Things went on in their usual roteen in our home in Jonesville,
Josiah good, over-good at times, anon puggicky and hard to
git along with, softened into amiability agin by his own good
principles and his pardner’s oncommon tact and cookin’. Meetin’s,
socials, visitors, agents, and colporters varied the calm roteen as
of yore; the children had been home frequent, and Hamenses folks
had been down on a visit and stayed several days.
One day Aunt Polly Worden come to spend the day with me. She lives
with her brother and his wife, and is pretty well off if she only
knew it, but she don’t know it, and probable never will. She will
go on and complain of her sister-in-law by the hour if folks will
listen to her. But I always git her attention off as soon as I can
onto other subjects, knittin’ or piecin’ up, or the minister’s
wife, or sunthin’ or ruther. Well, little Delight wuz stayin’ with
us for a few days, and Aunt Polly seemed to forget her grievances
lookin’ at the dear little creeter and hearin’ her pretty talk as
she played with her dollys and books and toys.
I got a oncommon good dinner--Aunt Polly loves her vittles--and
she brightened up considerable and wuz talkin’ real agreeable for
her, and that afternoon Thomas J. and Maggie stopped in for a few
minutes with their baby. They wuz out ridin’ and come in for a few
minutes, and Thomas J. went to find his Pa, wantin’ to see him on
bizness. The baby looked sweet as a rosebud, and Maggie looked like
the parent rose on the same stem.
Maggie couldn’t take off her bunnet even, for they had to be back
before noon, but she said they wuz comin’ down that week to stay
all day. But I did take off the baby’s little white silk hood and
snowy cashmere cloak, and made of it a sight, Delight lookin’ on as
happy as a little queen. After they went away I spoke as is nateral
to Aunt Polly about the charms and loveliness of that baby, and
Aunt Polly winked at me real knowin’ and sez to Delight:
“Your nose is broke now, young lady.”
Delight put her little finger up to her nose and felt of it
anxiously, and I wunk at Aunt Polly to say no more, for I knew what
she meant--it wuz that this new babe of Thomas Jefferson’s would
push little Delight out of my heart. But Aunt Polly is real kinder
obstinate; I guess her sister-in-law is right when she sez, “No
mule wuz ever more balky than Polly Worden.”
But then I realize that she is a old maiden and has had five
disappointments and some say seven, and they have embittered her.
She heeded not the wink I wunk at her and kep’ right on:
“The little new baby will take your place now in Grandma’s heart.”
Delight looked troubled, on her smooth little brow I could see
fall the first faint shadow of that great, black shape that we
call jealousy. Her sweet eyes looked as if they wuz cloudin’
up ready for tears. And I wunk severer and more voyalent winks
at Aunt Polly; if ever a wink spoke them did, and said, “Stop
immegiately.” But she kep’ right on (poor creeter! I spoze them
disappintments wuz the cause on’t), and sez:
“You won’t be Grandma’s baby any more; she has got somebody else to
love now.”
And then the cloud did burst into a rainfall of tears. Delight jest
burst out a-cryin’ and snuggled down in my arms and laid her wet
cheeks on my bosom through the power of old custom, and anon (how
much like human creeters accordin’ to her size) she drew her head
away agin as if sayin’, “I can’t lay my head there any more; if the
love has gone out of the heart it won’t rest or comfort me any more
to lay there.”
And pride woke up in her; she wuz too proud to make a fuss or beg
for love (how much, how much like big children), so she set up
kinder straight on my lap with her pretty lips quiverin’ and the
tears runnin’ silent down her cheeks, and I riz right up with her
and went out of the room.
Josiah wuz there, and I wouldn’t bring Miss Worden to terms before
a male, owin’ to the five or seven things mentioned by me; but I
felt that I must make it right with Delight that very minute. I
knew how she felt, woonded pride and love and jealousy, a few hard
syllables of the hardest lessons of life had come to Delight, and I
must help her spell ’em, I must help her with her lesson.
So I took her into the parlor and sot down with her in the big
chair and never said a word for a minute or two, only held her
clost to me and kissed the shinin’ hair that lay up aginst my
cheeks, she strugglin’ at first, Jealousy and Pride naggin’ her,
and at first not bein’ able to hear any voices only jest them of
J. and P. (jest like older children exactly). But, after a while,
I held her so warm and clost, with my cheek layin’ on the pretty
head, the stiddy firm clasp and contact sort o’ calmed her, and
then anon she drew one little arm up around my neck, and anon the
other one, and I looked down deep into her eyes, right into the
little true soul, and that little true soul see the truth in mine.
Words couldn’t have convinced Delight so well as that look she had
learnt to depend on. Love has a language that, though mebby it
can’t be exactly parsed and analyzed, yet it can be understood,
entirely understood, and Delight see that I loved her. And then wuz
the time the little creeter put up her lips and kissed me, and I
sez sort o’ low but very tender:
“Sweetheart, you know jest how much I love you, don’t you?”
And she said, “Yes.”
And then I kissed her several times in various places on her face,
every one on ’em sweet places. And went on and talked dretful good
to her about the new baby. I confided in her, told her all about
how the little new soul had come onbeknown to itself into a great,
strange world, how helpless it wuz, how weak, and how we must all
help it and try to make it feel at home amongst us.
And I tried to explain it to her, that as she wuz here first she
owed a courtesy to the newcomer, and that she must be ready and
willin’ to neighbor with her; I didn’t use jest the words, but them
wuz my idees.
I told her how blind the little creeter wuz, and Delight, if only
out of politeness, must try to see for her, lead her straight over
ways she knew nothin’ about, and keep her from harmin’ herself. How
baby couldn’t talk for herself at all now, and Delight must talk
for her, good talk that the little one could learn of her bimeby.
How she couldn’t walk, and Delight, bein’ stronger, must go ahead
of her and make a pretty path for her to foller when she got big
enough. I told her jest how hard it wuz for the baby to be put here
so helpless in the midst of sorrows and troubles and dangers, and
how we must all of us be jest as good to her as we could out of
pity for the dear little creeter.
So I rousted up Delight’s pity for her, and she wuz all animated
about helpin’ her, and I told her the baby had come to be a great
blessin’ and comfort to her, but she must take great care of it and
not let it get harmed in any way, for it would need her care and
love for a long time.
And don’t you see that the fact of Delight havin’ to do a kindness
to the baby, havin’ to take thought and study out good things to do
for her, wuz the surest way to make her love her? For it is a great
fact in our human nater that you can’t love them you have injured
in any way, and at the same time if you have ever been good to
anybody you always feel softer toward ’em and more mellerer.
Curious, hain’t it? But it is a fact, and I spoze the reason
on’t is you have sort o’ lowered yourself in your own estimation
by doing a onkind act, and so in order to satisfy your mental
criticism on yourself and try to make it right, you lay hold and
bring up all the faults of that person you can to justify your
own act, and so you keep on that mental naggin’ at ’em, that
oncomfortable sort of a feelin’ toward ’em makes you restless and
oneasy, and you are glad every time you can stand justified to
your own consciousness by ketchin’ ’em in a bad act--hain’t that
so, now? Why, I know it is, so I made sure Delight shouldn’t begin
wrong. For when you do a good, helpful thing for a person your
hull soul feels comfortable and you bring up unconscious mental
reasons why you did it, it wuz because they wuz so good, so smart,
and so you keep on feelin’ good and comfortable, you keep on
praisin’ ’em to your own self till you git fairly in love with ’em,
as it were.
A very curious thing. But the way I do when I git hold of a strange
fact or truth, I don’t wait to explain it full to myself before I
act on it; no, I grasp hold of it and use it for my own benefit and
afterwards wonder at it to my heart’s content.
So Delight got to thinkin’ she wuz necessary to the baby’s
happiness, and that tickled her little self-esteem jest as though
she wuz a older child (only accordin’ to her weight). She got to
thinkin’ she must watch over her or she might git hurt, which
called out all the good motherly protectin’ impulses of her little
soul which wuz in her (still accordin’ to her weight, forty pounds
more or less). And day by day Delight’s love for the little creeter
grew till it wuz fairly beautiful to see ’em together, and so
Josiah said, and her Pa and Ma and the neighbors.
But to resoom backwards a little. As for Miss Worden, I thought to
myself, disappintments or not, I have got to give her a-talkin’
to, and so I did, the very next time I see her. She had gone when
Delight and I went out of the parlor, Delight with bright, happy
eyes, and I with kinder thoughtful, pityin’ ones, and all four on
’em kinder wet. But the next time I see her alone I tackled her,
and she jest as good as promised she wouldn’t ever say to any human
child agin what she had said to Delight. And I don’t believe she
will. She hain’t such a bad creeter after all, and, good land!
what can you expect, six or seven right along one after the other?
Well, I guess it wuz the afternoon of the very day I tackled Aunt
Polly Worden and got her promise, or as good as a promise, I got
a letter from Jack, he don’t write to me often, but like all
congenial souls I felt we wuz nigh each other whether we communed
in spoken or written words or not, his letters are printed and are
sights of work, I know. Josiah brung the letter in when he come in
to dinner. Jack’s letter wuz written on Sunday, it run as follers:
“My deer Ant,
“We want you to come over a visitin’ ma sez so and i say so i
want to see you bad I’ve been to meetin’ to day Ma told me to
remember what the minister sed and tell you i don’t Remember
nothin’ only i Herd him say more’n twenty times my herers i
will close my remarks
“deer Ant i hate lyin
“All day if i moved ma Told me i never would be a little joseph
or a little sammel i don’t want to be a little joseph i drather
be a colt they can move sundays they can kick up their Heels
and Run lass night father made me go to bed at ate he sed it
wood make me grow sez i father you lett anna set up she is
bigger sez he then she ort to sleep more sez i for there is
more of her to git tired Father never stopped readin but sez he
you are a cute one sez i father what is cute you run along to
Bed that is all father sed when i wuz goin upstairs to bed i
called out to mother mother what is cute and she never looked
up from her book but sez run right along to bed Jack Then i
gripped right onto the hired girl and sez i you shall tell me
what cute is i’ll cute you sez she and she snaked me right into
bed and Blowed out the lamp deer Ant they won’t never tell me
nothin there is lots and lots of things i feel i must know
about and if i ask them they say a little boy should be seen
and not Herd deer Ant i don’t want to be seen i drather be Herd
how be i goin’ to find out things if they won’t tell me, Youre
shure nuff you answer questions deer Ant i like you and we want
you to come here a visitin so no more
“remaining your respected friend,
“JACK.
“P. S.
“I want you to come here a visitin the worst kind,
“your obedient servant
“JACK.
“P. S. agin
“ma told me to tell you to come wednesday for shure do come to
see your respected cousin
“JACK.
“P. S. agin
“Ma is goin to have a party and wants you to stay all night and
so duz yours truly
“JACK.
“P. S. ma told me to ask you and unkel Josiah to come
“P. S. be sure and come J.”
Well, a letter come from Tamer by the same mail or mails, by Ury,
brung in by Josiah.
Jack wuz in the right on’t. Tamer wuz goin’ to have a afternoon
party of the Allen race and dynasty and wanted Josiah and I to
be sure and come and stay all night, for the rest wuz comin’ and
goin’ by train and stage, and they would all go home that night
but us and mebby Celestine, and she begged Josiah and me to stay a
few days. Well, bein’ through with his hardest work and owin’ the
visit, Josiah consented to go and we sot off in good season and
arrove there about ten A. M. We see the house looked real stirred
up when we got there, the winders open above and below, and the
piazzas on both sides full of little groups of the relations; we
wuz about the last ones there, owin’ to most all the rest havin’
come on the cars or the stage from Zoar and Loontown.
Uncle Submit Allen and Aunt Patience and their three daughters
and their children, and Tamer’s brother’s folks and her Uncle
Preserved, and Aunt Priscilla and Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy
Joe, widders of the old twins, John and Joseph Allen, and Uncle
Ichabod Allen, poor creeter! he had lost his wife, but he kep’ his
old maid girl to keep house for him; yes, Huldy wuz there, too,
takin’ first rate care of her Pa; Cousin Joel and his wife and
Marii, she is a kind of a widder, that is, her husband, Jotham
Allen, left her a year ago this comin’ fall, run away with Elam
Snyderses widder and a three-year-old colt that belonged to Marii,
and, as I told her, I should mourn some for the colt, but should
consider it wuz a colt well lost to git red of Jotham. A poor,
whifflin’ creeter, drinkin’ and behavin’, and had ever sence they
wuz married. Marii is a good deal better off without him, and she
begins to think so, too; she is a tailoress and gits good wages and
don’t have to have her heart and mind on a strain all the time.
Why, sometimes I think it is easier to settle down and be real
onhappy than it is to be between and betwixt, and not know what
roll you will be called to play the next minute. If you know you
are onhappy you can set down and mourn and give your hull time to
it as it were, and not strain your mind, not knowin’ what you are
goin’ to do next.
But to resoom. These relations I have named all pressed forwards in
the stoop to greet me; after Tamer and Anna and Jack, bless him!
had met us with a hearty welcome, Hamen, havin’ gin me a cordial
greetin’, had gone on to the horse barn with the mair and my
pardner. I see Celestine settin’ at the other end of the stoop with
her easel all up a’ready, and she paintin’ away at some landscape
or ruther, not mindin’ seemin’ly the waves of relationship surgin’
round her on every side. But, as I drawed near, she did take her
brush in her other hand and shake hands with me, but her hand wuz
real limpsy, she didn’t realize me much of any, her mind wuzn’t in
our world at all as I could see.
She wuz paintin’ the cloud effects on the water, she said, and
her canvas did look all kinder swashy and blue with some storks
storkin’ along in front, to give the picture character, she said,
and she said she never see the cloud effects more strikin’ than
they wuz that mornin’.
And I sez, “Yes, like as not.” And I looked off dreamily for a
number of minutes. The lake lay like a long, bright mirror, and all
the tiny white and pink clouds that wuz floatin’ on the clear, blue
sky above wuz reflected on the face of the water, the willers that
grew along the banks on one side wuz reproduced and living agin
down in that strange underworld, and the big oak tree that sort o’
bent over the water with a bluebird settin’ out on one branch and
singin’ sweet and clear.
There they wuz livin’ agin, bluebird and all, it wuz a fair seen,
a fair seen, and I didn’t wonder that Celestine admired it. But
with all my admiration, and, though I wuz borne off a considerable
ways by my almost boundless delight in the seen, yet some practical
common sense remained with me. When anybody is in danger of
bein’ carried away by their emotions they ort to tie a string to
themselves as it were to bring themselves back to this life as long
as they have got to stay in it. And so I give a little hitch to
this string and found myself back in this world agin, and I sez,
“Where is little Mary!”
“Oh,” sez Celestine, in a rapt way, “how sweetly the bird song
blends in with the tender feeling of the landscape, and yet a stork
is a more striking adjunct,” sez she.
But I sez agin, “Where is little Mary?”
And after repeating the question for the third time, she sez,
looking round her in a vague way, “Oh, I guess she is playing
somewhere with some of the children.” And I left her, she not
sensin’ it at all, and went down the steps towards the lake where I
heard the sound of children’s voices. I found little Mary settin’
on a stun and lookin’ fur off onto the water, she had been throwing
pebbles into the clear depths, but sot still now, seemin’ly wropped
up in her thoughts.
She seemed dretful glad to see me, and I her visey versey, sweet
little creeter! Jack joined us pretty soon, and we sot there for
some time, and I told ’em quite a number of stories, and I held
Mary in one arm and Jack in the other, and we enjoyed ourselves
first rate. But the voices of Duty and Tamer called me back to the
house and the assembled guests. Von Crank wuz there, for Tamer
would have it so, and he paid Anna all the attention he possibly
could, and she repulsed it all she could, so it made quite queer
times and quite romantic. But Anna told me out on the west piazza,
when we happened to be there alone, that since Cicero had been sent
to the penitentiary her Ma had not acted quite so headstrong and
stern about Von Crank, “But yet,” sez she, “I see her mind is still
set on our union, and what shall I do, Aunt Samantha? She has been
through so much trouble with Cicero. I am afraid any other blow
would be the means of killing her.” And she sez agin, as she had
said before, “I could never be happy, never, if I wuz the means of
breaking her heart, and so I don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” sez I, “you’re young yet, you and Tom; you can wait a spell
and trust the Lord and ask Him to help you out of your wilderness.”
“Oh, I do, Aunt Samantha! I ask Him, and I trust Him, or I couldn’t
live. He has seemed so much nearer than ever before since I have
been so wretched and haven’t known what to do.”
“Well, you know who said that all things work together for good to
them that love God, and if you do love Him the promise is made to
you, and you must lay holt of it.”
And then she went on and told me more about Tamer, and I did pity
her, pity her like a dog. She said when Cicero wuz sent away
her Pa, in the first hours when he wuz most dead with shame and
mortification, told his wife she wuz the cause of it all; she had
filled his brain with stories of vice and crime, and Cicero had
acted out what his brain had been filled with, and from what Anna
said I guess Hamen throwed Arabeller in her face and told her she
had, for the sake of convenience and what she called gentility,
just schooled Cicero in morbid romance and vicious adventure, and
he sez, “You are now reaping what you have sown.” Anna said her Ma
went into one hysterick fit after another, and she had to git her
Pa out of the room and take care of her herself day after day, and
sez she, “They are so cool to each other, now, I don’t believe they
will ever be even friends agin, and everything is so sad, Aunt
Samantha,” sez she.
And agin I told her, “It is always the darkest jest before day,
Anna.”
But little did I think whose small hand it wuz that wuz goin’
to lift the cloud and let the light of reconciliation into the
darkened home life of Hamen and Tamer and bring their hearts
together agin. A Hamen realizin’ his own weaknesses and waywardness
and softenin’ into a feeling of pity for the blind mistakes of a
Tamer, and being willin’ to jine hands and hearts with her agin and
pick up the tangled threads of life and try to straighten ’em out
into plain runnin’ agin. Oh, poor little Jack! dear little creeter!