Part 29
“Well,” says he, “the three ‘Creation Searchers’ that was left are in jail.”
“In jail, Josiah Allen?”
“Yes, in jail for playin’ horse and disturbin’ the peace. Sam Snyder has jest told me the particulars. They got to thinkin’ I s’pose, how many scrapes they had got into sense they was here as a body; how much money they had lost, and how much fun had been made of ’em; and they seemed to lose every mite of dignity, and every spec of decency they had got about ’em, and they all got drunk as fools—”
[Sidenote: THE SENTINAL PROMISCOUS]
Says I warmly, “I _told_ the Nation jest how it would be, and I told _you_ Josiah, but you wouldn’t believe me, neither on you, and now there is Solomon Cypher drunk as a fool; mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”
Says Josiah with a gloomy look, “I don’t see what you want to lay it all to _me_ for; their sellin’ likker here to the Sentimental wasn’t _my_ doin’s.”
“Well, you sort o’ upholded the Nation in it; did they catch ’em here to the Sentinal, Josiah?”
“No, they got their likker here, and then they went down into the village a cuttin’ up and actin’ every step of the way; and when they catched ’em they was playin’ horse right in front of the meetin’ house. Cornelius and the Editor was horses and old Cypher they say had got holt of their galluses a drivin’ ’em double; and he was a yellin’ and cluckin’ to ’em to git up, and they was a prancin’ and a snortin’, and the Editor of the Auger was pretendin’ to be balky, and was a kickin’ up and a whinnerin’; the likker had made three perfect fools of ’em. And what gauls me,” says he with a deprested look, “is, that a relation of ourn by marriage should be in the scrape; it will make such talk; and we mixed up in it.”
[Sidenote: THE “CREATION SEARCHERS” IN JAIL]
Says I calmly but firmly, “He must have a bail put onto him.”
“_I_ won’t put it on,” says he—and he added in a loud mad tone—“he won’t git no bails put onto him by me, not a darned bail.”
“Well,” says I, “if you haint no pity by you, you can probable stop swearin’ if you set out to. They are relations on _your_ side Josiah Allen.”
“Throw the Widder in my face again will you!” says he, “if she was fool enough to marry him, she may take care of him for all of me, and if she wants any bails put onto him, she may put ’em on herself.”
Says I lookin’ my pardner calmly in the eye. “Ort from ort leaves how many Josiah Allen?”
“Ort,” says he, and snapped out, “what of it? What do you go a prancin’ off into Rithmatic for, such a time as this?”
Says I mildly, for principle held my temper by the reins, a leadin’ me along in the harness first-rate, “When you reckon up a row of orts and git ’em to amount to anything, or git anything from ’em to carry, then you can set the bride to doin’ sunthin’ and expect to have it done;” says I, “won’t Sam Snyder succor him?”
“No he won’t; he says he won’t and there haint a Jonesvillian that will; you won’t catch ’em at it.”
“Well,” says I firmly, with a mean that must have looked considerable like a certain persons at Smithfield when he was bein’ set fire to; “if you nor nobody else won’t go and help put a bail onto Solomon Cypher, _I_ shall.”
And then Josiah hollered up and asked me if I was a dumb fool, and twitted me how hauty and overbearin’ Solomon had been to wimmen, how he had looked down on me and acted.
But says I calmly, “Josiah Allen, you have lived with me month after month, and year after year, and you don’t seem to realize the size and heft of the principles I am a carryin’ round with me, no more than if you never see me a performin’ with ’em on a tower. Rememberance of injuries, ridicule, nor Josiah can’t put up no bars accrost the path of Right high enough to stop Samantha. She is determined and firm; she will be merciful and heap coals of fire on the head of the guilty Cypher, for the sake of duty, and that weepin’ ort.”
And then Josiah pretended not to understand my poetic and figgerative speech, and said that—Solomon bein’ so bald—I’d have a chance to give him a good singein’ and he hoped I’d blister his old skull good.
And I walked off with dignity, and wouldn’t demean myself by sayin’ another word. He had told me where the bride was, and I started off; and though memory (as well as Josiah) hunched me up to remember how hauty the “Creation Searchers” had all been as a body, and how rampant they had been that a woman shouldn’t infringe on ’em, or come in contract with ’em, still the thought that they was moulderin’ in jail made me feel for them and their weepin’ brides.
The female elements in politics would be, as you may say, justice tempered down with mercy; justice kep’ a sayin’ to me, “Solomon Cypher is in jail and he ort to be, for truly he played horse and disturbed the peace;” but mercy whispered to me in the other ear: “If he is humbled down and willin’ to do better, give him a chance.”
Punishment if it means anything means jest that; it hadn’t ort to be malicious enjoyment to the punishers; it ort to be for the reformin’ of the criminals, and makin’ of ’em better. And that is why I never could believe that chokin’ folks to death was the way to reform ’em, and make better citizens of ’em.
I found the bride a settin’ like a statute of grief on a bench, a groanin’ and weepin’ and callin’ wildly on Doodle, and sayin’ if he was alive she wouldn’t be in that perdickerment—which I couldn’t deny, and didn’t try to. But I told her firmly that this was no time to indulge in her feelins, or call on Doodle, and if she wanted a bail put onto Solomon Cypher, we must hasten to his dungeon.
So we hurried onwards, and right in the path we met Gen. Hawley; and even then, in that curious time, I thought I never did see a handsomer, well meaniner face than hisen. And now it looked better than ever for it had pity onto it, which will make even humblyness look well. That man respects me deeply; he see the mission I was a performin’ on, and the hefty principles I was a carryin’ round with me on a tower, and now as he looked at my agitated face and then at the weepin’ bride, he stopped and says in that honest good way of hisen, and with that dretful clever look to his eyes:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, you are in trouble; can I help you in any way?”
“No,” says I, “not _now_ you can’t.” I put a awful meanin’ axent onto that ‘now,’ and says he:
“Do I understand you to say Madam that at some future time I can? You know you can command me.”
(A better dispositioned, accommodatiner, well meaniner man, never walked afoot; I knew that from the first on’t.) But duty and justice hunched me up, one on each side, and says I sadly, “My advice wasn’t took, the Sentinal was licenced, and Solomon Cypher is drunk as a fool.”
He felt bad; he sithed, to think after all I had said and done about it, the Sentinal was licenced, and some of my folks had got drunk. It mortified him dretfully I know, but I wouldn’t say anything to make him feel any worse, and I only says, says I:
“The Nation wouldn’t take my advice, and you see if it don’t sup sorrow for it; you see if it don’t see worse effects from it than Solomon Cypher’s gittin’ drunk and playin’ horse. And if you see me to the next Sentinal, Joseph, you jest tell me if I haint in the right on’t.”
But I hadn’t no time to multiply any more words with him, for the bride groaned out agonizinly, and called on Doodle and his linement in such a heartbreakin’ way, they was enough to draw tears from a soap stun.
But I will pass over my sufferins of mind, body and ears, only sayin’ that they was truly tegus, till at last we stood before the recumbard form of Solomon Cypher a layin’ stretched out on the floor in as uncomfortable a position as I ever sot my eyes on; he looked almost exactly like a sick swine that Josiah had in the spring. But I hope to goodness the swine won’t never hear I said so, if it should, I should be ashamed and apologize to it, for that got sick on sweet whey, which is a far nobler sickness than likker sickness. And then the Lord had made that a brute by nater, and it hadn’t gone to work and made itself so as Solomon had.
But oh! how the bride did weep and cry as she looked down on him, and how heartrendin’ she did call on Doodle, sayin’ if he had lived she wouldn’t have been in that perdickerment; it was a strange time,—curious.
And we left him after leavin’ some money to have him let out jest as quick as he could walk. I didn’t try to do anything for Cornelius Cork or the Editor of the Auger’ses case. I was completely tuckered out; and in the mornin’ I was so lame that I couldn’t hardly stand on my feet. My back was in a awful state; it wasn’t so much a pain as I told Josiah, but there seemed to be a creek a runnin’ down through my back, as curious a feelin’ as I ever felt; and though we hadn’t seen half or a fourth of what we wanted to see, I told Josiah that we must start for home that day; had it not been for the creek runnin’ down my back we should have staid two days longer at least.
Josiah rubbed my back with linement before we started, almost tenderly; but right when he was rubbin’ in the linement the most nobby he says to me: “This creek wouldn’t never have been Samantha, if you hadn’t helped put a bail onto anybody.”
[Sidenote: THE END OF OUR TOWER]
Says I, “When anybody is preformin’ about a mission like mine, on a tower, and gits hurt; their noble honor, their happy conscience holds ’em up even if their own pardner tries to run ’em down.”
Says I, “Mebby it is all for the best, our goin’ home this mornin’, for that hen is liable to come off now any minute, and I ort to be there.”
He said he had been ready for a week, which indeed he had, for truly the price he had to pay for our two boards was enormous; I never see nor heerd of such costly boards before. So we started about half-past eight o’clock, calculatin’ to git home the second day, for we was goin’ home the shortest way, stayin’ one night to a tarvern.
And the next night about sundown my Josiah and me arrove home from the Sentinal, and it seemed as if old Nater had been a lottin’ on our comin’ and fixed up for us and made a fuss, everything looked so uncommon beautiful and pleasant. There had been a little shower that afternoon, and the grass in the door yard looked green and fresh as anything. The sweet clover in the meadow made the air smell good enough to eat if you could have got holt of it; our bees was a comin’ home loaded down with honey, and the robins in the maples and the trees over in the orchard sang jest as if they had been practicin’ a piece a purpose to meet us with, it was perfectly beautiful. And the posy beds and the mornin’ glories at the winders and the front porch, and the curtains at our bed-room winder, and the door step, and everything, looked so good to me that I turned and says to my pardner with a happy look:
“Home is the best place on earth, haint it Josiah Allen?” says I, “towers are pleasant to go off on, but they are tuckerin, especially high towers of principle such as I have been off a performin’ on.”
But Josiah looked fractious and worrysome, and says he:
“What I want to know is, what we are goin’ to have for supper; there haint no bread nor nothin’, and I’d as lives eat bass-wood chips and shingles as to eat Betsey Slimpsey’s cookin’.”
But I says in tender tones, for I knew I could soothe him down instantly:
“How long will it take your pardner, Josiah Allen, to make a mess of cream biscuit, and broil some of that nice steak we jest got to Jonesville, and mash up some potatoes? And you know,” says I in the same gentle axents, “there is good butter and cheese and honey and canned peaches and everything right in the suller.”
All the while I was speakin’, my Josiah’s face begun to look happier and happier, and more peaceful and resigned, and as I finished, and he got down to help me out, he looked me radiantly and affectionately in the face, and says he:
“It is jest as you say, Samantha; there’s no place like home.”
[Sidenote: HOME AFFAIRS]
Says I, “I knew you would feel jest so; home when it is the home of the heart as well as the body, is almost a heaven below. And,” I added in the same tones, or pretty nigh the same, “mebby you had better git me a little kindlin’ wood Josiah, before you unharness.”
He complied with my request and in about an hour’s time we sot down to a supper good enough for a king, and Josiah said it was. He acted happy, very, and exceedinly clever; he had found everything right to the barn, and I also to the house, and we felt well. And though we had held firm, and wouldn’t have took no rash means to git rid of our trouble, it did seem such a blessed relief to be at rest from David Doodle; it seemed so unutterably sweet not to have his linement throwed in our faces every moment.
Thomas J. wasn’t comin’ home till Saturday. We see him and Tirzah Ann as we come through Jonesville, and they said the last of the ‘Creation Searchers’ had got home, but their conduct had leaked out through the bride and the Editor of the Auger’ses wife, and they dassant go out in the street, any one of ’em, they had so much fun poked at ’em. Betsey come in at night; she had been to Miss Daggets to work, and she had a flour sack with some beans, and other provisions.
Says I in pityin’ axents, “How do you do, Betsey?”
Well she said she enjoyed real poor health; she had got the shingles the worst kind, and a swelled neck, and the newraligy, and the ganders, and says she, “Havin’ to support a big family in this condition makes it hard for me.”
“Don’t your husband help you any, Betsey?” says I.
“Oh!” says she, “he is down with the horrers the hull time,” says she, “my work days haint half so bad as the hard times I have nights,” she said she didn’t git no sleep at all hardly.
Says I, “Haint you most sorry Betsey that you ever tried to git married?”
She felt so bad and was so discouraged and down-hearted that she come out the plainest I ever see her, and says she:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, I’ll tell you the truth! If it wasn’t for the name of bein’ married, and the dignity I got by bein’ in that state, I should be sorry as I could be; but,” says she as she lifted her flour sack of provisions onto her tired shoulders previous to startin’ home, “I wouldn’t part with the dignity I got by bein’ married, not for a ten cent bill, as bad as I want money, and as much as I need it.”
THE REUNION.
The mornin’ of the fourteenth of September dawned fair and peacefully. The sun rose up considerable early in the mornin’, and looked down with a calm and serene face upon Jonesville and the earth. And not fur from the same time, I too, rose up and with as calm and serene a face as hisen, I went to work and got a excellent breakfast for my Josiah and me. It was the day we had looked forred to for a year. The deed that was to give our Tirzah Ann and her pardner a handsome home lay in security in the depths of my Josiah’s vest pocket, and in the buttery was a big basket full of as good vittles as was ever baked by woman—enough to last ’em a week. The new carpets and housen stuff had been privately carried into the house, unbeknown to them; and that very afternoon was the time we was a goin’ to make ’em almost perfectly happy. Oh! how serene and noble I felt as I poured out my dish-water and washed my breakfast dishes.
And as I washed and wiped I thought of the childern; thought how well Thomas J. was a doin’, and how Tirzah Ann and Whitfield had been prospered ever sense they took their bridal tower. I s’pose they had a dretful hard time then; I s’pose they suffered as much agony on that bridal tower, as any two bridals ever suffered in the same length of time. Tirzah Ann haint got over that tower to this day, and Whitfield looks mad every time he hears the word mentioned. They have both told me sense (in strict confidence) at two separate times, that if they was a goin’ to be married twenty-five times a piece, they had gone off on their last tower.
You see the way on’t was, Tirzah Ann—not bein’ used to travellin’—got lost. Whitfield left her a minute on the platform to go back after her parasol, and she heerd ’em say “All aboard,” and she thought she must git on that minute or die. He, seein’ she was gone, thought she had went back after him, and he went searchin’ after her. The train went on; he took the next train up, and she the next train down, and they passed each other; and then she took the next train up, and he the next train down, and they missed each other again. And so they kep’ it up all the first day and night. Finally, the next mornin’ the conductor—bein’ a old gentleman, and good hearted—telegraphed to Whitfield that he would be to the upper depot at 10 o’clock, and told him to come on instantly and claim his property and pay charges, or it would spile on his hands. I s’pose she did take on awfully, not bein’ used to trouble; she fainted dead away when Whitfield come on and claimed her and paid charges; and the old gentleman bein’ crazy with trouble deluged a mop-pail full of water onto her, and spilte every rag of her clothes, bunnet and all. Thirty dollars wouldn’t have made her whole; I s’pose she looked like a banty hen after a rain storm.
[Sidenote: A BRIDAL TOWER]
When they got to Whitfield’s cousins—where they expected to stay—they was away from home. Then they went to a second cousins; they was havin’ a funeral. Then they went to a third cousins, and they had the tyfus. Then they went to the only tarvern in the place; they was all right there, only the whoopin’ cough; and they never havin’ had it, took it, and come down in nine days—coughed and whooped awful.
They laid out to stay a fortnite on their tower, and they did; but they have both told me sense (in confidence, and I wouldn’t want it told of from me,) that their sufferins durin’ that time, can be imagined, but never described upon. The first cousin come home and sent for ’em, but she was of a jealous make, and kinder hinted that Tirzah Ann run away from Whitfield a purpose—didn’t come right out and say it, but kep’ a hintin’—made them feel as uncomfortable as if they was raked up on a coal. And then she would look at Tirzah Ann’s clothes that was spilte—when she fainted away, and was fetched to by water—and kinder hint that she had fell into some creek. I s’pose she kep’ Tirzah Ann on the tenderhooks the hull time, without sayin’ a word they could resent or make her take back.
And then she and Whitfield was dressed up all the time, and wanted to act natteral, and couldn’t—felt as if they must behave beautiful, and polite every minute. Why! I s’pose they got so sick of each other that they wished, both on ’em, that they had lived single, till they died of old age. And then on their way back they both had the blind headache, every step of the way, coughed their heads most off, and whooped—Tirzah Ann told me—as if they was two wild Injuns on a war path. Truly they had got enough of weddin’ towers to last through a long life.
Somehow Thomas Jefferson always felt different about such things. I’ve heerd him and Tirzah Ann—before she was married—argue about it, time and again. He said he couldn’t for his life see why folks felt as if they had got to go a caperin’ off somewhere, the minute they was married—and to tell the plain truth, I, myself, never could see the necessity, when they both feel as strange as strange can be, to think of goin’ off into a strange land to feel strange in.
It is curious enough and solemn enough to enter into a new life, untried, crowded full of possibilities for happiness or misery, if you face that future calmly and with bodily ease. It is a new life, not to be entered into highlariously, tired to death, and wild as two lunys, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, amidst the screechins of omnibus drivers and pop corn peddlers, but with calmness, meditation, and prayer. That is my idee; howsumever, everybody to their own.
And then another thing that made Tirzah Ann’s tower so awful tryin’; she had wore herself down almost to a skeleton and got irritable and nervous, a makin’ tattin, and embroideries; for she felt she couldn’t be married till she had got her nineteenth suit all trimmed off to the extreme of the fashion.
Thomas J. and Maggy (they think alike on most things) always felt different about that. I have heerd Maggy say that she never could understand why it was necessary for a girl to make up such a stupendus amount of clothin’ to marry one man in—a man she had seen every day from her youth up. She said that any civilized young woman who respected herself, would have enough clothin’ by her all the time to be comfortable and meet any other emergency of life; and she couldn’t understand why her marryin’ to a mild dispositioned young man, should render it imperative to disable several dressmakers, make mothers lunatics with fine sewin’, and work themselves down to a complete skeleton, makin’ up as many garments as if they was goin’ for life into a land where needles was unknown, and side thimbles was no more.
And to tell the truth I joined with her; I always thought that health and a good disposition would be more useful, and go further than tattin in the cares and emergencies of married life; and that girls would do better to spend some of their time a makin’ weddin’ garments for their souls, gettin’ ready the white robes of patience and gentleness, and long sufferins. They’ll need them, every rag on ’em if they are married any length of time. But everybody has their ways, and Tirzah Ann had hers, and truly she had the worst of it.
I finished washin’ my dishes, and then I brought out my linen dress and cape, and my common bunnet, so’s to have everything ready. Jest as I come out with ’em on my arm, Thomas J. come in, and says he:
“Wear your best shawl and bunnet this afternoon, won’t you mother?”
Says I, “Why, Thomas Jefferson?”
Says he, “I didn’t know but you would want to step into the Presbeteryun church this afternoon on your way down to Tirzah Ann’s. There is a couple a goin’ to be married there at two o’clock.”
“Who be they Thomas J.?” says I.
Says he, “It is a couple that don’t want to be gossiped about; that think marriage is sunthin’ too sacred and holy to be turned into a circus, with tinsel and folderols, and a big crowd of strangers a gazin’ on—the woman dressed up for principal performer, and the man for a clown. A couple that wants jest them they love best—”
I dropped right down into a chair and put up my gingham apron over my eyes and bust right out a cryin’, and I couldn’t have helped it, if Josiah had stood over me with a meat-axe. I knew who it was that was goin’ to be married and most probable set off for the west in the mornin’. Goin’ way off west; my boy, my Thomas Jefferson.
He come up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder and said in a kind of a tremblin’ voice—he thinks a sight of me, my boy does; and then he knows enough to know that a new life is a serious thing to set out on, even if love goes with ’em—says he:
“I thought you loved Maggy, mother.”
Says I, out from under my apron, “You know I do, Thomas Jefferson, and you ort to know your mother well enough to know she is a cryin’ for pleasure, pure enjoyment.” I wasn’t a goin’ to put no dampers onto my boy’s happiness that day, not if he sot off the next minute for the Antipithes. He stood there for a moment with his hand on my shoulder, and then he bent down and kissed me, and that was every word he said. Then he went up stairs to git ready.