The time drawed near for me to go to Tamer’s and visit with
Celestine, and I cooked up good vittles and sights of ’em, knowin’
that in my absence no paneky would soothe like that. I didn’t mean
to stay but two nights, but didn’t know what might happen, they wuz
such cases to urge me to stay when I got there.
I arrove on the appinted day with no casualities, and they wuz
dretful glad to see me, Anna and Jack specially, Tamer and
Cicero seemed to be sort o’ absent-minded, I most knew they had
got holt of some new novel, and so it turned out, it wuz “The
Roaring Avenger of the Bloody Path” that wuz under perusal, and
they couldn’t hardly brook to have their attentions drawed off a
minute, but Tamer finished it the afternoon of the day I got there,
and then she seemed inclined to talk more, but her talk wuz real
deprestin’. She had got the sinevetus she said beyend the doubt.
And I said, “Don’t you believe you got it runnin’ after Arabeller?”
And she said, with a sithe, “Mebby it wuz so, and,” sez she, “if it
wuzn’t so onfashionable to keep house without a servant I wouldn’t
keep her an hour, for she acts worse than ever and makes me more
trouble than she duz good, enough sight.”
Celestine seemed real glad to see me when she could git her
attentions offen her landscapes and views and placks and things.
She is a tall, wapey lookin’ woman and wears spectacles, and I
don’t spoze she sees much through them specks only her pictures,
and works of Art, as she calls ’em. She don’t seem to see her
little girl hardly any, a sweet, pretty child, too, a gentle, quiet
little thing with eyes that seem to be on the lookout for tender
looks, and a sweet, sad mouth that seems sort o’ grievin’ for the
kisses she don’t git.
For sure as I am alive durin’ them three days and two nights I wuz
there I didn’t see Celestine take one mite of notice of little
Mary, only to hook up her dress once or twice and tie back her
hair, and she did them in a kind of a absent-minded, dreamy way as
if the child’s waist might have been a distant range of mountains,
and her hair a waterfall or runnin’ stream. It wuz some such color,
anyway, some of the color of water with the gold light of sunset
burnin’ on it, and it hung all round her sweet face in waves and
ringlets. She wuz a dretful pretty child. And it seemed as if I
couldn’t keep my hands offen her, I wanted to hold her in my arms
and pat down them shinin’ tresses so. And it wuzn’t more’n several
minutes, anyway, till she wuz nestlin’ up aginst me and I wuz
holdin’ her real fondly on my left side while Jack wuz hangin’
round my right side. He didn’t act jealous a mite, either, for he
seemed to be jest as fond of little Mary as I wuz. They played
together real good. And I held that child in my arms and looked
down into the tender, confidin’ little face, a sort of believin’
face, jest the sort I like, and sez to myself:
“What under the sun can her Ma be thinkin’ of to be makin’ up fancy
pictures and set so much store by ’em and slight the sweetest and
prettiest livin’ picture, all finished off perfect, right before
her?” But Celestina did, she jest slighted her, and acted as if
she wuzn’t half so much worth as the blank pieces of canvas she
handled from day to day, for them she could cover with her own
idees and images. It seemed queer to me, queer as a dog.
Anna wuz not in very good sperits, but she went round the house
good tempered if ruther sad, helpin’ her Ma all she could, and, in
fact, takin’ the brunt of the work on herself, for Arabeller wuz
not to be depended on, and Tamer’s various diseases wuz worse and
more aggravatin’ than they had been. Cicero, as usual, wuz steeped
to the chin in cigarettes and his wild novels of buckaneers and
pirates and couldn’t be depended on for help only at meal times,
then he come out strong and helped to make way with the food in a
masterful way.
Hamen and his brother John wuz real busy about their bizness, and
I didn’t see much on ’em, only at the table when they partook of
their food hastily and departed. But Tamer seemed to want to make
it as pleasant as she could for me, and as Celestine spent so much
time outdoors engrossed with her painting, she and I had lots of
time to visit together, though, as I always did at Hamen’s, I see
lots of things I didn’t fancy, though I hain’t no hand to complain.
I don’t believe in relations findin’ fault with each other, and I
am very close mouthed, but of course I can’t help seein’ every time
I am there that Tamer is sot and overbearin’ and very onreasonable.
Why, she don’t think that Tirzah Ann is the best housekeeper in
Jonesville, she jest the same as told me there wuz others jest as
good. And she believes that in the big cities there is lawyers that
know as much as our Thomas Jefferson.
I pity Tamer from the bottom of my heart, she is failin’ in her
mind. But she can’t help it, she has weakened her faculties, I
think, broodin’ on her diseases, and then half the time she thinks
she is a female Amazon. And how I do pity little Jack! Tamer kep’
the best sort of clothes on him, dressed and fed him jest as
well as a child could be, only when she wuz down with the most
curiousest of her diseases, or in one of her tempers.
But while, as I have said, she took good care of his body, oh! how
she neglected and misused the mind, the heart, the imagination, the
true life of little Jack, misused it like a dog. She would fly at
him and whip him unmercifully for what he wuzn’t to blame for, and
then set over one of her novels and let him go on with what he ort
to have been stopped doin’. To use the words of another, she let
him do the things he ortn’t to do and whipped him for what he ort.
Her mind wuz such.
Now, to give a sample of her onjestice, the very next day after I
wuz there Jack wuz sent to a neighbor’s on a errent. His mother
told him to go cross lots, she wuz in such a hurry to have her
errent done she didn’t give him enough particulars about the way,
and when the poor little creeter wuz doin’ jest the best he could
and hurryin’ on jest as near as he could where his Ma told him to
go, he got into a swampy place and got his best clothes all dirty
and wuz too late to do his errent.
Tamer Ann wanted to send by the neighbor to the city where he wuz
goin’ for a certain new blood curdlin’ novel, jest issued, and,
owin’ to Jack’s misfortune in losin’ his way when he got there, the
man wuz gone. And when poor Jack come meachin’ home with his nice
clothes all muddy and wet, as forlorn lookin’ a little creeter as
I ever see, Tamer wuz voylently mad about his clothes, and when he
said (for Jack is naturally truthful) that he got there too late
to do the errent, Tamer’s face got red as blood with white patches
shinin’ through the red, like a lurid sky with white thunder caps
showin’ on it, and she took Jack by the hand and jerked him up the
stairs into her own room.
She jest tore the clothes offen him, as I learn afterwards, and
whipped him onmercifully, first with her hand, and then afterwards,
as Jack wouldn’t own up that he had been wicked and wuz sorry for
it, she grew madder and madder, and voyalenter and voyalenter, and
ketched off her slipper, not a soft one (that might be applied
with safety to the place best fitted for such blows), but one with
a high French heel, and she struck Jack with that till great blue
marks wuz left on his little quiverin’, shrinkin’ body.
She whipped him till the sharp pain made him yield, as greater
heroes have before, and he owned up that he had been awful wicked
and wuz sorry. And then Tamer wuz satisfied and dressed Jack in
a handsome suit and give him half a pound of candy and a lot of
indigestible fruit (which he threw up with great pain before
midnight), and come down lookin’ perfectly satisfied and contented,
and Jack went out to divide his spoils with Mary, jest as many
a outwardly successful hero has brung home his spoils obtained
by truckling to Evil to lavish on some beloved female. And that
evenin’, jest before sundown, I give Tamer a-talkin’ to, sez I,
“Jack thought he wuz doing right, he thought he wuz on the right
road.”
“If he had looked and kep’ his mind on it all the time he would
have come out right.”
Sez I, “Tamer Ann, mebby Jack didn’t think to look.”
“Well, I’ll let you know that Jack has got to think. I’ll whip him
jest as hard for not thinkin’ as I will for anything else, what
bizness has he not to think?”
Sez I, “Tamer Ann, do you and I always think before we do things?”
“I can’t speak for you,” sez she, “but as for me, I always do.”
Sez I, “Is it always easy for you to decide right, Tamer, when two
or three paths are in front of you to decide from? Do you always
choose the right one?”
“I always have!” sez she severely.
“Well,” sez I, “you’re different from most folks; most of us git
into the wrong paths time and agin, and go blunderin’ along over
rocks and sand and stun and weeds, etc., and we may count ourselves
happy if we ever git back into the right road agin.”
“Well,” sez Tamer, “Jack might have known he wuz goin’ wrong, it
wuzn’t a blunder, he chose deliberate.”
Sez I, “Jack said he thought he wuz goin’ right, and I believe
him. But even if he had chosen the wrong road deliberate, lots of
us look back onto times when we had to choose different paths to
walk in, and deliberately, though unbeknown to us, chose the wrong
way. There is so many paths to choose from in this life, the roads
branch out into so many different ways, why, if the compass had as
many pints on it as the porcupine has quills it couldn’t begin to
pint to the different paths we have to choose from.
“Sometimes,” sez I, growin’ real eloquent, “they go down into the
shadows with the pale shapes of Renunciation and Martyrdom, and a
cross shinin’ faint and far down in the gloom. Some through the
garden of the gods, where the air is fine and clear, and music and
chanted song float along down the beautiful pathway. Some through
the crowds of bizness, and gay pleasure-seekers through pleasures
and palaces. Some into the dark highways, where Want and Misery
walk hand in hand. Some down into the tomb, some up the mount of
crucifixion. There are paths, long, cold, shinin’, that go up the
mountain side, where the glitterin’ tops gleam and beckon, and we
are willin’ to drop every weight that would hender us from climbin’.
“Oh, those times to look back upon when life wuz to be chosen, or
what proved to be (onbeknown to us) a livin’ death! How calm the
fields lay under the light of that autumn sky, long flat fields,
green and calm and stretchin’ back to the quiet woods. How the road
in front lengthened out in a long, shinin’, yellow-brown ribbon
with cozy sheltered homes layin’ by its side. How soft and cloud
flecked wuz the sky overhead, broodin’ down over the sheltered
home nests. Only a question to be made and answered, a breath of
air, light thing indeed, lighter than the lightest fleck of soft
blue-gray cloud overhead, maybe a few tears, a farewell not so loud
as the lowest bird song in the branches along the brown wayside
fences. Ah! but has there not been times since when that low word
has risen into a mighty voice that filled the skies of the worlds,
this world and the onknown? The great dread that it wuz indeed
final, that nowhere, nowhere could the lives that touched each
other, and then drifted so wide asunder, would ever meet side by
side agin.
“Oh, the blindness, the fatal blindness of ignorance, the mistakes
that arise from pride, from ambition, from any and every cause, and
whose fatality cannot be seen until afterward, until the sun has
gone down and the night brings reflection and--heartache! These
are the true tragedies of life, enacted by them who weep with no
grave for their tears to fall upon. These are the real mourners who
do not go about the streets, but who sit inside the gayly curtained
box and see the play of life go on before them till the lights are
put out, the curtain down, and the real play of life is at an end.
“But they watch the gayly plumed puppets play and act their part,
and applaud and smile and the play goes on. Poor playgoers, poor
actors on the stage, all, all waiting for the finale of the seen.
“Everywhere, everywhere, on each side, before us, under us, over
us, the roads branch off, and we with our poor, weak eyesight
can’t choose right time and agin, we can’t and don’t. Even with
the experience of maturity, with all the wisdom gathered from the
words of them who have gone the way before, with all the experience
of the travelers through the past to guide us, with the lamp of
Caution in our hand, the shoes of Watchfulness to creep along on,
and the great book of God’s will open before us, His strength to
lean on--if with all these helps we stumble and blunder, how can
we condemn the children so harshly, with no guide but the waverin’
will, the undeveloped conscience and understandin’, if they make
mistakes?
“And you whipped Jack,” sez I impressively, “for making just a
little mistake; you whipped him till his poor back is black and
blue, Tamer.”
“I didn’t mean to whip so hard, Cousin Samantha, but my temper got
up so after I got to whippin’ him because he wouldn’t own that he
had been wicked and say he wuz sorry for it, that I whipped him
harder than I meant to.”
Sez I, “Then you wuz whippin’ him for not tellin’ a lie, and you
made him tell one, for, at last, to stop the cruel sting of the
blows on his poor little back, you did finally succeed in makin’
him say he had been wicked, when he hadn’t been, and sorry, when he
wuzn’t sorry, poor little creeter!”
“You always take Jack’s part, Samantha.”
“Not before Jack, Tamer Smith.”
“No, you don’t say anything before him, but you kinder act in such
a way that he knows you are on his side, that you are his friend.”
“Well, I should think he needed one, poor little creeter!”
“Don’t you spoze, Samantha Allen, a mother knows what is best and
right for her children? Don’t you spoze she acts for his best good?”
“Not when she leaves blue, livid marks on his back, not when she
whips him into tellin’ a lie.”
“What you mean by that, I don’t know,” sez Tamer.
“He wuzn’t sorry,” sez I; “not a particle, and you whipped him till
he said he wuz.”
“Well, he ought to be sorry if he wuzn’t, and I would like to know
what you would have me do.”
“I would have you never make a child say a thing that wuzn’t true,
and if you had sot your mind on havin’ him say he wuz sorry, reason
with him and tell him why he ort to be sorry till he wuz sorry. But
you jest sprung at him and whipped him, as sudden and voyalent as a
hailstorm that ravages down on a flower garden, cuttin’ and peltin’
and slashin’ and killin’ all the dainty leaves and blossoms. And
it didn’t do any more good and jest as much hurt as that voyalent
storm would, with no soft rain to go down to the root of the
flowers and nourish ’em.
“Why, if them posies ever lift their heads agin, which many of ’em
won’t, there will be on ’em the cuts and scars of the icy, drivin’
hailstuns. If the sweet posies of Truth and Candor and Honesty
hain’t entirely cut down and pelted out of sight in Jack’s poor
little soul I’ll be glad on’t, but if they do live, Tamer Ann,
there will be cuts and scars on ’em, and I’d advise you as a friend
to turn short round and do different by him.”
Sez Tamer, tosstin’ her head, “I shall probable do as I like with
my own child, he is mine.”
Sez I, “Tamer Smith, there is where you make another mistake. He is
not yours, as you may find out to your sorrow some day, he belongs
to Another who let you take him for a spell, to train him up for
higher service. He will claim him agin when He gits ready.”
And, though I didn’t say it outside of me, I said it inside, that I
should be most glad if He would take him, much as I loved him. It
would be such a comfort, I thought, to lay my head down at night on
my goose-feather pillow and think that dear little Jack wuz safe.
Safe from the cruel blows that fell on him anywhere, hard blows
that beat the little, tender body and soft, dimpled limbs, leavin’
blue, livid marks where there should be nothin’ but dimples. Safe
from the deeper marks and scars that deface the eager, seekin’
mind, the active, impressionable nature, the little white soul. But
while I wuz so sorry for Jack that my heart most melted inside of
me and the tears run down my face many a time faster than they did
down Jack’s when I would hear Tamer whippin’ him, and he cryin’----
Though I wuz sorry for Jack and pitiful towards him, as pitiful
could be, I tried to be and wuz about half the time, I should
say, sorry for Tamer, or mebby it wuz a quarter of the time I wuz
sorry for her, or half a quarter, I can’t tell exactly, because
I would have my ups and downs about it, for Jack it wuz a full,
deep, complete pity and sympathy and sorrow all the time. But
sometimes I would say to myself, now Tamer has got a bad temper,
she got it through Heaven only knows by what cause, ancestral or
local. If it come down to her with her Roman nose and thin lips
from some ancestor, then how fur is she to blame for not subduin’
it entirely? No amount of rubbin’ down and smoothin’ and grindin’
could make that nose of hers into a Greecy one. No amount of
stimulatin’ liniment could make them thin lips soften out into more
generous and sweeter curves. She might git up early and set up late
and she couldn’t make them changes, and who knows whether she could
with all her efforts entirely soften and make sweet that sour,
dissatisfied disposition and fiery temper?
And then would be the time, for four or five minutes mebby, I would
be sorry for Tamer. And then agin I would say to myself she has
lived in a onreal, onnatural world and is livin’ there still. And
when pirates and burglars and murderers and arsoners and rapiners
and robbers and Injuns are continually roamin’ and stalkin’ and
war-whoopin’ and murderin’ and dashin’ and skulkin’ and prancin’
through anybody’s brain, hain’t it reasonable that that brain
should be tuckered out, too tuckered, too trompled and beat down to
take fresh, vigorous thought on any subject?
I would say in such a wild, trompled, dust-blown, whoopin’ highway
what chance is there for such a little mite of a lonesome
wayfarer as Jack, and I don’t know that it is any wonder that he
is sometimes entirely overlooked, and sometimes ridin’ up in high
ease, and sometimes stomped and trompled on. Poor little creeter!
And then I would think of her different diseases, and wantin’ to do
my best for her even in my thoughts (for, though I gin her advice
through duty, I always tried to be charitable to her in my mind),
I would say over to myself some of her most lengthy distempers and
curious ones, I would say, in a low, deep voice, “basler mangetus,
sinevetus, singletus, tonsiletus, pironitus,” etc., etc., till
sometimes I would git real sorry for her as much as six minutes.
Well, just such seens as I have mentioned I would witness from
hour to hour and from day to day, and finally I got heartsick with
lookin’ at it and wuz glad when the time drawed near for me to
return to the bosom of my family (a gingham bosom week days, and
a fine linen one Sundays, with five pleats on a side). Jack cried
when I spoke of goin’ home, but Cicero didn’t care at all, he wuz
to school daytimes, and the very minute he got home at night he wuz
pourin’ over them novels, and his mother would proudly say to me:
“Cicero is so much like me, so different from Jack, he is so
studious, such a reader, he will make a great thinker.”
Not through the nourishment he gits from such food, I sez to
myself. And I tried several times to talk with Cicero about readin’
such books, but he would look up so coldy at me from across “The
Boody Gulch” or “The Fiend Haunted Hollow” that it fairly stunted
me. He would look up middlin’ respectful to hear my remonstrances
about readin’ ’em, would listen with his finger between the pages,
and the minute I stopped, resoom his occupation, in the meantime
answerin’ me nothin’, not a word, till I declare it stunted me, his
looks wuz so cold and resolved and sort o’ blood curdlin’, and his
mean so determined that I wuz positively afraid to tackle him.
But he had his thoughts, and while I wuz there one mornin’ it wuz
found that Cicero wuz missin’, he wuz searched for one day and two
nights; Tamer, in the meantime, fallin’ from one hysterick into
another, the third day he wuz found in the woods milds from there,
on top of a big rock; he had built a fortification in front of it,
and barricaded himself from enemies, had built a sort of an outlook
in a tree nigh by, where he could look out for prowlin’ foes, and
wuz found there smokin’ cigarettes and readin’ “The Lone Bandit of
the Haunted Woods” when he wuz discovered. He wuz made to go home,
though he rebelled and wuz moody for days afterwards.