Part 17
“‘We have always taught our boy to love God, and taught him that He was the one reality in an unreal world.’ Says she, ‘I have tried from his childhood to make Him who is invisible, a real presence to him, not an abstract idee; taught him that unseen things were more real than the seen; that love—even his mother’s love for him, which was as intangible as a breath of air—yet was still so much more imperishable than the form that enshrined it—stronger than life or death—was but a faint symbol of that greater love that so far transcended mine. That this love was the one rock of safety standin’ for evermore the same amid the ebb and flow of this changeful earthly life; and that safe in that love he could not by any possibility be harmed by life or death or any other creature; and if he was lost, it would not be because God desired it;’ says she, ‘I could not teach our boy to love God with a slave’s love for a tyrant, made up of fear and doubt; to think of Him as a far-off unapproachable bein’, in a remote inaccessible heaven; lookin’ down from a height of gloomy grandeur with a stern composure, a calm indifference, on the strugglin’ souls below, he had created; indifferent to their sufferin’s, their gropin’s after light and truth, their temptations, their blind mistakes; ready and anxious to condemn; angry with their innocent happiness.’ Says she, ‘It would be as impossible for me to worship the God of some Christians, as to worship a heathen God; and I have not taught our boy to worship such a bein’, but I have learned him from a child, to look upon Him as his nearest and dearest friend, the truest, and the tenderest; the one always near him, ready to help him when all other help was vain; grieved with his wrong doin’; rejoicin’ in his efforts to do right; helpin’ him in his struggles with his small temptations; drawin’ his soul upward with his divine love and tenderness. We have tried to teach him by our lives—which is the loudest preachin’—that the best way to show our love to God, is by bein’ helpful and compassionate to a sorrowful humanity.’”
Says I, “‘The old Deacon don’t look on religion in that light at all; he don’t seem to want to do any good, but jest gives his whole mind to bein’ wretched himself, and condemnin’ other folks’es sins, and makin’ them wretched. He seems to think if he can only do that, and keep himself from bein’ amused in any way, he is travelin’ the straight road to heaven; that truly is his strong pint.’”
“Well, she said she thought of the Saviour’s last charge to his disciples after his death and resurrection, when his words might well contain all earthly experience, and heavenly wisdom. Three times he asked that disciple, ‘Lovest thou me?’ And each separate time he bade him prove that love, not by bein’ gloomy faced and morose, not by loud preachin’ and condemnation of others, and long prayers and vows to Him, but in carin’ for the flock He had left. And when he pronounced the doom of the condemned, it was not because they had been happy and cheerful; not because they had neglected the creeds and forms of religion, but because they had seen Him in the form of a sufferin’ humanity, naked, athirst, and faint, and had not ministered unto Him.
“She talked like a little female preacher, Tom’s ma did; it was the first speech she had made sense I knew her, and that was goin’ on forty years, countin’ in seven years of stiddy courtin’. And says she in windin’ up—you know preachers always wind up, and Tom’s ma did—says she:
“‘I guess we won’t begin to be stern and dignified with Tom now, for we don’t care in particular about gainin’ the admiration of an awe-struck world, or awakenin’ Tom’s fears by makin’ patterns of ourselves;’ and says she, ‘I have always found, that people who set themselves up for patterns are very disagreeable as companions.’ Says she, ‘What we want is to save our boy, make him good and happy, and I am not a bit afraid of makin’ him too happy in an innocent way;’ says she, ‘for goodness is the own child of happiness on its mother’s side.’
“Who is the other parent?” says I.
Says she with a reverent look:
“‘Goodness is born of God, and happiness is its own mother, nursed and brought up by her.’ She talked powerful, Tom’s ma did. But as I was a sayin’, in the matter of Molly the Deacon stands firm, and Molly bein’ the only child there, the old Deacon most probable hates to be left alone, though they do say that the Deacon is goin’ to marry a Miss Horn, who spent last winter here to her brother’s, and—’”
But my Josiah interrupted him: “Molly the only child? Where’s Zebulin Jr.”
“Oh he run away in war time. He’d worked day and night to make a fiddle. His mind was all sot on music, and they said the fiddle sounded first-rate; but when he got it done, the old Deacon burnt it up; he was so everlastin’ good, that he thought fiddlin’ was wicked. But Zeb Jr. not bein’ so good, couldn’t look at it in that light, so he left.”
“Where’s Zacheus?”
“Oh Zack, he run away a few weeks after Zeb did. It was sunthin’ about a checker-board that ailed Zack—I believe the old Deacon split it up for kindlin’ wood. Anyway it was someway where the Deacon showed up his own goodness and Zack’s sinfulness.”
“Well, where are the twins, Noah and Nathan?”
“Oh the twins got to runnin’ to the tarvern. They’d get out of the winder nights, after pretendin’ to go to bed early; said they couldn’t stay to home. I s’pose the Deacon was so good, that it made ’em powerful uncomfortable, they bein’ so different. It was jest about that time I had such a tussle to keep Tom to home. They was both of ’em jest about Tom’s age, they was next older than Molly. Well, as might be expected, they got into bad company to the tarvern, got to drinkin’ and carousin’, and the Deacon turned ’em out doors. Bein’ so good he naturally couldn’t stand such doin’s at all, and they went from bad to worse. I don’t know where they be now, though I heerd they had gone to sea. They seemed to be the most sot ag’inst religion of any of ’em, the two twins was. I heerd they vowed they’d be pirates before they died, but I don’t know whether they ever got up to that aim of theirn or not.”
“Well, there was another boy, between Zebulin Jr. and Zack. Where is he?”
“Oh, that was Jonathan. A real good-hearted feller Jont was, and full of fun when his father wasn’t round; of course the old Deacon wouldn’t stand no fun. Jont was the smartest one of the lot, and his mother’s idol. Well, the old Deacon was bent on Jonts preachin’, was determined to make an Elder of him, and Jont hadn’t never experienced religion, nor nothin.’ He told his father, I’ve heern, that he never had no call to preach, and that he was sot on bein’ a carpenter. Always putterin’ round a carpenter’s shop, and makin’ little housen, and wheels and things, Jont was; his nateral nater all seemed to run that way, but the old Deacon wouldn’t give in, said _he_ called him, himself. He atted Jont about it all the time, preachin’ at him, and exhortin’ him. He was bound at convertin’ Jont himself. I s’pose he exhorted him powerful, and Jont not bein’ good enough to stand it, the upshot of the matter was, he jined a circus; turns summersets and so 4th.”
“What did Uncle Zebulin say to that?”
“Oh, the old Deacon is so dignified you can’t never see no change in him, he haint one of the kind to squirm. He said in a conference meetin’ that week, that it was dretful consolin’ to think he had always done his duty by Jont, sot his sinful state before him day and night, and been a pattern before him from his youth. He was thankful and happy that his sin didn’t lay on _his_ coat-skirts. But it jest killed the old lady; she didn’t live only a few weeks after Jont left.”
“Then Aunt Patience is dead?” says Josiah sithin’.
“Yes, she had been in a kind of a melancholly way for sometime, had kind o’ crazy spells, and when Jont left home that used her completely up.”
“It seems to me there was another boy, but I can’t call him by name this minute.”
“Oh, you mean Absolom.”
“Yes, Absolom! Where’s he?” says Josiah.
“Oh, Absolom stole a cow and was sent to jail. He said he’d always been called ungodly, and if he had the name, he’d have the game; so he stole a cow and was shet up.”
“I was a thinkin’ I heerd that Aunt Patience’es neice’s boy was a goin’ to live with him,—the one that never had no father in particular.”
“Yes,” says Elam Pitkins, “he did go to live there, but the old Deacon was so tarnal good that the boy couldn’t stand it with him.”
“What was the matter?” says Josiah.
“Well, the old Deacon bein’ sot so firm onto the docterines himself, thought the boy ort to think as he did, and be willin’, if it was for heaven’s glory, to be burnt up root and branch. The old Deacon worked at that boy eight months night and day to make him willin’ to go to hell; and the boy, bein’ a master hand for tellin’ the truth, and not bein’ good enough to be willin’ to go, wouldn’t say that he was. But the old Deacon had ‘got his back up,’—as a profane poet observes—and he was bound to carry the day, and he’d argue with him powerful, so they say, as to why he ort to be willin’. He’d tell him he was a child of wrath, and born in sin; and the boy, bein’ so mean, would sass him right back again, and tell him that he didn’t born himself; that it wasn’t none of his doin’s and he wasn’t to blame for it; and that if he had had _his_ way, and been knowin’ to it at the time, he’d drather give ten cents than to have been born at all.
“And the Deacon couldn’t stand no such wicked talk as that, and he’d lay to and whip him, and then he’d try again to make him willin’ to go to hell.
“And finally, the boy told him one day that he was willin’; he’d drather go, root and branch, than to live with him. And then the Deacon whipped him harder than ever; and the boy got discouraged and took to lyin’, and probable there haint so big a liar to-day in North America. He’s studyin’ for a lawyer.”
Again my companion seemed to be almost lost in thought, and says he:
“It is the most astonishin’ thing I ever see, that so good a man as Uncle Zebulin, should have a family that turned out so bad. It seems to be a mysterious dispensation of Providence.”
“Yes!” says Elam Pitkins. “It is Providence that done it, I haint a doubt of it.”
This made me so agitated, that entirely unbeknown to myself I riz right up in the wagon, and says I:
“Josiah Allen if you lay any more such doin’s to Providence, I’ll know the reason why.” Says I, “Not bein’ Elam Pitkins’es natural gardeun, if he’s a mind to slander Providence I can’t help it, but _you_ shant, Josiah Allen. You shall not talk ag’inst Providence, and abuse him by layin’ conduct to him that He is as innocent of as a infant babe.
“Well! well! do set down Samantha. How it does look for you to be a standing up a ridin’.”
The democrat give a awful jolt jest that minute, and truly I did what my companion advised me to, I sot down. But though my body was a settin’ down my mind was up and a doin’, for I see what was before me. I see that as a Promiscous Advisor there was a job ahead of me to tackle in the cause of Right.
When Elam Pitkins sot us down in front of Uncle Zebulin Coffin’ses house door, (two miles and a half almost, from Loon Town), the sun was jest a goin’ to bed for the night; a settlin’ down into a perfect pile of gold and purple and crimson bed clothes and comforters. But it seemed as if after he had pulled up the great folds of shinin’ drapery over him and covered his head up, he was a laughin’ to himself down under the bed-clothes, to think he had left the world lookin’ so beautiful and cheerful. Everything seemed to appear sort of happy and peaceful and still, still as a mouse, almost. It was the time of daisies and sweet clover, and all along the quiet country road, the white daisies was a smilin’ and noddin’ their bright heads. And the sweet clover, and the wild roses with their pretty red lips that the bees had been a kissin’ the biggest heft of the day, seemed to take a solid comfort in lookin’ bright, and makin’ the air sweet as honey, and sweeter.
There had been a shower of rain in the mornin’, and old Nater’s face was all washed off as clean as a pink; not a mite of dust on it. The medder was green as green could be, and the wavin’ wheat fields, looked first-rate. There was a strip of woods towards the west, quite a considerable ways off, shady and still it looked, and beyond that we could see the lake, part of it blue and serene like, and part of it lookin’ like them streets of gold, we read about.
The birds was a singin’ sort o’ low and sweet in the trees in the orchard. The sky overhead blushed up kinder pink, but the east was blue and clear, and the moon was sailin’ up in it like a silver boat that had sot out for the land of Pure Delight and expected to get there in a few moments. I don’t know when I ever see a handsomer time.
There are times you know, when it seems as if heaven and earth got so near to each other, that the stream of the Unknown that divides our world from the world of eternal light and beauty, could be spanned by one minute, if you could fix that minute onto an arrer, and aim it right, and shoot it straight. Oh! how beautiful and consolin’ and inspirin’ and happyfyin’ every thing looked, and I remarked to my pardner in tones of rapped admiration and extacy:
“Josiah, did you ever see so handsome a time?”
Josiah realized it; that man has a great eye for beauty. Though he don’t say so much as some men do, he feels the more. His eyes looked dreamy and sort o’ meditatin’, and his tones was low and gentle, as he replied to me:
“I hope they haint eat supper yet Samantha.”
Before I could answer him, a man come round the corner of the house, a walkin’ slowly along with his hands clasped under his coat-tails, and I knew the minute I sot eyes on him it was Uncle Zebulin Coffin. He was tall, and big boneded, but in dretful poor order; he had wintered bad, I knew. His face was from half to three-quarters of a yard in length. (I may not git the exact number of inches, never havin’ laid a yard stick to him, but I made a careless estimate in my mind, and have probable got it pretty near right.)
He seemed lengthy everyway. His nose was long, and his chin was long, and his mouth was drawed down lengthways dretful long, and his vest was long, and his coat tails was long, and black as a coal his clothes was, every mite of ’em; his vest was buttoned up tight to his chin, and he had a black stock on that come up to his ears. His head was well lifted up, partly by the stock, and partly by dignity—about half-and-half I should judge; or come to think it over, there was probable more dignity than there was stock. He was awful dignified, and oh! how cold he looked. Why, when he come round the corner of the house and faced the west with his cold disapprovin’ eyes, I’ll be hanged if I didn’t think that he would freeze all the beauty and gladness out of the sky. And sure enough when I looked round, the sun had stopped laughin’ in a minute, and in order to hide himself from the Deacon (as it were) had begun to haul up over his shinin’ bed-clothes, a old faded out coverlet, grey as a rat; and a dark shadder was a fallin’ over all the brightness of the world.
When his eyes fell onto us, Josiah trembled imperceptably; but though cold shivers was a runnin’ over his back, he approached him—because he must—and I, not being one to desert my companion in the time of trouble, marched close by his side.
“How do you do, Uncle Zebulin,” and Josiah tried hard to smile. “We have come to see you.”
His face looked more dignified than ever, and several degrees colder. I declare it did seem as if Josiah’s whiskers must show signs of frost, if it kep’ on.
“What stranger cometh to see me out of a world of darkness and sin? Who claims me as his kinsman?”
And his voice was as cold as a axe in a December mornin,’ jest as cold and icy.
“It is Josiah Allen, Uncle Zebulin, don’t you know me? and this is Samantha.” (And Josiah again made a fearful effort to smile.)
But Zebulin Coffin drew his hands back, and folded ’em up under his coat-skirts, and looked at Josiah a minute or two in complete stillness, and his mean was as cold as a thermomiter hangin’ up right on the North pole. It was a awful time. Finally he spoke:
“I remember you Josiah Allen; you tarried with us occasionally in your youthful days. The last time you were here you snickered at prayer time, one of my own ungodly sons piercin’ you with a pin. Have you repented of your sinful ways, Josiah Allen? Are you weary of husks?”
Oh! how wretched and meachin’ Josiah Allen looked. He felt too mean to speak, and Uncle Zebulin went on:
“If you are weary of husks and tired of swine, I can forgive you Josiah. Have you repented? Are you worthy of forgiveness? Speak, Josiah Allen; have you come to eat of the fatted calf?”
If Josiah Allen had been a sheep, a full blooded merino, he couldn’t have looked any more sheepish.
Jest at that minute a real sweet voice, but sort o’ sad like, called out from the other side of the house:
“Supper’s ready, father.”
And then Zebulin Coffin ungripped his hands from under his coat tails, and shook hands first with Josiah and then with me. But it was done in such a way that takin’ the clammy feelin’ of his hand, and the cold icy look of his eye, and his name bein’ Coffin, and all, I declare I felt jest as if I was at a funeral, and was one of the first mourners.
A prettier girl than Molly Coffin I don’t want to see! Nater is likely and well behaved,—does lots of work too; but sometimes through havin’ so much on her mind, I s’pose the old gal gits frisky and cuts up curious capers. And if she had made a rosebud spring up and blow out in a dark suller bottom, it wouldn’t have been a mite curiouser caper than for such a blossom of a girl to blow out of such a soil as the Deacon’s soil.
Pretty, and patient, and tender-hearted, and sad, and hopeless, and half broken hearted, I could see that too; and the minute we was introduced, I jest laid holt of her and kissed her as if she had been my own girl. And Josiah kissed her too, and I was glad on it. I haint one of the jealous kind, and I know my companion is one man out of a thousand. He has perfect confidence in my behavior day and night, and I have in hisen; and oh! what a consolin’ comfort that is. Confidence is the anchor of the heart; if it holds fast and firm, what safety and rest it gives; but if the anchor wont hold, if it is waverin’ and goes a driftin’ back and forth, a draggin’ the ropes of your affections that try to grip holt of it—through the mud and the mire, oh, how wearin’ it is to the rope and to the heart. But my trust in Josiah is like a cast-iron anchor that grapples the rock every time; no shock of the waves of change and chance and other wimmen can unhitch it; for truly I know that though Josiah Allen is a short man, his morals are as high and towerin’ as a meetin’ house steeple; but I am a episodin’.
Molly had baked potatoes and cold meat, besides pie and cake and preserves, and such stuff; and as we had gone in entirely unexpected, I knew that Molly was a good housekeeper, for her vittles was good enough for the very best of company. But the Deacon didn’t seem to be satisfied with a thing she did. His eyes, as cold as the middle of last winter, follered her all the time chuck full of disapproval. Her big sorrowful eyes watched his face anxiously and sort o’ fearful like, every time he spoke, for she was one of them gentle, lovin’ ones, that a harsh word or a cold look stabs like a blow; and I know it was them words and looks added to sorrow and Tom Pitkins, that had made her pretty cheeks so thin and white, and give that wistful, frightened, sorrowful look to her big brown eyes. There she sot not darin’ to say a word, and there my companion sot lookin’ as if he had stole a sheep.
The Deacon asked a blessin’, remindin’ the Lord how awful good a Christian he was, and asked him for mercy’s sake to pity the sinners assembled round his board. It was about as long as one chapter of Pollock’s Course of Time. Josiah thought when we was a talkin’ it over afterwards, that it was as long as the hull book, the hull course of time itself, but it wasn’t. We stood it first-rate, only his words was so condemnin’ to us, and frigid, and he did it in such a freezin’ way that I was most afraid it would make the potatoes cold as snow-balls. I am a great case for potatoes; the poet made a mistake as fur as I am concerned, for truly to me potatoes are “the staff of life”—or staffs I suppose would be more grammarius.
And as I see that man set at the head of the table almost completely wrapped up in dignity—like a great self-righteous damper a shettin’ off all the warmth and brightness of life from the hull on us, and a feelin’ so uncommon big over it—I declare, duty and principle kep’ a hunchin’ me so, and puttin’ me up to tackle him, that I couldn’t hardly eat. I knew the hour drew near for me to set fire to myself as a martyr, and as a Promiscous Advisor to tackle him in the cause of Right and Molly.
Most all the while we was a eatin’, the Deacon kep’ a hintin’ and a preachin’ about the wickedness and depravity of wimmen dressin’ themselves up; and every time he would say anything, he would look at Molly as if he was determined to freeze her as stiff as a poker. When we got up from the table, and sot out in the settin’-room, I see what his talk meant.
It seemed she was a makin’ a white dress for herself out of muslin—jest a finishin’ it off with some modest lookin’ lace on the neck and sleeves, and a small—a very small and reasonable amount of puckers; she could make the hull on it in a day and a half at the outside, and I could see she would look as pretty in it as a pink. When the old Deacon went to set down, he took the skirt of the dress that happened to be a layin’ over his chair, and handlin’ it with considerable the countenance he would a checkered adder, he broke out colder and frigider than ever:
“No wonder the national debt haint paid; no wonder ruin and bankruptcy are in the land, and it is wimmen’s base carnal extravagance that does it.”
“Yes,” says Josiah—who seemed to want to curry the Deacon’s favor—“it is jest as you say; wimmen is tarnal extravagant.”
Oh how he looked at Josiah; “I said _carnal_, I am not in the practice of profane swearin’.”
Oh how sorry my Josiah looked, to think he had tried to curry him down.
And then the Deacon went on about wimmen’s base and vile extravagance, as much as seventeen minutes by the clock, givin’ such a look once in a while onto my respectable overskirt, and lace head-dress, and Molly’s dress, enough to make icikles hang to ’em. I heerd him go on as long as I could, and then says I: