The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift _both_
arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
homes on the run.
But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
[Illustration: “WE HAD TO WAIT FOR THE PASTE TO BILE.”]
Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
paper--we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
seen on his softened features.
[Illustration: “WE ALL SET AND LAID ON OUR PLANS, AND CUT THE EDGES
OFFEN THE PAPER.”]
We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
depend on, and what she had to do with.
And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
fair.
And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
melancholy groan all to herself.
[Illustration: “THE HANDLE COME OUT.”]
I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
us, and the hull of mine wuz.
Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.
It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
own livin'.
Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
[Illustration: “I WOULD MEANDER OUT THERE IN A ICY NIGHT TO FEED IT.”]
We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
there in a icy night to feed it. But jest as it is always the way with
wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
on me, the better I liked it.
Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it “horse corset” in a kind of
a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
[Illustration: “BEEN OUT TO TEND TO YOUR 'HORSE CORSET,' HAVE YOU?”]
He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
feather piller and say to me: “Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
have you?”
“_Horse corset_! 'Wall, what if it wuz?”
Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms--and
he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took--etc., etc., etc.
(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
get up and get my feet so cold).
But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.
And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
tackled him.