It wuzn’t long after this that Josiah had to go over to South
Scriba to sell some spruce lumber, he wanted to dicker for some
salted white fish, they ketch sights of white fish to the lake,
and by goin’ a little round we could go right by the summer hotel
where Miss Greene Smythe wuz stayin’. The hotel wuz a big buildin’
standin’ in large, beautiful grounds; it wuz the biggest hotel in
the place, and she had the hull floor of one wing, lived there
jest as independent as you please with her own servants, and her
daughter, Medora, and the young twins, Algernon and Angenora.
Josiah left me there, and, as I wuz waitin’ to be showed up to her
room, I hearn the twins fightin’ fiercely at the head of the stairs
and kickin’ each other and swearin’ like two young pirates at the
top of their voices, and while I wuz lookin’ on in astonishment a
girl come runnin’ downstairs and yanked ’em back, one in each hand,
and swore at ’em, for I hearn her with my own ears, and scolded
’em like a termagant. I spoze it wuz their French nurse, for her
swearin’ had a kinder queer axent. Well, I sot there quite a spell
while the man went to see whether Miss Greene Smythe wuz to home;
he wuz gone a awful while.
And while I sot there a good lookin’ woman, with a rather sharp
chin and nose, come along, and sot down in a chair near me, she
come in jest as the girl dragged ’em off, quarrelin’ and usin’
words I wouldn’t speak for a dollar bill. And this woman went on
and told me things I hated to hear--I didn’t ask her, she told of
her own accord.
Sez she, “Miss Greene Smythe makes a great show, and don’t want to
even speak to folks full as good as she is.” And here she tosted
her head quite a good deal. “But if she would spend some of the
time on her children she spends on fashion and them everlastin’
young men danglin’ round her, she would be less apt to have a
gallows rared up in her family.” She said she didn’t believe
there ever wuz such a actin’ child in the hull world as Algernon.
Angenora, she said, wuz better dispositioned to start with, but
wuz bein’ spilte by Algernon’s plaguin’ her so. She had got so she
would swear and kick almost as loud and hard as he would while he
wuz fightin’ her.
“Well,” sez I, “they’re little things, they don’t know any better.”
“I know it,” sez she, “their nurses are ugly dispositioned, both
on ’em, and they’re jest as mean as they can be to the children,
though they keep ’em clean enough. But,” she said they wuz ignorant
as might be expected, and used so many slang words and low phrases
the children had ketched their language and oaths, so their talk
wuz more like a pirate’s children or a buckaneer’s than the
children of Christian parents. “And fight!” sez she, she didn’t
believe there wuz a bigger fighter on earth than Algernon for his
age. And lie! why, Algernon’s nurse, she said, wuz such a liar that
she fairly seemed to prespire untruth through her pores, and them
children wuz with her all the time and breathed her atmosphere,
drinkin’ it down with their milk (they wuz both brung up on a
bottle, Miss Greene Smythe thinkin’ it more genteel). And Algernon
would lie now in such a picturesque, dashin’ way as to fairly stunt
anybody to hear it.
And Angenora follered on as fast as her temperament and nateral
nater would let her. She said the children wuz with the nurses most
all the time, for Miss Greene Smythe and Medora wuz out nights,
and when they wuz to home they didn’t seem to have time to pay any
attention to the children, and she said little Angenora herself
wuz out nights sometimes till one and two o’clock to children’s
parties, and eat rich stuff and drunk coffee and champagne at
midnight, and that wuz another thing that made her so bad lately.
Sez I, “Our grandchildren have parties, but they invite their
little comrades of both sects to come in the afternoon, and they
play games, blind man’s buff, and tag, and they have swings, and
they play with dolls and balls and marbles jest like the babies
they are, and at six o’clock they have a good hullsome supper,
sweet bread and butter, and a little briled chicken mebby, and
one kind of good plain cake baked and frosted in pretty shapes to
please the childish eye, and plenty of ripe fruit, oranges, etc.,
and a little candy, and good chocolate with cream in it to drink,
and they home by sundown, happy and tired, a good, healthy tire,
that makes ’em sleep like tops and wake up refreshed to meet the
mornin’ greetin’ of the rising sun, ready and willin’ to tackle
their lessons or their play agin.”
Well, she said, “That wuzn’t Miss Greene Smythe’s way, and,” sez
she, “it is killin’ Angenora, her little head is gittin’ weak, and
she is jest on the pint of nervous prostration and heart failure.”
“Heart failure and nervous prostration at nine years of age!” sez I
convelsively.
“Yes,” sez she, “and you’ll see I’m right, though her mother
wouldn’t pay any attention if I should speak to her about it.
She don’t see me half the time,” sez she, “right when I meet her
face to face.” She stood ready, I could see, to talk aginst Miss
Greene Smythe, but I wuzn’t goin’ to jine in it, but I felt dretful
worried about what she had told me, and sez:
“How duz Algernon stand it?”
“Oh, he won’t go,” sez the woman; “he jest swears and throws
himself and acts so his Ma has gin up tryin’ to make him go. He sez
he hain’t a-goin’ to dance with girls and stay out all night for
nobody; and he is so ugly dispositioned they dassent try to make
him do what he don’t want to.”
“Well,” sez I, “ugly or not, he shows good sense in that.” But at
that minute the man returned and told me Miss Greene Smythe wuz
to home, and I followed him upstairs. Medora wuz away for a week
or so at some other resort, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz alone, and
she seemed quite glad to see me. She give me a big easy chair, and
almost to once begun to consult me about the entertainment.
Sez she, “I shall have musicians and elocutionists from the city,
there will be a big special train to bring the guests down, but I
would like also to please the natives, if I could. I am bound to
have the biggest affair of the season, and everybody who comes of
course will feel bound to buy something.”
And I sez reasonable, “I don’t believe that there are any natives
round here, not more than one, anyway--I hearn there is one
old Injun basket maker tentin’ in the woods back of Sylvester
Bobbettses, but it hain’t no ways likely he will come.”
She sez, “I mean the folks that live round here.”
“Oh,” sez I, “I guess they will turn out first rate, it is a real
charitable place here.”
“I want your help,” sez she; “do help me by talkin’ it up to
people, won’t you?”
And I told her I would, “For,” sez I, “Charity never faileth, and,”
sez I, “if I wuz not interested in charity I should feel like
soundin’ brass and tinklin’ cymbal, not that I know what a cymbal
is, but suppose it is a brass horn.”
“Yes,” sez she, “charity for the heathen is the main work of
course, but socially I want it to be a great success.”
I had told her, when I first went in, that I couldn’t stay
long, and had refused to take off my bunnet, so pretty soon she
mentioned she wuz goin’ to a lawn party to a neighborin’ hotel
that afternoon, and asked me if I would feel hurt if she went on
dressin’ while she talked to me, and I told her no, and I sez,
“Josiah is liable to come any minute, he’ll come jest as soon as he
makes his dicker.”
So her maid proceeded to put on her shoes, she had got her
underclothes all on and wuz in her dressin’ jacket and slippers.
She had handsome silk stockin’s on, embroidered beautiful, but she
wuz cut out for a big, fat woman, and her feet wuz big, they wuz
at the least calculation number five feet, but the shoe that maid
tried to get on them feet wuzn’t more than number three. I see the
efforts for quite a spell and didn’t say a word, why her feet wuz
squooze to that extent that her toes any good excuse for makin’ a
lame martyr of herself.
“Oh, they would make light, and say I wuzn’t fashionable.”
And I sez, “I believe I could bear that better than I could what
you’re sufferin’ now. But I don’t believe they would notice ’em,
I believe you could wear a shoe big enough for your feet, so you
could walk and enjoy life, and nobody would find it out, nobody
would ever think to look and tell on’t.”
“Oh, yes, they would,” sez she, “they would laugh.”
“Well, mebby you would be in a condition to laugh yourself, which
you are fur from bein’ now,” sez I pityin’ly. But I couldn’t
convince her, and she stood up on them pinted toes and high, slim
heels, and waddled off to the bed where her dress wuz.
And then follered another battle between mind and matter, between
too compressed matter, namely a big, fat waist, and a small but
firm minded cosset and waist. For a long time the victory seemed
to be on the side of the fat body, but it had to gin in, the last
button wuz drawed to, the last fortress of flesh, which resisted
to the death, wuz overcome and crowded in, and the steel walls of
the prison told no tales of the agony within. Heavy skirts wuz
adjusted and draped about the achin’ form, the long train lay out
on the carpet, and the number six hands crowded into the number
four gloves, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz ready to go and enjoy
fashionable life. She said she wouldn’t go until dear Mr. Allen
come, but we would go and sit down on the balcony, where it would
be pleasanter than here.
Well, as we sot there in that upper piazza we could hear plain the
voices of Algernon and his nurse, and occasionally the voice of
Angenora, enough to show she wuz there, and we heard swear words
and nasty words, lots of ’em, words that our grandchildren, in
their love-guarded home, had never dremp of and wouldn’t as long as
their Pa’s and Ma’s and grandparents had eyes to see and ears to
hear. Miss Greene Smythe looked up to me and sez, “I am ashamed of
the way that boy talks, but he got it from his nurse, she is good
as gold in some things, but has got a voylent temper, and when she
is angry she uses awful language, but she don’t have her mad fits
often.”
And I sez, “Hain’t you afraid it will ruin the twins to be under
such influence now in the most impressionable age?”
And she admitted she had worried some about it, and sez she,
“I should got rid of her long ago, but she is a be-a-uti-ful
hairdresser, that wuz her father’s bizness, and her mother wuz a
dressmaker, and she has natural taste about dress. And you know
if hair don’t have proper attention it will lose its gloss and
won’t friz as it ought to. And, as for loopin’ up drapery, I have
never seen that woman’s equal in my life, my maid is jest nowhere
beside her. And goin’ into society as much as I do, you can see how
necessary it is I should have some one right in the house that I
can depend on, that I can put confidence in as to the hanging of my
skirt, and my bangs.”
“Well,” sez I, in a ruther cold axent, “if you don’t see curiouser
loopin’s and bangs in the twin’s heads and hearts bime-by than any
you ever had in a dress or foretop, then I’ll miss my guess.” And
I went on and argued with her for quite a spell for the children’s
good.
I tried hard to make her think that the well-doin’ of her children,
and the immortal destiny of their souls, wuz of more consequence
than the puckerin’s of her dress, or the frizzle of her hair, but
I couldn’t seem to make her think as I did, and so I spoze it will
have to go on. That girl’s nasty mad swearin’ talk settin’ the
example, and the twins follerin’ on and workin’ it out as plain
as my grandmother ever worked a blue rose and pink horse from a
exampler at school and framed it for us to look at. I knew the
sampler the twins wuz workin’ under that woman’s teachin’ wuz goin’
to be framed in a stronger frame than I ever sot eyes on and hung
on a higher wall. I felt bad, I knew that the frame wuz as strong
as a deathless life, and the wall high as eternity.
Little Angenora’s nurse wuzn’t so fiery dispositioned as
Algernon’s. But she give her opiates to make her sleep when she
wanted to go out with her bo’s, and hurt her body in that way, and
others I don’t want to talk about, but mebby she didn’t hurt her
soul so much as she did Algernon’s, ’tennyrate it didn’t show quite
so plain now, she didn’t swear so loud as he did, nor throw herself
so heavy.
But the opiates made the little creeter look wan and pale and
sleepy more’n half the time, and I said to Miss Greene Smythe
in this conversation, it seemed a shame to have her little
constitution all ruined in that way onbeknown to her, before she
wuz old enough to defend it. But she said she guessed she didn’t
give Angenora very much, she wuz a pale child naturally.
But I see her attention wuz wanderin’ from what I wuz sayin’ to
sunthin she wuz beholdin’ on the inside of her mind, and anon she
asked me if I could tell her where she could find a perfectly
white Spitz dog with a black ring around its neck.
And I sez in a kind of impatient way, for I didn’t like to be broke
up in my high minded, conscientious talk, “I don’t know anything
about such a pup.”
Sez she, “I didn’t really suppose you would, but I am so anxious to
git one I improve every opportunity to inquire. They are the height
of fashion, and, while I am obliged to stay here in the country,
waiting the ending of this tedious lawsuit, such a pet would be so
much company for me.”
“Company!” sez I, in a deep, impressive voice, “if you want
company, where are your own girl and boy, where are the two little
immortal souls the Lord gin you to guide and fit for a place with
Him bime-by? Them two little white souls you are leavin’ with
ignorant, coarse servants to train?”
And I went on real eloquent for as much as four minutes and a half,
but she didn’t hear me, for, after I got through with my powerful
remarks and wuz kinder waitin’ for a reply, she sez, “I can’t
possibly make up my mind which to have.”
And I wuz real encouraged, for I thought I had convinced her and
she wuz turnin’ it over in her mind which it wuz best to have,
help about her puckers and frizzles or more assured hope about her
children’s future, and I sez, “I could tell quick.”
“Well, then, do tell,” sez she, “for I don’t believe I can ever
make up my mind alone, there are so many things dependent on it, it
is not itself alone that you should take into consideration.”
“That is jest what I have been tryin’ to make you understand,” sez
I, “All the mighty consequences hangin’ on it, and I am glad you
feel to realize it.”
“Well, then,” sez she, “what color would you have?”
“Color!” sez I.
“Yes,” sez she, “what color would you have for the awnings and
trimmings for the big tent where I am to receive? I myself should
prefer pink as more becoming to my complexion. Medora wants
pale-blue on account of her hair, which she has just dyed a golden
color. But Mrs. La Flamme, at her great charity ball, had blue
awnings and draperies, and I wouldn’t for the world have her think
I copied her or was lacking in originality--what do you think of a
delicate shell pink?”
I riz up with a real lot of dignity, and, as I glanced down, I see
one of her danglers sot there in a stylish carriage, waiting for
her, evidently.
So I sez, “Don’t let me hender you any longer; Josiah will be here
in a few minutes, and I have got some bizness of my own to tend to
before I go.” I did want to see the landlord about some jars of
butter I had sold him, he had made a mistake about sendin’ home the
jars. So she went downstairs on that side of the buildin’, and I
swep’ through the hall with a sight of dignity, and didn’t finish
sweepin’ till I swep over some playthings of Algernon’s, and he
swore at me till I got to the bottom of the stairs.
Well, the landlord promised to send home my jars, and I went out on
the lower piazza, which wuz most deserted at this hour, and pretty
soon Angenora come and found me there. She had got sick of playin’
with Algernon, she said, and, as we sot there, we could hear him
swearin’ at his nurse and tearin’ at the cat’s tail. And the cat’s
yells of distress and the nurse’s coarse rebukes all come mellowed
by the distance, and she leaned up aginst me and we had a good
little visit. She knew me quite well, for she had been to our house
a number of times, and I had seen her at Thomas J.’s when she’d
been there to play with the children.
She wuz a affectionate little thing, or she wouldn’t have worried
so over Jimmy De Graffe. Her eyes wuz big and black and solemn
lookin’, and her hair curled in little short black curls all over
her head, her complexion wuz white and clear, and she looked wan.
But I believe it wuz what she had had gin her that made her look
so, as well as her late hours and fashionable flirtations. But she
wuz very handsome, and I didn’t wonder so much what I had always
heard, that of all her children Miss Greene Smythe loved this
one best, and wuz proudest of her and bound to have her shine in
society even at the age of nine, poor little thing! I don’t doubt
but what her Ma loved her, but it wuz a love so covered up and hid
underneath fashion and frivolity and show that I thought to myself
it might jest about as well not been there at all for all the good
it did her.
Though they say Miss Greene Smythe did once in a while, when she
had a few minutes’ reprieve from her life work of show and sham,
pet little Angenora, and tell her how she loved her, and that she
wuz the only comfort of her Ma’s hard, toilsome life. Love begets
love, and that is why, I spoze, little Angenora wuz the only livin’
thing on earth that really loved Miss Greene Smythe, she did love
her fondly.
She wuz a tender-hearted child, anyway, and had to love somethin’,
and wanted to be mothered, wanted to dretfully, but, seein’ her
mother wuz engaged in her labor of fashionable display, she didn’t
git mothered at all, and that gin her the wistful, longin’ look
in her eyes, that and her late hours and the stuff her nurse gin
her. And she had a sort of pitiful, skairful look in her eyes,
and that come, I found out, from her nurse skairin’ her nights
ever sence she wuz a baby to make her lay still, tellin’ her that
somebody would jump at her, or that there wuz great green eyes
lookin’ out at her from different places, and there wuz wicked men
ready to appear to her, and ghosts and everything, and as the nurse
had always told her that she would eat her up alive, if she told
anything about it, why, it had gin her a dretful subdued look and
afraid to say her little soul wuz her own. But I spoze the deep,
silent, constant love of this little thing wuz a rock of support
for her Ma to think on in her fashionable career, I spoze so.
Well, I put my arm round her, and she laid her little cheek up
aginst me real confidin’ and sweet, and I told her stories and
mothered her jest as well as I could till my Josiah appeared
drivin’ up the long avenoo with the mair and colt. And I told her
to have her Ma let her come down and stay a week with us, and she
brightened up real bright and said she would.
Josiah had made the dicker, so he told me, as we drove home, and
had swapped five hundred feet of spruce lumber for white fish put
down in sweet pickle. And I sez, “For mercy sake! what do you want
of so many fish!”
And he sez, “I love ’em dearly, Samantha.”
“But,” sez I, “you may love anything and not want to be swamped by
it, run over and drownded in it.”
“Well,” he said, fish agreed with his stomach and wuz nourishin’ to
the brain.
And I, takin’ a second thought on his last proposition, sez, “Mebby
you hain’t got any too many, Josiah, I guess you had better eat all
you can.” I knew if he couldn’t git down four or five kags of ’em
we could give ’em to the children.