore down the street, in a
distracted way, and paused before me.
“Have you seen my husband?” says she, “can you tell a distracted
wife--have you seen her husband Simon Slimpsey?”
She looked wild, as if she feared a catastrophe, and she cried out,
loosin’ holt of her self control, in a firm constable like tone,
“He shall not escape me! I will telegraph to the next station house! I
will have the creek dragged! the woods shall be scoured out!” says she.
“Be calm, and compose yourself,” says I frigidly, “Simon Slimpsey has
gone up towards his house.”
She heaved a deep sithe of content, and triumph agin brooded down upon
her eye-brow as she follered on after him.
I hadn’t no idee of callin’ on her, I wouldn’t, but the next day, Simon
Slimpsey went by on his old white horse. It is a very dejected lookin’
horse in the face, besides carryin’ a couple of wash-boards in its sides,
in the line of ribs. Thomas Jefferson says, “What gives it its mournful
expression, it is mournin’ for the companions of its youth.” Says he,
“you know Noah saved a pair of everything,” and says he, “his poor
companion passed away several thousand years ago.” That boy worrys me,
I don’t know what he is comin’ to. Slimpsey’s old horse haint more’n 35
or 40 years old, I don’t believe. They say Betsey is makin’ a pale blue
cambric ridin’ dress, and is goin’ to ride him a horse back this fall. It
don’t seem to me there would be much fun in it, he is so lame, besides
havin’ a habit of fallin’ frequently with the blind staggers; howsomever
it’s none of my business.
But as I was a sayin’ I stood silently in the door, to see old Slimpsey
go by a horseback, and I thought to myself as I pensively turned out my
tea grounds, (I was a gettin’ dinner) how much--how much it looks like
a night mare that has broke out of its lawful night pastures, and is
runnin’ away with a pale and harassed victim. So haggard and melancholy
did they both look. And I sithed. I hadn’t much more’n got through
sithin’, when he rode up, and says he,
“The seventh boy is worse, and the twin girls are took down with it, it
would be a melankoly pleasure Miss Allen if you could go up.” I went.
Betsey had got the most of ’em to sleep, and was settin’ between a few
cradles, and trundle beds, and high chairs all filled with measles, and a
few mumps. Betsey’s teeth was out, and her tow frizzles lay on the table
with a lot of paper--so I mistrusted she had been writin’ a poem. But
she was now engaged in mendin’ a pair of pantaloons, the 8th pair--she
told me--she had mended that day, for Simon Slimpsy was a poor man, and
couldn’t afford to buy new ones. They was a hard and mournful lookin’
pair, and says I to her--in a tone in which pity and contempt was blended
about half and half--
“Betsey are you happy?”
“I am at rest,” says she, “more at rest than I have been for years.”
“Are you happy?” says I, lookin’ keenly at her.
“I feel real dignified,” says she, “There isn’t no use in a woman trying
to be dignified till she is married, for she can’t. I have tried it
and I know. I can truly say Josiah Allen’s wife, that I neveh knew what
dignity was, until one week ago last Sunday night at half past seven in
the evenin’,” says she, turnin’ over the pantaloons, and attactin’ a
ghastly hole of about 7 by 9 dimensions in the left knee.
I sot silently in my chair like a statute, while she remarked thus, and
as she paused, I says to her agin, fixing my mild but stern grey eyes
upon her weary form, bendin’ over the dilapitated folds of the 8th.
“Are you happy Betsey?”
“I have got something to lean on,” says she.
I thought of the fragile form bendin’ over the lean and haggard horse,
and totterin’ away, withered by age and grief, in the swallow tailed
coat, and says I in a pityin’ accent,
“Don’t lean too hard Betsey.”
“Why?” says she.
Says I, in a kind of a blind way, “You may be sorry if you do,” and then
I says to her in clear and piercin’ accents these words,
“Do you love your husband Betsey?”
“I don’t think love is necessary,” says she, “I am married, which is
enough to satisfy any woman who is more or less reasonable, that is the
main and important thing, and as I have said, love and respect, and so
forth are miners as--”
“Miners!” says I in a tone of deep indignity, “Miners! Betsey Bobbet--”
“Mrs Betsey Bobbet Slimpsey,” says she correctin’ of me proudly, as she
attacted another mournful lookin’ hole as big as my two hands,
“Well! Betsey Slimpsey!” says I, beginnin’ agin, and wavin’ my right
hand in a eloquent wave, “There hain’t no more beautiful sight on earth
than to see two hunan soles, out of pure love to each other, gently
approachin’ each other, as if they must. And at last all thier hopes
and thoughts, and affections runnin’ in together, so you can’t seperate
’em nohow, jest like two drops of rain water, in a mornin’ glory blow.
And to see ’em nestlin’ there, not carin’ for nobody outside the blow,
contented and bound up in each other, till the sun evaporates ’em, (as it
were) and draws ’em up together into the heaven, not seperatin’ of ’em up
there--why such a marriage as that is a sight that does men and angels
good to look at. But when a woman sells herself, swaps her purity, her
self respect, her truth, and her sole, for barter of any kind, such as a
house and lot, a few thousand dollars, the name of bein’ married, a horse
and buggy, some jewellry, and etcetery, and not only sells herself, but
worse than the Turk wimmen goes round herself, huntin’ up a buyer, crazy,
wild eyed, afraid she won’t find none--when she does find one, suppose
she does have a minister for salesman, my contempt for that female is
unmitigable.”
Betsey still looked so wrapped up in dignity, as she bravely attacted the
seat of another pair of trousers, that it fairly made me mad. Insted of
that proud and triumphant mean I wanted her to look some stricken, and I
resumed in a tone of indignaty, almost burnin’ enough to set fire to her
apron,
“Nor I don’t want these wimmen that have sold themselves for a
certificate with a man’s name on it--I don’t want to hear ’em talk about
infamy; haint they infamous themselves? What have they done different
from these other bad wimmen, only they have got a stiddy place, and a
little better wages, such as respectability in the eyes of fools and
etcetery. Do you suppose that a woman standin’ up in front of a minister
and tellin’ a few pesky lies, such as, ‘I promise to love a man I hate,
and respect a man that hain’t respectable, and honor and obey a man I
calculate to make toe the mark’--do you suppose these few lies makes
her any purer in the eyes of God, than if she had sold herself without
tellin’ ’em, as the other infamous wimmen did? Not any. Marriage is like
baptism, as I have said more’n a hundred times, you have got to have the
inward grace and the outward form to make it lawful and right. What good
does the water do, if your sole haint baptised with the love of God? It
haint no better than fallin’ into the creek.”
I paused, spotted in the face from conflictin’ emotions, and Betsey begun
in a haughty triumphant tone,
“Woman’s speah--”
Which words and tone combined with recollections of the aged sufferer in
the blue swallow tailed coat, so worked on my indignation, that I walked
out of the house without listenin’ to another word, and put on my bunnet
out in the door yard.
But I hollered back to her from the bars--for Josiah Allen’s wife haint
one to desert duty in any crisis--“that the four youngest boys ought to
be sweat, and take some saffern tea, and I should give the five girls,
and the twins, some catnip, and I’d let the rest of ’em be, till the
docter come.”
I haint seen Betsey since, for she is havin’ a hard time of it. She has
to work like a dog. For Simon Slimpsey bein’ so poor, and not bein’ no
calculator, it makes it hard for ’em to get along. And the old man seems
to have lost what little energy he had, since he was married, Betsey is
so hard on him. He has the horrors awfully. Betsey takes in work, but
they have a hard time to get along. Miss Gowdey says that Betsey told her
that she didn’t mind workin’ so hard, but she did hate to give up writin’
poetry, but she didn’t get no time for it. So as is generally the case, a
great good to the world has come out of her sufferin’.
I guess she haint wrote but one piece sense she was married and they was
wrote I suppose the day I ketched her with her teeth out, for they come
out in the next week’s Gimlet, for just as quick as the Editor of the
Auger was married, Betsey changed her politix and wrote agin as formally
for the Gimlet.
The following are some of the verses she wrote:
I AM MARRIED NOW.
A Him of Victory.
BY MRS. BETSEY SLIMPSEY _knee_ BOBBET.
Fate, I defy thee! I have vanquished thee, old maid.
Dost ask why thus, this proud triumphant brow?
I answer thee, old Fate, with loud and joyful burst
Of blissful laughteh, I am married now!
Once grief did rave about my lonely head;
Once I did droop, as droops a drooping willow bough;
Once I did tune my liah to doleful strains;
’Tis past! ’tis past my soul! I am married now!
Then, sneering, venomed darts pierced my lone, lone heart;
Then, mocking married fingers dragged me low,
But now I tune my liah to sweet extatic strains,
My teahs have all been shed, _I_ am married now!
No gossip lean can wound me by her speech,
I, no humilitatin’ neveh more shall know;
Sorrow, stand off! I am beyond thy ghastly reach,
For Mrs. Betsey Slimpsey (formerly Bobbet) is married now!
Oh, mournful past, when I in Ingun file
Climbed single life’s, bleak, rocky, mounten’s brow,
Blest lot! that unto wedlock’s glorious glade
Hath led me. Betsey’s married now!
Oh female hearts with anxious longings stirred,
Cry Ho! for wimmen’s speah, and seal it with a vow,
Take Mrs. Betsey Bobbet Slimpsey’s word
That thou shalt triumph! _I_ am married now!
Yes, Betsey’s married! sweet to meditate upon it,
To tune my happy liah with haughty, laughing brow
To these sweet, glorious words, the burden of my sonnet,
That Mrs. Betsey Bobbet Slimpsey’s married now!
HORACE AND JOSIAH.
When the news come to me that Horace Greely was dead I almost cried. The
tears did just run down my face like rain-water, I don’t know when I have
come nearer cryin’ than I did then. And my first thought was, they have
tried awful hard to keep him out of the White House, but he has got into
one whiter than any they have got in Washington, D. C. And then my very
next thought was, Josiah Allen’s wife did you say anything to hurt that
man’s feelin’s, when you was a tryin’ to influence him on your tower?
I believe if folks would only realize how every harsh word, and cold look
they stab lovin’ hearts with, would just turn round like bayonets, and
pierce their own heart in a time like this--they would be more careful
how they handled ’em. But glad enough was I to think that I didn’t say a
hard word to him, but had freed my mind, and told him jest how good I
thought he was, and how much he had done for the Black African, and the
Human Race, before it was too late. Glad enough was I that I didn’t wait
till that noble heart was cold and lifeless, and couldn’t be pained by
unkindness, or made gladder by sympathy, before I gin him mine.
But in the time of trouble, the love that had been his best reward for
all the successes of his hard workin’ life, had gone from him. And I
know jest how that great heart ached for that love and sympathy. I know
jest how poor the praise of the world would have looked to him, if he
couldn’t have seen it a shinin’ through them lovin’ eyes--and how hard
it was for him to bear its blame alone. Tired out, defeated the world
called him, but he only had to fold his hands, and shet his eyes up and
he was crowned with success in that world where He, who was once rejected
by a majority, crowned with thorns of earthly defeat waits now to give
the crown of Eternal Repose to all true souls, all the weary warriors on
life’s battle field who give their lives for the right. And it seemed so
kinder beautiful too, to think that before she he loved so, hardly had
time to feel strange in them a “many mansions,” he was with her agin, and
they could keep house together all through Eternity.
Yet,--though as I say, I don’t know when I have come so near cryin’ as
I did then--I said to myself as I wiped my eyes on my apron, I wouldn’t
call him back from that happy rest he had earnt so well if I could.
But there are other things that are worrysome to me, and make me a sight
of trouble. It was a day or 2 after this, and I was settin’ alone, for
Josiah had gone to mill, and Thomas Jefferson and Maggy Snow and Tirzah
Ann and Whitfield Minkley had gone a slay ridin’, (them two affairs is
in a flourishin’ condition and it is _very_ aggreeable to Josiah and
me, though I make no matches, nor break none--or that is, I don’t make
none, only by talkin’ in a encouragin’ manner, nor break none only with
thoroughwert in a mild way).
I sot all alone, a cuttin’ carpet rags, and a musin’ sadly. Victory in
jail! And though I felt that she richly deserved it, and I should liked
to have shut her up myself in our suller way, for darin’ to slander
Beecher, still to me who knows her sect so well, it seemed kinder hard
that a woman should be where she couldn’t go a visatin’. And then to
think the good talkin’ to, I give her when I was on my tower hadn’t
ammounted to nothin’, seemin’ly. I wasn’t sorry I had labored with
her--not a mite, I had did my duty anyway. And I knew jest as well as I
know that my name was formally Smith, that when anybody is a workin’ in
the Cause of Right, they hadn’t ought to be discouraged if they didn’t
get their pay down, for you can’t sow your seeds and pick your posys
the same day anyway. And I know that great idees was enough sight harder
to get rooted and a growin’ than the Century plant, and that takes a
hundred years for it to blow out.
I know all this, but human nater gets kinder tired a waitin’, and there
seems no end to the snows that lay between us and that summer that all
earnest souls are a workin’ for. And then I want my sect to do right,--I
want ’em to be real respectable, and I felt that take Victory all
together she wasn’t a orniment to it. I thought of my sect, and then I
thought of Victory, and then I sithed. Beecher a bein’ lied about, Tilton
ditto and the same, for you see _I_ don’t nor won’t believe what Victory
says against ’em, although they don’t come out and deny the truth of it,
either of ’em, just to satisfy some folks who say that they ought to.
Miss Anthony havin’ a hard tussle of it at Rochester.
Whitfield Minkley had told me too that day that Miss Aster didn’t keep
tavern herself, and there I had had all my trouble about her for nothin’,
demeanin’ myself by offerin’ to wash dishes for--I know not who. And to
think that Jonothan Beans’es ex-wife should have deceived me so, when
I befriended her so much when she first went to grass. And then when I
thought how all the good advice I had given Victory hadn’t done her no
good, and how Mr. Greely had died, before the seeds I sowed in his bosom
on the great question of Wimmen’s Rights had sprouted and brought forth
fruit, when I see my tower had been in vain, say nothin’ of the money it
cost, oh! how holler the world looked to me, it almost seemed as if it
would break in and let me through, rockin’ chair and all.
As I sot there a mewsin’ over it, and a cuttin’ my rags, I almost made up
my mind that I would have the dark stripe in my carpet black as a coal,
the whole on it, a sort of mournin’ stripe. But better feelin’s got up
inside of my mind, and I felt that I would put in my but’nut color rather
than waste it.