Squire Longbow in Mourning.--The Great Question.--Aunt
Sonora's Opinion.--Other People's.--The Squire goes to
Church.--His Appearance on that Occasion.--Aunt Graves, and
her Extra Performance.--"Nux Vomica."--Anxious
Mothers.--Mary Jane Arabella Swipes.--Sister Abigail.--Ike
Turtle and his Designs.--He calls on Aunt Graves.--She'll go
it.--Sister Abigail's Objection.--The Squire's First Love
Letter.--The Wedding.--Great Getting-up.--Turtle's
Examination.--The Squire runs the Risk of "the
Staterts."--Bigelow's Ceremony.--General Break-Down.--Not
_Very_ Drunk.
Squire Longbow sincerely mourned the loss of his wife--internally and
externally. Externally, he was one of the strongest mourners I ever saw. He
wore a weed, floating from his hat, nearly a foot long. It was the longest
weed that had ever been mounted at Puddleford; but our readers must not
forget who Squire Longbow was--a magistrate, and leading man in community.
And while the reader is about it, he may also recollect that the Squire is
not the only man, east or west, who has ventured upon a little ostentation
over the grave of the departed--nor woman either.
Who was to be the next Mrs. Longbow? That was the question. The public,
indeed, asked it long before the Squire. Who was to have the honor of
presiding at the Squire's table? What woman was to be placed at the head of
society in Puddleford? The Swipeses and Beagles, Aunt Sonora, Aunt Graves,
and Sister Abigail, and scores of others, all began to speculate upon this
important subject. Even Turtle and Bates indulged in a few general remarks.
Aunt Sonora gave it as her mind, that "the Squire ought to be pretty skeery
how he married anybody, kase if he got one of them flipper-ter-gibbet sort
o' wimmin, she'd turn the whole house _en_side out, and he'd be one of the
most miserablest of all men." She said, "if he know'd what was good for
himself, he'd jest keep clear of all the young gals that were fussing and
figeting round him, and go right in for some old stand-by of a woman, that
know'd how to take the brunt of things--but, lors a-me," continued Aunt
Sonora, "there's no doing nothing with these old widowers--they're all like
my Uncle Jo, who married in a hurry, and repented arterwards--and the poor
dear old soul arn't had a minute's peace since."
The Swipeses and Beagles, who, it will be recollected, belonged to a clique
that had, in times past, warred against Longbow & Co., "tho't it would be
shameful for the Squire to marry at all--it would be an insult agin the
memory of poor old Mrs. Longbow, who was dead and gone." (Some people, you
know, reader, abuse the living, but defend the dead.) "And if the Squire
should marry, _they_ should think, for _their_ part, that she'd rise up out
of her grave, and haunt him! She could never sleep easy, if she know'd that
the Squire had got some other woman, who was eating her preserves, and
wearing out her clothes, and lording it over the house like all possess'd."
Other opinions were expressed by other persons--in fact, the Squire's
widowhood was _the_ great concern of Puddleford. "He was so well on to
do," as Aunt Sonora used to call it, that he was considered a great
"catch."
After a few weeks of sorrow, the Squire himself really began to entertain
notions of matrimony. It is true he had passed the age of sixty, and it
required a great effort to get up a sufficient amount of romance to carry
out such an enterprise. Symptoms began, however, to wax strong. The first
alarming indication was his attendance at church. The Squire had always
been a kind of heathen in this respect, and had for many years set a poor
example; but people, who want to marry, will go to church. Whether this is
done to get up a reputation, or simply to take a survey of the
unappropriated female stock yet remaining on hand, I cannot say.
The Squire was "fixed up" amazingly, the first time I saw him at church.
His hair had been cut, and thoroughly greased. His shirt-collar covered his
ears; and his boots shone like a mirror. Aunt Sonora said he looked
"enymost as good as new." Aunt Graves was in the choir that day, and she
sang as she never sang before. She blowed all the heavy strains of
music--strains that lifted her on her toes--directly into Squire Longbow's
face. Whether Aunt Graves had any design in this, is more than I can say;
but I noticed some twinges about the Squire's lips, and a sleepy wink of
the eye, that looked a little like magnetism. It was ridiculous, too, that
such an old castle should be stormed by music.
But the Squire exhibited other symptoms of matrimony. He grew more pompous
in his decisions, disposed of cases more summarily, and quoted law Latin
more frequently. It was about this time that he talked about the "nux
vomica," instead of the "_vox Populi_." He used to "squash" proceeding's
before the case was half presented; and, in the language of Turtle, "he
tore around at a great rate." Turtle said, "the old Squire was getting to
be an old fool, and he was goin' to have him married, or dismissed from
office--there warn't no livin' with him."
There were a great many anxious mothers about Puddleford who were very
desirous of forming an alliance with the Longbow family. Even Mrs. Swipes,
as much as she openly oposed the Squire's marriage in general, secretly
hoped a spark might be struck up between him and her daughter, Mary Jane
Arabella Swipes; and Mrs. Swipes was in the habit of sending her daughter
over to the Squire's house, to inquire of him "to know if she couldn't do
sunthin' for him in his melancholy condition;" and Sister Abigail went down
several times to "put things to rights," and was as kind and obliging, and
attentive to all the Squire's wants, as ever Mrs. Longbow was in her
palmiest days. On these occasions, Sister Abigail used frequently to remind
the Squire of "his great bereavement, and what an angel of a wife he had
lost; and that things didn't look as they used to do, when she was around,
and she didn't wonder he took on so, when the poor thing died."
But, reader, Ike Turtle had ordered things otherwise. _He_ was determined
to strike up a match between the Squire and Aunt Graves. So Ike made a
special visit to Aunt Graves one evening, for the purpose of "surveying and
sounding along the coast, to see how the waters laid, and how the old soul
would take it," to use his language.
I have already given an outline of Aunt Graves; but I will now say further,
that she never had an offer of matrimony in her whole life. She was what is
termed a "touchy" old maid. She professed to hate men, and affected great
distress of mind when thrown into their society. Aunt Graves was just
ironing down the seams of a coat that she had finished, when Ike called.
Ike opened the conversation by reminding Aunt Graves that "she was livin'
along kinder lonely like."
"Lonely 'nough, I s'pose," she replied, snappishly.
"Don't you never have the blues, and get sorter obstrep'rous?"
Aunt Graves "didn't know as she did."
"Why, in the name of old Babylon, don't you marry?"
"Marry? _me_ marry--marry a man--a great awful man!" and the iron flew
through the seams like lightning.
"Yes," continued Ike, "marry--marry a man--why, woman, you are getting as
old and yellow as autumn leaves. What have you been livin' for?--you've
broken all the laws of Scripter inter pieces--and keep on breakin' on
'em--adding sin unto sin, and transgression unto transgression, and the
thing's got-ter be stopped. Now, Aunt Graves, what do you think--there's
Squire Longbow, as desolate as Sodom, and he's got-ter have a woman, or the
old man'll run as crazy as a loon a-thinkin' 'bout his household affairs;
and you know how to cook, and to wash, and to iron, to make pickles and
soap; and then, you're a proper age--what say?"
Aunt Graves ran to the fire, plunged her goose into the ashes, and gave the
coals a smart stir. She then dropped down in her large rocking-chair,
leaned her cheek upon her elbow, fixed her eyes upon the floor, and came
near going off into hysterics.
Ike dashed a little water into Aunt Graves' face, and she revived. After
having gained strength, she replied in substance to Ike's query in a very
languishing, die-away air: "She couldn't say--she didn't know--if it was a
duty--if she could really _believe_ it was a duty--if she was called on to
fill poor old dead-and-gone Mrs. Longbow's place--folks were born inter the
world to do good, and she had so far been one of the most unprofitablest of
sarvants; but she could never marry on her own account--"
"In other words," exclaimed Ike, cutting her short, "you'll go it."
Aunt Graves agreed to "reflect on't."
It was not long after this consultation that Mrs. Swipes began to "smell a
rat," as she said. She commanded Mary Jane Arabella "never to darken the
doors of that old hog, Longbow, agin; and as for that female critter,
Graves, _she'd_ got a husband living down at the East'ard, and they'd all
get into prison for life, the first thing they know'd."
Sister Abigail declared, "she'd have Aunt Graves turned out of church, if
she married a man who warn't a member." This was a great deal for Sister
Abigail to say, for she had been the bosom friend of Aunt Graves: "people
out of the church, and people in the church, shouldn't orter jine
themselves together--it was agin Scripter, and would get everything inter a
twist."
But Ike Turtle had decreed that the marriage should go on. He even went so
far as to indite the first letter of the Squire's to Aunt Graves. This
letter, which Ike exhibited to his friends, as one of his best literary
specimens, was indeed a curiosity. I presume there is nothing else like it
on the face of the globe. It opened by informing Aunt Graves that since the
"loss of his woman, he had felt very grievous-like, and couldn't fix his
mind onto anything--that the world didn't seem at all as it used to
do--that he and his woman had liv'd in peace for thirty years, and the
marriage state was nat'ral to him--that he had always lik'd Aunt Graves
since the very first time he see'd her, and so did his woman too;" and many
more declarations of similar import, and it was signed "J. Longbow, Justice
of the Peace," and _sealed_ too, like his legal processes, that his dignity
might command, even if his person did not win, the affections of this
elderly damsel.
Aunt Graves surrendered--and all this within two months after the death of
Mrs. Longbow. The Squire cast off his weeds, and made violent preparations
for matrimony; and on a certain night--I shall never forget it--the affair
came off.
There was a great gathering at the Squire's--a sort of general invitation
had been extended far and near--the Swipeses and Beagles, Aunt Sonora, and
all. Great preparations had been made in the way of eatables. The Squire
was rigged in a new suit of "_home-made_," (made by Mrs. Longbow, too, in
her life-time),--a white vest, and he wore a cotton bandana
neck-handkerchief, with heavy bows, that buried his chin, and a pair of
pumps and clouded blue stockings. Aunt Graves' dress cannot be described.
She was a mass of fluttering ribbons, and she looked as though she would
take wings and fly away.
Bigelow Van Slyck and Ike Turtle conducted the marriage ceremony--the one
took the ecclesiastical, the other the civil management. When the couple
were ready, Turtle sat down in front of them with the statutes under his
arm, with Bigelow at his right hand.
Turtle examined the statutes amid profound silence for some time, turning
down one leaf here and another there, until he found himself thoroughly
prepared for the solemn occasion. Finally, he arose, and with a gravity
that no man ever put on before or since, exclaimed,--
"Miss Graves, hold up your right hand and swear."
Miss Graves said "she was a member of the church, and dar'sent swear."
Ike said it was "legal swearing he wanted, 'cording to the staterts--not
the wicked sort--he wanted her to swear that she was over fourteen years of
age--hadn't got no husband living, nowhere--warn't goin' to practise no
fraud nor nothin' on Squire Longbow--and that she'd jest as good a right to
get married now as she ever had."
Miss Graves looked blank.
Squire Longbow said "he'd run the risk of the fourteen years of age and the
fraud, and finally he would of the whole on't. The staterts was well
enough, but it warn't to be presumed that a _justice of the peace would_
run agin 'em. Some folks didn't know 'em--he did."
Ike said "there was something another in the statert about wimin's doing
things 'without any fear or compulsion of anybody,' and he guessed he'd
take Miss Graves into another room, and examine her separately and apart
from her intended husband." This was a joke of Turtle's.
The Squire said "that meant _married_ wimin--arter the ceremony was over,
that ere would be very legal and proper."
Mrs. Swipes said, "for her part, she thought the oath or-ter be put--it
would be an awful thing to see a poor cretur forced into marriage."
Sister Abigail thought so, too.
Aunt Sonora hoped there wouldn't be nothin' did wrong, "so people could
take the law on 'em."
Turtle said, "that they needn't any on 'em fret their gizzards--_he_ was
responsible for the la' of the case."
Bigelow then rose, and told the parties to jine hands, and while they were
jined, he wanted the whole company to sing a psalm.
The psalm was sung.
Bigelow then commenced the wedding process. "Squire Longbow," exclaimed
Bigelow--"this is your second wife, and some folks say the third, and I
hope you feel the awful position in which you find yourself."
The Squire said "he felt easy and resigned--he'd gone inter it from respect
to his woman who was now no more."
"You do promise to take this ere woman, to eat her, and drink her, and keep
her in things to wear, so long as you and she lives."
"I do that very thing," responded the Squire.
"And you, on your part," continued Bigelow, turning to Aunt Graves,
"promise to behave yourself and obey the Squire in all things."
Aunt Graves said "she would, Providence permitting."
This marriage ceremony, I believe, is nearly word for word.
"Then," said Turtle, "wheel yourselves into line, and let's have a dance;"
and drawing out his fiddle the whole crowd, in five minutes, were tearing
down at a most furious rate; and when I departed, at about midnight, the
storm was raging still higher, the whiskey and hot water circulated freely,
Turtle looked quite abstracted about his eyes, and his footsteps were
growing more and more uncertain, Bulliphant's face shone like a full moon,
the voices of the females, a little stimulated, were as noisy and confused
as those of Babel, and your humble servant--why, he walked home as straight
as a gun--of course he did--and was able to distinguish a hay-stack from a
meeting-house, anywhere along the road.