Josiah wuz in a hurry to git home, but I persuaded him to stop for
a day at Dr. Phillip Rhode’s, who married she that wuz Dora Peak,
daughter of my cousin on my own side.
I think everything of Dora and she of me, visey versey, for, if
I say it that shouldn’t, I helped her more’n considerable to her
present state of health, happiness, and common sense, and I spoze
mebby you’d like to know about it. It’s quite a long story, but I
can tell it if it’s best. It wuz about a year ago that Albina Peak,
Dora’s mother, come to Jonesville on a errent, a important one.
I wuz standin’ before the winder washin’ my dishes and lookin’ out
on the great waves of pink and green that wuz spread out in front
of me (the orchard wuz in full bloom and promisin’ a grand fruit
year), and I seemed to sort o’ float away on them waves into the
past, layin’ firm holt of the present, too, and my clean linen
dish-cloth, as folks can in their most romantick moods, if they’ve
got any gumption--when all of a sudden Albina Ann Peak arrived.
We hadn’t seen each other much of late years, for she lived in
the city, but she wuz a third cousin of mine, and we used to go
to school together up in the old Rizley schoolhouse, and she sort
o’ leaned on me for strength and help in long division. She wuz
dretful romantick and dreamy in them days, and devoured pickles
and poetry enormously. But she sot store by me, and in the time of
trouble I spoze she thought on me and kinder wanted to lean agin,
her husband, who wuz a man of common sense and some property,
havin’ passed away some years before.
Albina Ann said that the doctor said her daughter, Dora, couldn’t
possibly live only a few months unless she got help, and it wuz a
mysterious inward disorder she had, though the doctor had named
it a strange, strange name that seemed to scare Albina Ann most
to death, she couldn’t remember what it wuz, she said it sounded
some like Constantinople-Andronopolis, but wuzn’t that, but wuz
worse and more skairful, but I told her I shouldn’t let any
doctor’s names skair me, they didn’t make nothin’ of usin’ names
that wuz fearful. Then she told me that with all this sickness
wuz love-sickness added, and for a poor dissipated chap, but good
lookin’ and fascinating, and I said:
“This is worse than Constantinople-Andronopolis enough sight.”
And Albina sez, “That hain’t the name, but sounds like it.”
And I sez, “Well, it is worse than anything that sounds like
anything.”
And she sez, “Well, I want to have it broke up, it has got to be
broke up.” And she resoomed, “I’ve got to go and see my son Henry’s
wife, who is dyin’ with fever at Denver, with twins added to it,
and he sick abed, too.” And she sez, “It seems as if my troubles
all fall on me to once. Both my children liable to die off at any
time, and my daughter-in-law and the twins, too.”
And I looked sympathizin’ on her and sez jest for all the world as
I used to at school, “I wish I could help you out, Albina Ann.”
“That’s jest what I’ve come for,” sez she; “I’ve got to go to
Henry’s for a spell, anyway,” and would I for the sake of old
times, to say nothin’ of the ties of third cousin, would I let her
poor sick girl come down into the country and see if the country
air and my care would recuperate her up a little mite, or if she
couldn’t be helped, make the poor dear, dyin’ girl as comfortable
as I could? She said money wuz no object to her. And I said it
wuzn’t no object to me. And then she said she thought it wuz a
mysterious Providential affliction to have her beautiful only
daughter so delicate and liable to expire any minute, still she
felt that it wuz tough on her, and she bespoke my sympathy, jest
as she used to git help in her old Ruger and Olney’s gography. And
she asked me pintedly if I didn’t think it wuz a strange, strange
dispensation of Providence that when she wuz so abundantly able to
care for her only daughter, so many poor girls wuz spared healthy
and happy, and her only girl seemed about to be took, and sez she,
“She wuz a healthy baby, weighed ten pounds at first, but,” she
added, “she is so sweet and pure that probable the angels feel that
they can’t do without her society much longer.”
And I sot up on the fence, mentally, as it were pretty straight,
and didn’t say yea or nay, knowin’ that many things wuz laid on
Providence He wuzn’t to blame for.
Well, I told Albina Ann, after thinkin’ it over and consultin’
Josiah out in the hoss barn, that she might send her girl down for
a spell and I’d do the best I could for her. She seemed to be real
relieved when I told her, and then bime-bye we got to talkin’
about Le Flam agin, for that wuz the name of the dissipated young
chap she had mentioned, and I told her I approved of her stand, for
if a man couldn’t reform durin’ the enchanted days of courtship
what could you expect when married life and its disillusions should
take place, late dinners, cleanin’ house, etcetery, etcetery, and
inflamatory rumatiz, ulcerated teeth and colick?
But I sez to Albina Ann, “Why under the sun did you let him come to
your house in the first place, if you knew what he wuz?”
And she said she always knew that he wuz a poor, miserable
creature, but she felt that it would be breakin’ up the sweet,
heavenly atmosphere of confidence that had always existed between
her and her only daughter if she said anything against Le Flam to
her.
“You hain’t spoke to her about him?” sez I, in wondering axents.
“No, Cousin Samantha; her heart seems to be so wropped up in him,
and the cords that connect her soul to mine are so linked in with
her girlish dreams, that I could not bear to ruffle ’em, the
harmony between us has always been so heavenly.”
Sez I, “The harmony would be liable to be ruffled a little if
you should see her abused by a dissipated brute, and she and
her children snaked round by the hair of their heads and turned
outdoors, etc.”
“Oh! oh!” sez she, puttin’ up her hands, “don’t pierce my soul with
such agonizin’ thoughts!”
“Well,” sez I, coolin’ down a little, “the best way to escape such
agony is to use common sense in the first place. Why under the sun
didn’t you stop her going with him?”
“Oh, her sweet, tender heart seemed to be set upon him from the
first, and I couldn’t bear to break up those sweet dreams.”
I begun to see where the land lay; I looked at Albina Ann sadly.
There she sot, a full grown woman, with a waist like a pipe stail
and shues with heels half a finger high, and tellin’ she dassent
warn her girl from the evil to come.
But I didn’t say anything to add to her agitation, I simply
remarked, “Well, I never see the time that I wouldn’t pull Tirzah
Ann out of the fire, if I see her blindly blunderin’ into it, or
haul back Thomas J. from precipices. But we hain’t all made alike,
and our faces all on ’em are but the faces of clay.”
I never meant to give her a cut no more than nothin’ in the world,
I wuz talkin’ Bible and feelin’ riz up.
But I see her lift her lace handkerchief in her tight gloved hand,
and then I see, her veil bein’ up, that her color wuzn’t nateral
and the hull complexion made up. But, good land! I wuzn’t goin’ to
try to make over Albina Ann Peak, she’d been made too long--she
wuz about my age--but I told her she could send Dora down and I’d
do the best I could for her, and she kissed me good-by through her
veil (a white one with big, black dots). I thought no wonder Albina
Ann’s eyes has gin out, she wuz most as blind as a checkud adder.
Why, if you’ll believe it, she sot most all day with that veil over
her face. I spoze she thought it wuz becomin’ to her, but I should
jest as soon wore blinders.
In about ten days Dora come, Josiah went after her with the
democrat and brought her and three trunks and some satchels. When
I see them trunks I felt dubersome, and mebby looked so, for
thinkses I, “Is it a life job I’ve tackled?” but in a minute I
thought, “Why, it’s in her bringin’ up; Albina Ann wuz always
changin’ her dress, and ornamentin’ herself, and actin’.” So I met
her with cheerfulness and kissed her on both cheeks, while Josiah,
a-groanin’, as I could hear, tackled the trunks. I see she wuz
naterally a pretty girl, but looked wan and wapeish, and I didn’t
wonder a mite at it when I took close note of the way she wuz
dressed.
I had a warm supper ready, for I thought she would be tired and
hungry. But she couldn’t eat a mite, she said, not a mou’ful, but
I see she had a big empty candy box in her hand, and she owned up
that she’d eat it all on her journey. And bime-by she told me she
had had some pickled stuff that she had brung for an appetite, and
they wuz all eat up.
Well, after she’d took her things off I see she wuz a sight to
behold. If her waist wuzn’t a cur’os’ty then I never see one. Why,
if I do say it, and I’m a Methodist in good standin’, it wuzn’t
much bigger than a quill--a goose quill; of course it wuz some
bigger, but it is within bounds to use it for a metafor. The heels
of her little pinted shoes wuz more’n two and a half inches high
and sot right in the palm of her foot, right on them nerves that
cause headache and blindness, and fits and things, and I knew by
the looks of them pinted toes that no human toes could possibly git
into ’em without bein’ all twisted up just like a heathen Chinee’s.
Well, I declare I felt to weep almost when I looked at her. She
wuz so weak that I had to take her right up to her room and lay
her out on the bed. And I hefted her dress and skirts after I’d
helped her off with ’em, and of all the heft you ever see, why, it
wuz astonishin’. Her dress wuz tailor-made, and embroidered all
over with braid, and fitted her like a glove, but heavy as lead
almost, and jest a-draggin’ round her waist--not a shoulder strap,
nor a button or string or anything that she could divide the burden
with; no, them heavy skirts all a-hangin’ like millstuns round the
little, spindlin’ waist, and that so tight bound down by a hard
bone-and-steel cosset that it looked like a prisoner of the deepest
dye incarcerated in the closest confinement. I see when she lay
down, tired almost to death and a-gaspin’, that she didn’t remove
her cosset; no, there it wuz, a-holdin’ her in its deathly grip
right there on the bed, and I sez, “Don’t you take off your cosset
when you lay down?”
“No,” sez she, kinder pantin’ for breath, “Mamma thinks it hurts
any one’s form so to lounge round with cossets off that she never
allowed me to take them off when I lay down in the daytime, and
Aggie le Fleur wears hers all night, so Mamma said, and she said
that she meant to have me wear mine all night when I got a little
stronger. Mamma sez that it injures one’s form terribly to go
without ’em even for an hour. It ruins anybody to go without ’em,
so Mamma said and so Aggie le Fleur sez.”
“Is it possible,” sez I; “I never mistrusted before that I wuz
ruined, and I’ve gone without ’em since long enough before you
and that young Le Fleur woman you speak of wuz anywhere round or
thought on, and,” sez I, “if I wuz in your place I’d run the resk
of bein’ spilte, and take that thing offen me.”
She wuz a sweet-dispositioned girl, I could see, and she consented,
and she sot up and exerted the hull of her strength, and finally
onhinged or onjinted it somewhere and peeled it offen her. And such
a sithe of relief she gin, as she sank down on the bed. I felt
dretfully to find out by a question or two that the cosset left
deep marks. But still I knew cryin’ and sympathy wuzn’t what she
needed; no, it wuz cast-iron firmness and common sense. So I took
up that instrument of agony some as if it wuz a snake and carried
it into the closet under the stairs, and hung it up and locked the
door, and sez I in a winnin’ way, “Now, my dear, you let that hang
there for a spell and see what will come of it.”
She wuz horrified at the idee, I could see, but bein’ of such a
good disposition she crumpled down and bore it.
Well, after Josiah and I eat (that man wouldn’t wait a minute for
the President) I got her a good wholesome supper and carried it up
into her room on a tray. I had a piece of the breast of a chicken
broiled and nice, some delicate toast, and sweet graham bread and
butter, and ripe strawberries, and a fragrant cup of coffee not too
strong, and plenty of cream. It wuz a good supper. I see she looked
disappointed in not havin’ rich cake and sweetmeats, but I talked
real cheerful to her about the relations and one thing and another,
and, though she said she couldn’t eat a mou’ful, yet she did
make out quite a meal. Well, after supper she put on a tea-gown,
a pretty, white affair, and some slippers, and come downstairs,
and I see, though mebby she didn’t think I did, how different she
breathed and how different she looked when she had her iron armor
off. She wuz a pretty girl, I see plain--just as pretty as a pink
rosy.
Well, that first evenin’ about a quarter to nine she began to look
perter and sort of brightened up, and I told her so, and she sez,
“Yes, Aunt Samantha, this is the hour that mamma begins to help me
dress to go out.”
“To go out!” sez I; “do you mean to the barn?”
“Oh, no,” sez she; “to go to parties.”
“To begin at nine o’clock to dress you to go to parties! Why, for
the land sakes, what time do you git home?”
“Well, usually before mornin’,” sez she, “along about four.”
“Along about four!” I gasped, “and you don’t git any sleep nights
until morning--till it is time to git up! For the land sakes!” sez
I. “What time do you gen’rally git up?”
“Well, usually before noon,” sez she.
“Before noon! Why,” sez I, “at noon all my work is done for the day
and I’m ready to sit down and rest, and you lose all them golden
hours, full of beauty, in bed.”
“Well, Aunt Samantha,” sez she, wantin’ to please me I could see,
wantin’ to like a dog, “I’ve tried not going to bed at all, but
I’m not strong enough to go entirely without sleep.”
“No, indeed!” sez I. “I should think not. Why, a ox hain’t strong
enough, let alone a delicate young girl like you.”
“But,” sez she, liftin’ her sweet, innocent face to mine, “what can
I do, then, Aunt Samantha?”
“Go to bed at the proper time,” sez I. And unconsciously, I spoze,
I put so much common sense into my axents that they sounded ha’sh;
she looked kinder skairt, and sez she:
“But, Aunt Samantha, if I go into society I must do as the rest of
’em do.”
Mekanically I lifted my eyes toward Heaven and sez, “Hain’t there
any society, then, but the society of fools and lunys? But even a
fool orter know that mornin’ is the time to git up instead of goin’
to bed.”
But she looked real kinder flustrated and helpless, so I desisted
from further remarks at that time, and at ten minutes to nine
precisely I got up and lighted our chamber lamps and Josiah wound
up the clock, and I sez, “Well, dear, I will go with you to your
room.”
She looked at the clock and then at me with a look that a female
Hottentot might have if I wuz fastening on skates for her to dash
out on to a frozen lake. But she didn’t say anything. And I kinder
whispered to her on our way upstairs: “It would disturb your Uncle
Josiah for us to set up longer, and you try goin’ to bed early and
gettin’ up early for a spell and see what it will do for you,” sez
I encouragingly. “I believe it will be just the thing to put some
color into your white cheeks and some bright sparkles into your
eyes.”
Well, she didn’t demur outwardly, but immediately begun to take her
hair down to brush it, and I laid my hand fondly on to them long,
golden waves that swep’ down below her waist, and sez I, “I want
you to be happy here, and to be happy one has to be healthy,” and I
repeated partly to myself and partly to her that invaluable bit of
advice:
“Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
And then I see that the toilet things wuz all right, plenty of
water and towels, and I looked at the little covered glass pitcher
with fresh drinking water in it, and see that there wuz matches and
candles, etc., and then sez I, “Is there anything else you would
like, my dear?”
Well, she sort of hesitated and looked as if most afraid to ask,
and then sez, “Well, Aunt Samantha, if you’ve got a piece of mince
pie or fruit cake I would like to take a bite. I sometimes have a
sort of gnawin’ at my stomach, and Mamma always keeps something
rich baked up for me; she thinks it’s strengthening to me to eat
rich things, and she always brings up a plateful before I retire,
with some cheese, or pickles, or dried beef; I have got into the
habit of eating something of the kind, but I don’t like to make you
any trouble,” sez she.
“Oh, no trouble at all,” sez I; “some folks can sleep better after
takin’ a bite.” And I went down into the buttery feelin’ mad as a
hen at Albina Ann and sorry as a dog for Dora. And I took a little
pink china bowl full of good night’s milk with a little cream in
it, and a slice or two of my good, sweet graham bread, and put ’em
on a little Japan tray with a pretty fringed tidy on it, and a
bright silver spoon, and when it was all fixed I took it up to her.
Her face fell as she noticed the absence of pickles and pastry. But
she thanked me and eat a little of it, and it seemed to taste good,
and she finished the hull of it before she got through. And she put
on a pretty white nightgown and got into bed, and I bent down and
sort of tucked in the light white spread and patted the pillows,
and I sez, “You feel pretty good, don’t you?”
And she smiled and sez, “Yes, mom.” But she looked real weak, and I
bent down and whispered to her:
“You mustn’t forget, my dear, to ask the True Physician to help
you.” She lifted up her head and was just about to git out of
bed agin, and I sez, “You can ask Him right where you be, for He
don’t mind; what He minds is the true reverence of the soul--the
dependent call for help from them that need His care and who
believes He can help ’em.”
“Yes, mom,” sez she; “I always say my prayers every night.”
“Well,” sez I, “so do.” And I kissed her and couldn’t help it. I
wuz beginnin’ to like her the best that ever wuz. But jest as I wuz
leavin’ the room she looked up anxiously with her big blue eyes and
sez, “Oh, Aunt Samantha, won’t you close the window at the foot
of the bed and the one in the next room?” That wuz another little
bedroom that opened out of hers and I used it for a clothes-press.
“Why,” sez I, “Honey, the wind couldn’t touch you at all if there
wuz any; your bed is out of the range on’t; but,” sez I, goin’ into
the next room and bringin’ out a big screen (one I made myself out
of the old ironin’ bars and some pretty cretonne), “here,” sez I,
“I’ll put this between your bed and the winder, and you couldn’t
git cold in a cyclone, much less in this sweet June air that comes
up fresh from the heart of Nater and brings a touch of her own
healin’ and rest with it.”
But she looked frightened still, most as if she’d faint away, and
sez she, “Mamma told me special to have you cork the windows up
tight if there wuz any airholes round ’em.”
“Cork ’em up,” sez I mekanically, “I would fur ruther oncork ’em,”
sez I, and I went on, “What is the reason for her desire for
corkin’?”
“The night air is so deadly,” sez she; “Mamma is so much afraid of
it that she never has dared to let a breath of it come to me after
I wuz in bed.”
“Why,” sez I reasonably, “what air could you breathe in the night,
only night air; and do you spoze,” sez I, “that the Lord would fix
things so as to have us breathe deadly pizen half of our time? Why,
you don’t have to go into algebra to figger it out; in the night
time you’ve got to breathe the night air; you can’t git any other,
and it stands to reason that you’d better breathe it fresh from the
hand that made it--good oxygen, etc., than to take it pizened with
all sorts of pizen risin’ from the prespirin’ skin, weak lungs and
stomach, coal gas, etc.”
Well, agin her good disposition come in and fetched her through
this crisis. She settled down agin into the bed with a kind of a
patient sithe, though I could see that she wuz as afraid of that
air as if it wuz wild beasts ready to devour her, yet lookin’ some
relieved at the apple-blows and mornin’ glories that twined round
all over that screen as if they wuz some protection to her.
I bent down and kissed her agin and she kissed me back, and I went
to bed. But I’ll bet I got up most a dozen times and went to her
door and listened, and once in a while I could hear her give a
kind of a low mourn or sithe. But I didn’t dast to let her know
that I wuz there for fear of wakin’ her clear up, and I spozed
goin’ to bed at such a different hour and so many new idees bein’
promulgated to her would naterally upset her, but I kinder worried
about her all night.
Well, in the mornin’ she wuz bed-sick--too sick to git up--and
I can’t say but what I did have a few reflections, mebby two or
three, thinkin’ of the night air and the corks I’d refused and the
quantities of air I’d let in. But yet I wuz held up a good deal by
duty and the thought that her weak feelin’s wuz probable caused
by reasons I’ve named and her journey in waist screws and heel
tortures, and then her sentimental feelin’s for Le Flam I spozed
helped it on some; but anyway and ’tennyrate, she looked like death
when I carried up her coffee and toast to her--not strong coffee,
but jest right, fresh, and fragrant and plenty of cream, and the
toast was delicate, brown, and crispy, and I took up a fresh egg
and a little china dish of strawberries. But she couldn’t eat a
mou’ful. And I wuz most skairt, she looked so white and tired, and
I sez to Josiah when I went downstairs:
“You’ll have to go to Jonesville and git the doctor.” For I, not
knowin’ how much wuz sentiment and how much sickness, thought I’d
better be on the safe side and git a doctor, and owin’ to a feelin’
that I couldn’t quite explain myself, it come to me so sort of
queer and sudden, “Git young Dr. Phillip,” sez I. You see, Dr.
Phillip Rhodes, father and son, wuz doctors, and folks called ’em
old Dr. Phillip and young Dr. Phillip.
And Josiah sez, “You always have the old doctor, Samantha.”
And I sez, “That don’t make any difference, Josiah; you get young
Dr. Phillip.”
And I thought on’t after he went, I didn’t really know why I did
insist on havin’ him; I don’t really think that I’d planned out
anything in my own mind at that time, but I wuz kinder led to do
what I did.