AN ELOPEMENT.
The problem of "help" was no less perplexing in Montfield than in the
majority of New-England villages. Mrs. Sanford often declared that
she had rather do the work for the household than "to wait upon the
hired girl;" but her husband insisted upon her having a servant, and
Bathalina Clemens had accordingly been engaged. The girl was little
better than half-witted, but she was honest and faithful. Moreover,
Mrs. Sanford could not abide the Irish. So strong was her dislike for
the children of Erin, that had she known the wish of Thomas Carlyle,
that the Emerald Isle were sunk, she would have indorsed it most
heartily. As it was, she vented her feelings in various expletives and
wishes, which, if less elegant than Carlyle's Teutonic diction, were
certainly more clear and no less forcible.
"The Irish," Mrs. Sanford was wont to affirm, "are part pig, or pigs
are part Irish, I don't know which. They tell about pigs living in the
house with the Paddies in Ireland, and I make no doubt that many a pig
has been brought up as a child of the family and nobody ever the wiser."
So as Mrs. Sanford would have no Irish girl, she had been obliged to
endure Bathalina, who was every thing her soul abhorred, except that
she was neat. It was her one virtue; and, as people usually do who have
but one virtue, she carried it to excess.
"If she was to get into heaven," her mistress declared, waxing
eloquent, "I know she'd begin to scour up things, and be down on her
knees to wash the golden streets."
Numberless were the freaks which resulted from her morbid mania for
cleanliness. She would wash a counterpane if Pettitoes, the most dainty
of cats, happened but to set one of his snowy paws upon it. She washed
her sunshade, her hats, her bonnets, boots, any thing and every thing.
She was accustomed to prowl about the house, seizing upon any stray
article left in sight, and into the tub it went. Flossy's lace shawl
was rescued on its way to the suds, Patty's muslin fichu and Will's
shooting-jacket were fished out of the washtub together; and for weeks
after the advent of Miss Clemens the whole house was pervaded with a
damp and discouraging odor, as if in it reigned a perpetual washing-day.
"This must be stopped," Dr. Sanford declared when one night on
returning home he found the pear-trees decorated with an old skeleton
hoop-skirt, his own high boots, carefully scoured inside, and a
miscellaneous assortment of smaller wares. Into the kitchen he walked,
and found Bathalina at the washtub chanting as usual a dismal stave.
"'Tortured in body, and condemned in spirit,
No sweet composure, to'"--
"Bathalina," interrupted the master of the house sternly, "get into
that tub."
"What, sir?"
"Get into that tub instantly."
"But"--
"Get in."
"But my clothes"--
"In with you."
"My shoes!"
He picked her up as lightly as if her bony frame weighed nothing, and
deposited her in the midst of the foamy suds. Her screams quickly
brought the household to the spot.
"Don't you get out," Dr. Sanford said, "until you have had enough of
the washtub to last you for five years."
"But, Charles," remonstrated his wife, "she'll get her death cold."
"She's more likely to get her death hot," he returned, smiling grimly.
"Let her soak a while. It won't hurt her. And now let us have supper."
He marched off to the dining-room.
"Come, Britann; come, Patty."
"But you don't mean to leave that poor creature there to die, do you?"
Mrs. Sanford pleaded. "I doubt it must be a forerunner of a bad sign to
have such things happen in a house."
The doctor made no reply, but sat down to his supper quite as if
nothing had happened. After the meal he took his pipe and usual seat on
the piazza, but was hardly seated before Patty appeared, half-choked
with laughter.
"Oh, dear, father!" she said, "that foolish thing is in the tub still,
and says she won't get out till you tell her to!"
"Let her stay there then. She will dry quicker than my boots."
"Soapsuds makes green things grow," put in Will; "and Bathalina is as
green as if she had been browsing with Nebuchadnezzar."
"Do come, father," Patty said, taking his arm. "She'll spend the night
there if you don't."
Thus urged, Dr. Sanford rose; and the party adjourned to the kitchen,
where the maid-servant still squatted amid the half-washed clothing
like a very bony mermaid, singing in a defiantly mournful manner:
"'Broad is the road that leads to death.'"
"Get out of that tub, Bathalina," Dr. Sanford commanded, "and stop that
noise."
"I'm going home to my Aunt Jeff's," the mermaid said.
"Nonsense: you'll do nothing of the sort. Get out of the tub and get
dry clothing on."
From that day the servant never washed any thing save her own person
without an express command from her mistress. Dr. Sanford made her
ample amends for the damage done to her attire; and thereafter she
spoke of him with the utmost respect, apparently admiring his treatment
of her extremely. She held to him as her ideal of manhood, even after
she had fallen a victim to the wiles of Peter Mixon, an unscrupulous
fellow who had served the Brecks in the days of their father's
magnificence.
"I can't think what has become of Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford remarked on
the evening of the rehearsal. "She can't have staid at the funeral of
that cousin's child's wife all this time. It's half-past ten."
At that moment the door-bell rang violently.
"Some one has come in considerable haste," grandmother Sanford said
placidly. "Charles, it is probably some one for thee."
The person ushered into the sitting-room was not wholly a stranger to
the family, and indeed by reputation they knew her well. She was an
aunt of Bathalina Clemens, and rejoiced in the somewhat remarkable
cognomen of Thomas Jefferson Gooch. Her grandfather being in his prime
an ardent partisan of that famous statesman, had made a rash vow that
his first grandchild should bear Jefferson's name. The first-born
grandchild proved to be a girl, but the determined old gentleman,
was no more to be restrained from the fulfilment of his vow than was
Jephtha. Thomas Jefferson was the infant christened, and as "Aunty
Jeff" she was now known to the whole neighborhood. She was a perfect
"roly-poly-pudding" of a woman, "her husband's sphere," Will Sanford
called her; but her activity was greater than that of her gauntest
neighbor, and she walked as briskly as if she'd an electric battery in
her back hair to keep her in motion. The corpulent little woman managed
herself and her relatives with a determination which there was no
evading. She dressed always in rusty black, and went about slipshod,
explaining that she was too fat to reach her feet and lace up boots.
To-day, having been to the funeral of the long death-defying Emma, her
attire was more striking than usual; her black bonnet being garnished
with the largest of red roses, and a magenta bow lighting up the
voluminous amplitude of her chins, which, like spice-boxes, came in
assorted sizes.
"Good-evenin', Mis' Sanford," Aunty Jeff burst out, plunging
porpoise-like at once into the room and the midst of her errand. "That
ungrateful Bathaliny Clemens hain't come home, has she? No, of course
she hain't; an' I knew it, the miserable hussy! She's been elopin' with
that all-fired Peter Mixon."
"Eloping!" her listeners cried in chorus.
"Yes, elopin'. I knew there was some kind of a gum-game up when I seed
her an' him comin' in together. The hussy brought him right into the
room with the mourners, and he looked at the remains as familiar and
easy-like as if he'd been one of the next relations. I tried to catch
Bathaliny's eye, but she wouldn't look at me. They couldn't walk to the
grave together, 'cause he wasn't called with the mourners. But when we
got there, and Parson Jones was a-prayin', I peeked through my fingers,
and I seed Peter was a-sneakin' round toward her,--the dispisable,
miser'ble wretch! An' when we was a-singin' the last hymn--we sung,
'Why do ye mourn, departed friends?'
to the tune of Chany,--an' I thought the singin' didn't sound so
mournful kinder as it had orter,--not nigh so mournful as when we
buried Marthy Foster, she was a Harris, you remember, and second cousin
to Bathaliny on the father's side: so I looked up to see if Bathaliny
was givin' out on the air; for, bein' a near relation, I naturally
felt a care for the mournin', and wanted to see Emma buried in decent
shape, if she was always a scrawny, pindlin' little thing, an' her
mother Ezikel's first wife. An' I'll be blowed if that Bathaliny warn't
a-sneakin' off round the thorn-bushes,--you know where they be, close
by where Frank Wiswell was buried, his mother bein' a Pettingill,--she
was a-skulkin' off, if you'll believe it, round them thorn-bushes with
Peter Mixup, or Old Evil One, or whatever he calls himself. I wanted to
holler; but, thinks I to myself, I'm a relation of the corpse, if it
is only by marriage, and I ain't goin' to spoil the solemnity of this
funeral if I never sets eyes on that scandiculous hussy again! An' off
they went; an' Tim Bowlin see 'em goin' to Joe Brown's, an' of course
they are married long ago, he bein' a justice. An' I says to myself,
'Mis' Sanford ought to know, an' I'll go over an' tell her, bein' as
it's one of our family.' It does seem as if her mother's children was
bound to bring disgrace on themselves and everybody else. Look at
Hannah Clemens! only she ain't to be looked at by an honest woman. The
nasty hussy!"
Aunty Jeff's breath failed entirely at this point; and she fell back in
her chair, her whole person quivering with excitement and indignation.
Dr. Sanford laughed unrestrainedly, and Flossy and Patty were not slow
to follow his lead.
"She's Bathaliny Mixon by this time," aunty Jeff burst out afresh.
"All he wanted of her was the money she had in the bank. He was
bespoke to 'Mandy West too; an' I shouldn't be a mite surprised ef
he got his livin' goin' round marryin' girls just that way. To think
one of our folks should marry a brigamist," continued the irate lady,
unconsciously punning, "and demean herself to take up with a Mixon!
He's a dreadful unfacalized critter; an' that's what I've always said,
an' what I'll stick to, ef I was to be run through the wringin'-machine
the next minute, like that baby's hand over to Samoset--poor thing! He
never stuck to nothin' 'thout 'twas Mr. Breck, and them two never got
no good out of one 'nother. A dreadful unfacalized critter! An' I'm in
as big a hurry as a rat in the wall, Mis' Sanford, but thought you'd
want to know, owin' to havin' breakfast to get. The ungrateful hussy!"
The last objurgation was addressed, not to Mrs. Sanford, but to the
absent Bathalina; that maiden having evidently defeated the designs of
Providence to punish her sinful pride, and wed Peter Mixon in spite
of his engagement to Amanda West. The following morning the newly-wed
pair came after the possessions of the bride. Bathalina looked a little
sheepish, and was disposed to apologize for the step she had taken.
"Being in love," she said to Patty, "I naturally felt like taking him
for better or for worse, especially as he said his shirts had give out
awfully; and he told no more than the truth, either, as I've see with
my own eyes."
"But where's your wedding-cake, Bathalina?" inquired Flossy. "A wedding
isn't a wedding without cake."
"It isn't legal without cake," Patty added demurely.
"Ain't it?" demanded Mrs. Mixon, aghast.
"Of course not," answered Flossy. "You are not married unless you've
had wedding-cake, and eaten it with your friends."
"But we didn't have no time to get cake."
"Then," pronounced Patty, "you are no more married than I am."
"O Lord! O Lord!" cried the dismayed bride. "That's what my sinful
pride has brought me to. O Peter, Peter!" she continued, rushing out to
the wagon where he sat waiting: "we ain't married, after all!"
It was with some difficulty that Mrs. Sanford, who appeared at this
juncture, persuaded her that her marriage was legal. Bathalina was not
really satisfied until Patty had produced a loaf of fruit-cake, and
they had all tasted it except Peter, who still sat without, waiting.
"Now I'm married, at any rate," the bride observed, "and I don't
suppose it makes so much difference to Peter as it does to me."
A slice of cake was at this hint sent to the bridegroom; and the Mixons
drove away, leaving Mrs. Sanford face to face with the tremendous task
of finding another servant.