Part 15
“There is cobwebs a hangin’ from your brain this minute Mahala Spicer, more’n a yard long.” Says I, “You have chased me round with a mop, and kinder limbered me up, so I feel like marchin’ forred nobly in the cause of Right;—and I say to you, and I say it in a friendly way,—that if there was _ever_ any brightness to your intellect, there is dust over it now a inch thick. You twit me about lettin’ things go, and bein’ off on a tower; you say _you_ wont let things go; in my way of thinkin’ you _do_ let things go; you let all the beauty and brightness of life go; all the peace and enjoyment and repose of home go; all your husband’s and childern’s rest, and enjoyment, and love, and respect for you, go. You say you don’t even git time to look into a book from one year’s end to another. Think of that great world of delight and culture you leggo. You say you don’t find time to step or look out of doors. Jest think of God’s great picture-book that He spreads out before your blind eyes from day to day—every page filled with wonder, surprise and admiration. Think of how that book looks when the leaf is turned down to sunset, or when it is turned over to bright Indian summer and etcetery.” My tone was eloquent, very; and my hand waved out in noble waves as I went on:
“Jest think how from day to day the sun’ rises in splendor and goes down in heavenly glory; how the white clouds like feathered out chariots for the baby angels to ride out in, float over the beautiful blue sky unbeknown to you; how the winds kinder rustle the green leaves in the woods, and the sun shoots down her gold arrers through ’em, a chasin’ the cool shadders over the green moss, and never catchin’ of ’em. How the white lilys fatigue their sweet selves a perfumin’ the air and the roses and pinks blush crimson at their own prettiness, and the violets hide their blue eyes down under the grass, so awful pretty that they are fairly ashamed of themselves, and the ferns wave their green banners in triumphant delight to let ’em know they have found ’em out. How the lake changes to more’n forty pictures a day, every one handsomer than the other, from the time it looks kinder blue, and hazy, and dreamy in the mornin’ twilight, till the settin’ sun makes a shinin’ path on it, that seems to lead right out into that city of golden streets.
“Think what low and kinder contented songs the brook sings to the pussy willow, and what the willows whisper back to the brook. How the birds chirp and twitter and sail and sing, a well behaved melodious orkustre givin’ free tickets to everybody; and your ears as deaf as a stun to it all. Think of all these things you leggo to pore over ruffles and knife pleatin’s. You _used_ to be a fine musician—made first-rate music—and that melodious job, the only piece of work you can begin on earth and finish up in heaven, all that happiness for yourself and family, you leggo. If you was obleeged to do all this, I should pity you; and if you was obleeged to wear yourself down to a early grave—as I see you are a doin’,—leavin’ your childern plenty of ruffles and no mother, I should pity you; but your husband is abundantly able, and more’n willin’ to hire help for you to do your work decently and comfortably, and leave you time to make your home a place of delight and rest to him and the childern. But instead of that, instead of throwin’ open the doors of your heart and your house to the free air of heaven, and the sunshine;—instead of keepin’ your husband’s and childern’s love and makin’ their happiness and hisen and your own life beautiful by culture, and sweet thoughts, and generous deeds; instead of liftin’ your eyes heavenward and seein’ with the eyes of your soul some divine ideal and pursuin’ after it, you have set your aim in life on a fly and chase that aim blindly, and prefer to go through life on all fours with a scrub rag.”
If you’ll believe it, that woman was mad; it does beat all how good advice will make some folks squirm; but as we was on the very pint of leavin’, I didn’t care a cent; and I didn’t feel in the least mite beholden to her, for they come to our house when they was first married, and stayed three weeks right along, and I guess they didn’t git treated much as she treated Josiah and me. I done well by ’em—killed a hen most every day—and made a fuss. That was before she took to chasin’ flies; she was bright as a new dollar, didn’t act like the same critter, nor he nuther; that was before he had the nip took out of him, by bein’ chased round by a mop.
I kissed the little childern all a settin still in a row—or little old wimmen I ort to say, bid Mahala a glad and happy good bye, and then we went out to the barn and took leave of Philander in the manger, and sot forred again on our tower.
MELANKTON SPICER AND HIS FAMILY.
Philander Spicer told Josiah and me that he did wish we would stop and visit his brother Lank, seein’ we had to pass right by his house. Melankton Spicer, Philander’s twin brother, married Mahala’s sister Delila Ann, makin’ ’em double and twisted relations, as you may say. And we told him that seein’ it was right on our way we would stop a few minutes, but I guessed we wouldn’t stay long for we wasn’t much acquainted with ’em, though she had visited me years ago, and we had seen ’em to Father Allen’s once or twice.
Philander told us mebby we hadn’t better stay long, for they had hard work to git along; he said Delila Ann wasn’t a mite such a turn as Mahala, for whereas Mahala, havin’ a husband that was well off, would work and scrub every minute with no need on it, Delila Ann, havin’ married a poor man who needed help, wouldn’t work a mite; hadn’t been no help to him at all sense they was married, only by puttin’ on appearances, and havin’ seven girls and they bein’ growed up, and their ma not allowin’ ’em to do a speck of work only to dress up to catch a bo. Lank had to work from mornin’ till night in the store where he was a clerk, and then set up half the night to copy papers for a lawyer, to try to pay their milliner bills and the hired girls; but he couldn’t, he was in debt to everybody. And he didn’t git no rest and peace to home, for they was a teasin’ him the hull time for gold bracelets and silk dresses and things; he said they lived poor, and their morals was all run down.
Lank hadn’t ever been able to git enough ahead to buy a Bible; he hadn’t nothin’ but the Pokrafy, and a part of the Old Testament that had fell to him from his grandfather, fell so fur that the ’postles and all the old prophets—except Malachi—had got tore to pieces, and _he_ was battered considerable. Philander said Lank told him it was hard work to bring up a family right, with nothin’ but the Pokrafy to go by, and he wanted to git a Bible the worst way; and when he got his last month’s wages he _did_ mean to git enough ahead to buy one, and a sack of flour; but when he got his pay, his wife said she was sufferin’ for a new gauze head-dress, and the seven girls had _got_ to have some bobinet neck-ties, and some new ear-rings; that after they had got these necessarys, then, if there was anything left, they would git a sack of flour and a Bible. But there wasn’t, and so they had to git along with the Pokrafy, and without the sack of flour; and he said that workin’ so hard, and farin’ so awful bad, Lank was a most used up; he said Lank wasn’t more’n two or three moments older than he was, but he looked as if he was seventy-five years old, and he was afraid he wouldn’t stand it more than several months longer if things went on so.
I said to myself, when Philander was tellin’ us this, here is mebby another chance for me to burn myself up and brile myself on a gridiron (as it were) in the cause of Right. I felt a feelin’ that mebby I could win a victory, and advise Delila Ann for her good. And so I spoke up mildly, but with a firm noble mean on me, and says to him: “Philander, we will stop there an hour or two.”
When we got to the village where Lank lived, Josiah said he guessed he would go right down to the store where Lank worked and see him, and I might go in and call on Delila Ann. A small white-headed boy with tow breeches held up by one lonely gallus told me he would show me the way—the same boy offerin’ to hitch the mare.
It had been a number of years sense I had seen Delila Ann, and I didn’t s’pose I should know her if I should see her in my porridge dish, Philander said she had changed so. He said she had that sort of anxious, haggard, dissatisfied, kinder sheepish, and kinder bold look—a mean that folks always git by puttin’ on appearances; I’ve heerd, and I believe, _that_ is jest about as wearin’ a job as anybody can git into to foller from year to year. There didn’t seem to be anything hull and sound about the front door, except the key-hole; but it had a new brass plate on it, with a bell kinder fixed in it, and the plate bore Lank’s name in bold noble letters which I s’pose was a comfort to the family, and rose ’em up above the small afflictions of the snow and rain that entered at will, and when they was a mind to.
The white headed boy, with the solitary and lonesome gallus, said to me as he stood waitin’ for the five cent bill I was a gettin’ for him out of my port-money: “That door needs mendin’ bad!”
I give him his bill and started him off, and I was jest a musin’ on his last words, and thinkin’ that Lank’s best way would be to take the key-hole and have a new door made to it, when the hired girl come to the door. I told her who I was and she seemed to be kinder flustrated and said she’d go and tell the family. And I, a standin’ there in the hall, and not knowin’ how long she would be gone, thought I would set down—for it always tires me to stand any length of time on my feet. There was a elegant imposin’ lookin’ chair by the side of a real noble lookin’ table, but to my surprise and mortification when I went to set down, I sot right down through it, the first thing; I catched almost wildly at the massive table to try to save myself, and I’ll be hanged if that didn’t give way and spilte on my hands, as you may say; it tottled and fell right over onto me; and then I see it was made of rough shackly boards, but upholstered with a gorgeous red and yeller cotton spread, like the chair; they both looked splendid. I gathered myself up, and righted the table murmurin’ to myself, “Put not your trust in princes, nor turkey red calico, Josiah Allen’s wife; set not down upon them blindly, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind, and lame in your body.”
I was jest a rehearsin’ this to myself, when the hired girl come back, and says I:
“I am glad you have come, for I don’t know but I should have brought the hull house down in ruins onto me, if you hadn’t come jest as you did.”
“And then she up and told me that that chair and table wasn’t made for use, but jest for looks; she said they wanted a table and a reception chair in the hall, and not bein’ able to buy sound ones, they had made ’em out of boards they had by ’em.”
“Well,” says I mildly, “I went right down through the chair the first thing, and it skairt me.”
I got along through the hall first-rate after this, only I most fell twice, for the floor bein’ carpeted with wall paper varnished (to be oil-cloth appariently) and tore up, and the varnish makin’ it stiff, it was as bad as a man-trap to catch folks in, and throw ’em.
Jest before we got to the parlor door I see, that in the agitation of body and mind I had experienced sense I come in, I had dropped one of my cuff buttons, nice black ones that I had bought jest before I started at a outlay of 35 cents, and the hired girl said she would go back for it; and while she was a lookin’ for it—the plasterin’ bein’ off considerable, and the partition jest papered over—I heard ’em a sayin’ and they seemed to be a cryin’ as they said it:
“What did she want to come here for? I should think she would know enough to stay away.”
“To think we have got to be tormented by seein’ her,” says another voice.
“I hate to have her come as bad as you do children,” says a voice I knew was Delila Ann’s; “but we must try to bear up under it; she wont stay probable more’n two or three hours.”
“I thay, I hope she wont sthay two minith,” says another voice with a lisp to it.
“We wont let her stay,” says a little fine voice.
I declare for’t, if it hadn’t been for my vow I would have turned right round in my tracks; but I remembered it wasn’t the pious folks that needed the most preachin’, and if ever promiscous advisin’ seemed to be called for, it was now. And jest as I was a rememberin’ this, the hired girl come back with my cuff button.
The minute she opened that parlor door, I see that I had got into the house of mournin’. The room, which resembled the hall and the front door as much as if they was three twins, seemed to be full of braize delaine, and bobinet lace, and thin ribbin, all bathed in tears and sobs. When I took a closer look, I see there was eight wimmen under the gauzes and frizzles and folderols and etcetery; some of ’em held dime novels in their hands, and one of ’em held a white pup.
The moment I went in, every one of ’em jumped up and kissed me, and throwed their arms round me. Some of the time I had as many as six or seven arms at a time round me in different places, and every one of ’em was a tellin’ me in awful warm tones, how glad, how highly tickled they was to see me; they never was so carried away with enjoyment and happy surprise in their hull lives before; and says four of ’em tenderly:
“You must stay a week with us anyway.”
“A week!” says the little fine voice, “that haint nuthin’, you must stay a month, we wont let you off a day sooner.”
“No, we wont!” says six warm voices, awful warm.
“Sthay all thummer—do,” says the lispin’ voice.
“Yes do!” says the hull seven.
And then Delila Ann threw both her arms round my neck, and says she:
“Oh if you could only stay with us always, how happy, happy we should be.” And then she laid her head right down on my shoulder and begun to sob, and weep, and cry; I was almost sickened to the stomach by their actin’ and behavin’, but the voice of sorrow always appeals to my heart. I see in a minute what the matter was; Lank had give out, had killed himself with hard work; and though I knew she was jest as much to blame as if she was made of arsenic and Lank had swallered her, still pity and sympathy makes the handsomest, shineyest kind of varnish to cover up folks’es faults with, and Delila Ann shone with it from head to foot, as she lay there on my neck, wettin’ my best collar with her tears, and almost tearin’ the lace offen it with her deep windy sithes. I pitied Delila Ann, from pretty near the bottom of my heart; I forgot for the time bein’ her actin’ and behavin’; I felt bad, and says I:
“Then he is gone Delila Ann, I feel to sympathize with you; I am sorry for you as I can be.”
“Yes,” says she, pretty near choked up with emotion, “he is gone; we have lost him.”
I wept; I thought of my Josiah, and I says in tremblin’ tones: “When love is lost out of a heart that has held it, oh, what a goneness there must be in that heart; what a emptyness; what a lonesomeness; but,” says I, tryin’ to comfort her, “He who made our hearts knows all about ’em; His love can fill all the deep lonesome places in ’em; and hearts that He dwells in wont never break; He keeps ’em, and they are safe with an eternal safety.”
All the hull of the girls was a sobbin’, and one of ’em sithed out: “Oh, it does seem as if our hearts must break, right in to.”
Then I spoke up and says in tremblin’ tones: “If you are willin’ Delila Ann, it would be a melancholly satisfaction to me to see the corpse.”
The girls led the way a sobbin’ and sithin’, and I follered on kinder holdin’ up Delila Ann, expectin’ every minute she would faint away on my hands. We was a mournful lookin’ procession; they led the way into the next room, and led me up to a sofy, and there laid out on a gorgeous yeller cotton cushin, lay a dead pup; I was too dumbfoundered to speak for nearly half a moment.
Oh! what feelin’s I felt as I stood there a lookin’ on ’em, to think how I had been a sympathizin’ and a comfortin’, a pumpin’ the very depths of my soul to pour religious consolation onto ’em, and bewailin’ myself, a sheddin’ my own tears over a whiffet pup. As I thought this over, my dumbfounder begun to go off on me, and my mean begun to look different, and awfuler; I thrust my cotton handkerchief back into my pocket again with my right hand, and drew my left arm hautily from Delila Ann, not carin’ whether she crumpled down and fainted away or not; I s’pose my mean apauled ’em, for Delila Ann says to me in tremblin’ tones:
“All genteel wimmen dote on dogs.” And she added in still more tremblin’ tones, as she see my mean kep’ a growin’ awfuler, and awfuler every minute: “Nothin’ gives a woman such a genteel air as to lead ’em round with a ribbin.” And she says still a keepin’ her eye on my mean: “I always know a woman is genteel the minute I see her a leadin’ ’em round, and I never have been mistakin’ once; the more genteel a woman is, the more poodle dogs she has to dote on.”
I didn’t say a word to Delila Ann nor the hull set on ’em, but my emotions riz up so that I spoke right out loud, unbeknown to me; I episoded to myself in a deep voice:
“Fathers bein’ killed with labor, and a world layin’ in wickedness, and wimmen dotin’ on dogs; hundreds of thousands of houseless and homeless childern—little fair souls bein’ blackened by ignorance and vice with a black that can’t never be rubbed off this side of heaven, and immortal wimmen spendin’ their hull energies in keepin’ a pup’s hair white; little tender feet bein’ led down into the mire and clay, that might be guided up to heaven’s door, and wimmen utterly refusin’ to notice ’em, so rampant and sot on leadin’ round a pup by a string. Good heavens!” says I, “it makes me sweat to think on it;” and I pulled out my cotton handkerchief and wiped my forred almost wildly. I s’pose my warm emotions had melted down my icy mean a very little, for Delila Ann spoke up in a little chirker voice, and says she:
“If you was one of the genteel kind, you would feel different about it;” says she—a tryin’ to scare me—“I mistrust that you haint genteel.”
“That don’t scare me a mite,” says I, “I _hate_ that word and always did,” says I still more warmly, “there is two words in the English language that I feel cold, and almost hauty towards, and they are ‘affinity,’ such as married folks hunt after, and ‘genteel.’ I wish,” says I, “that these two words would join hands and elope the country; I’d love to see their backs, as they sot out, and bid ’em a glad farewell.” She see she hadn’t skairt me, and the thought of my mission goared me to that extent, that I rose up my voice to a high key and went on wavin’ my right hand in as eloquent a wave as I had by me—I keep awful eloquent waves a purpose to use on occasions like these—and says I:
“I am a woman that has got a vow on me; I am a Promiscous Advisor by trade, and I can’t shirk out when duty is a pokin’ me in the side; I must speak. And I say unto you Delila Ann, and the hull on you promiscous, that if you would take off some of your bobinet lace, empty your laps of pups and dime novels, and go to work and lift some of the burdens from the breakin’ back of Melankton Spicer, you would raise yourselves in my estimation from 25 to 30 cents, and I don’t know but more.”
“Oh,” says Delila Ann, “I want my girls to marry; and it haint genteel for wimmen to work; they wont _never_ catch a bo if they work.”
“Well,” says I almost coldly, “I had ruther keep a clear conscience and a single bedstead, than twenty husbands and the knowledge that I was a father killer; but,” says I in reasonable tones—for I wanted to convince ’em—“it haint necessary to be lazy, to read dime novels, and lead round pups, in order to marry; if it was, I should be a single woman to-day.”
“Oh I love to read dime novelth,” says the lispin’ one; “I love to be thad and weep, it theemth tho thweet, tho thingularly thweet.”
Says I, “There is a tragedy bein’ lived before your eyes day after day that you ort to weep over; a father killin’ himself for his wife and childern—bearin’ burdens enough to break down a leather man—and they a spendin’ their time a leadin’ round whiffet pups.”
“Whiffet pups!” says Delila in angry tones, “they are poodles.”
“Well,” says I calmly, “whiffet poodle pups, if that suits you any better, it don’t make any particular difference to me.”
Says Delila Ann, “I paid seven dollars a piece for ’em, and they have paid their way in comfortin’ the girls when they feel bad; of course my girls have their dark hours and git low-spirited when they teaze their pa for things that he wont buy for ’em; when they want a gold butterfly to wear in their hair, are sufferin’ for it or for other necessaries, and their pa wont git ’em for ’em; in such dark hours the companionship of these dear dogs are such a comfort to ’em.”
“Why don’t they go to work and earn their own butterflies if they have got to have ’em?” says I.
“Because they wont never marry if they demean themselves and work.”
Says I, “It haint no such thing! A man whose love is worth havin’ would think the more of ’em;” and I went on eloquently—“do you s’pose Delila, that the love of a _true man_,—a love that crowns a woman more royally than a queen, a love that satisfies her head and her heart and that she can trust herself to through life and death; a love that inspires her to think all goodness and purity are possible to her for its sake,—that makes her, through very happiness, more humble and tender and yet fearless, liftin’ her above all low aims and worryments; do you s’pose this love that makes a woman as rich as a Jew if she owns nothin’ on earth beside, can be inspired and awakened by a contemplation of sham gentility and whiffet pups? Can bobinet lace spangled with gilt butterflies weave a net to catch this priceless treasure? Never! Delila Ann Spicer, never! that is,—a love that is worth havin’; some men’s love haint worth nothin’; I wouldn’t give a cent a bushel for it by the car-load.”
But, as I said, “Delila Ann and the hull eight on you promiscous, a earnest, true, noble man would think as much again of a girl who had independence and common sense enough to earn her own livin’ when her father was a poor man. Good land! how simple it is to try to deceive folks; gauze veils, and cotton-velvet cloaks haint a goin’ to cover up the fact of poverty; if we be poor there’s not a mite of disgrace in it. Poverty is the dark mine where diamonds are found lots of times by their glitterin’ so ag’inst the blackness. The darkness of poverty can’t put out the light of a pure diamond; it will shine anywhere, as bright in the dark dirt as on a queen’s finger, for its light comes from within; and rare pearls are formed frequent by the grindin’ touch of poverty, tears of pain and privation and patience crystalized into great drops of light that will shine forever. Honest hard workin’ poverty is respectable as anything can be respectable and should be honored, if for no other reason, for the sake of Him who eighteen hundred years ago made it illustrious forever. But poverty hidin’ itself behind the appariently; poverty hidin’ itself under a sham gentility; pretentious, deceitful poverty—tryin’ to cover a empty stomach with a tinsel breast-pin—is a sight, and enough to make angels weep, and sinners sick. Let your girls learn some honest trade Delila Ann, let ’em be self-respectin’, industrious—”
“Oh my! I wouldn’t have ’em miss of bein’ married for nothin’ in the world.”