Part 3
“Wimmen’s minds is weak. But this haint the main reason why I make my motion. My main reason is, that I object, and I always will—while I have got a breath left in my body—object to the two sexes a comin’—as my honored friend the President says—‘in such close contract with each other, as they would have to if wimmen took any part with men in such public affairs.’ Keep separate from each other! that is my ground, and that is my motion. Keep wimmen off as fur as you can, if you would be safe and happy. Men has their place,” says he,—stridin’ forred a long step with his right foot, and stretchin’ up his right arm nobly towards the sky as fur as he could with safety to his armpit—“and wimmen has hern!”—steppin’ back a long step with his left foot, and pintin’ down with his left hand, down through a hole in the floor, into the cellar—“and it is necessary for the public safety,” says he,—a smitin’ his breast, first with his right hand and then with his left—“that he keep hisen, and she hern. As the nation and individuals are a goin’ on now, everything is safe.” (Here he stopped and smiled.) “The nation is safe.” (Another smile.) “And men and wimmen are safe, for they don’t come in contract with each other.” (Here he stopped and smiled three times.) “But if wimmen are ever permitted in the future to take any part in public affairs; if they are ever permitted to come in contract with man, and bring thereby ruin, deep, deadly ruin onto Jonesville and the world, I want Jonesville and the world to remember that I have cleared _my_ coat-skirts in the matter. I lift ’em out of the fearful and hazardous enterprise.”
He had an old-fashioned dress coat on, with long skirts, that come most to the floor, and as he said this, he lifted ’em up with a almost commandin’ air, as if he was a liftin’ ’em out of black mud. He lifted ’em right up, and they stood out in front of his arms, some like wings; and, as he stood lookin’ round the audience, in this commandin’ and imposin’ position, he repeated the words in a more lofty and majestic tone:
“I clear _my_ coat-skirts of the hull matter. You _see_ me clear ’em. None of the bloody ruin can be laid onto _my_ coat-skirts.”
It was a thrillin’ moment. It had a terribly depressin’ effect on a great many lovers of justice and wimmen’s votin’, who was present. They see the dangers hedgin’ in the enterprise, as they never see ’em before. They see the power of the foe they was fightin’ ag’inst, and trembled and quailed before him. But though I realized well what was a goin’ on before me, though I knew what a deadly blow he was a givin’ to the cause, I held firm, and kep’ a cool mean, and never thought for half a moment of givin’ up my shield. And then I knew it wasn’t so much his words—although they was witherin’—as his lofty majesty of bearin’, that influenced the almost breathless audience. He stood in that commandin’ posture, I have described, for I should judge, nearly one moment and a half, and then he repeated the words:
“For I say unto you,”—and here he dropped his coat-skirts suddenly, and struck himself in the breast a sudden and violent blow with his thumb,—the fingers all standin’ out straight, like the bones of a fan—“for I say unto you; and if these are the last words you shall ever hear from my humble but perfectly honorable mouth,—remember, Jonesville and the world, that I died a sayin’, beware of the female pole.”
I never in my hull life heerd a pole sound so faint and sickly as that pole did. It dwindled away almost to nothin’, and he kinder shet his eyes up and sallied away, as if he was a goin to die off himself. It skairt some of the wimmen most to death, it was so impressive; but I knew it was all the effect of high trainin’; I knew he would come to in a minute, and he did. Pretty soon he kinder repeated the words, in a sickly tone:
“Remember, I died a sayin’: beware of the female pole. Beware! beware!!”
And oh, how skairt them wimmen was again; for he straightened right up and yelled out them two bewares, like a couple of claps of thunder; and his eyes kep’ a growin’ bigger and bigger, and his voice grew louder and louder, till it seemed as if it would raise the very ruff—though it had jest been new shingled, (cost the deestrick 20 dollars,)—and he looked round the audience as wise as any owl I ever laid eyes on, and struck himself a very fearful blow with his thumb, right on his stomach, and says he:
“Beware of bein’ infringed upon!”—and then followed another almost dangerous blow—“Beware of that terrible and fearful day, when men and wimmen shall come in contract with each other.”
He stopped perfectly still, looked all round the house with that wise and almost owl-like look on him, and then in a slow, impressive, and eloquent manner, he raised his hands and struck his breast bone with both thumbs and sot down. Some of the speakers seemed to be real envious of his gestures, but they ort to have considered that it was all in knowin’ how; it was all in practice. He’d probably studied on every motion for days and days, and they hadn’t ort to have begreched ’em so to him. But if he hadn’t never studied on elocution and impressive gesturin’; if he hadn’t looked a mite like an owl for solemnity and wisdom, his talk would have been dretful impressive and scareful to some, he painted it all out in such high colors, what a terrible and awful thing it would be for the two sects to ever come in “contract with each other.” I s’pose he meant contact,—I haint a doubt of it.
Why, to have heerd him go on, if there had been a delegate present to the “Creation Searchin’ Society,” from the moon—or any other world adjacent to Jonesville—he wouldn’t have had any idee that men and wimmen had ever got any nearer to each other than from half to three-quarters of a mile. I s’pose I never could have made that foreigner believe, if I had talked myself blind, that, for all Solomon Cypher showed such deadly fear of men comin’ in “contract” with wimmen, he had lived with one forty years; drinked out of the same dipper; slept together Sundays in the same pew of the same meetin’ house; and brought up a big family of childern together, which belonged to both on ’em.
Howsumever, them was the facts of the case; but I let him go on, for principle held me down, and made me want to know how it would end; whether freedom, and the principles of our 4 fathers would triumph, or whether they would be quirled up like caterpillers, and be trod on.
I knew in my mind I shouldn’t git up and talk, not if they voted me in ten times over, for reasons that I give more formally; and besides them reasons, I was lame, and had ruther set and knit, for Josiah needed his socks; and I have always said, and I say still, that a woman ort to make her family comfortable, before she tackles the nation, or the heathen, or anything.
So they kep’ on a fightin’, and I kep’ on a knittin’; and upheld by principle, I never let on but what I was dyin’ to git up and talk. They got awful worked up on it; they got as mad as hens, every one on ’em, all but Josiah. He sot by me as happy as you please, a holdin’ my ball of yarn. He acted cleverer than he had in some time; he was awful clever and happy; and so was I; we felt well in our 2 minds, as we sot there side by side, while the fearful waves of confusion and excitement, and Cornelius Cork and Solomon Cypher, was a tostin’ to and fro about us.
And oh, how happyfyin’ and consolin’ and satisfyin’ to the mind it is, when the world is angry and almost mad at you, to set by the side of them you are attached to by links considerable stronger than cast iron. In the midst of the wildest tempests, you feel considerable safe, and some composed. No matter if you don’t speak a word to them, nor they to you, their presence is sufficient; without ’em, though you may be surrounded by admirin’ congregations, there is, as the poet says, “a goneness;” the biggest crowds are completely unsatisfactory, and dwindle down to the deepest lonesomeness. Though the hull world should be a holdin’ you up, you would feel tottlin’ and lonesome, but the presence of the one beloved, though he or she—as the case may be—may not be hefty at all, still is large enough to fill a meetin’ house, or old space himself without ’em; and truly, when heart leans upon heart, (figgeratively speakin’) there is a rest in it that feather beds cannot give, neither can they take away. My companion Josiah’s face shines with that calm, reposeful happiness, when he is in my society, and I—although I know not why I do—experience the same emotions in hisen.
Finally, at half past eleven—and they was completely tuckered out on both sides—the enemies of wimmen’s suffragin’ and justice, kinder all put together and brought in a motion, Solomon Cypher bein’ chief bearer and spokesman of the procession. They raised him up to this prominent position, because he was such a finished speaker. The motion was clothed upon in eloquent and imaginative language. Solomon Cypher never got it up alone. Cornelius Cork, and the Editor of the Auger, and probable two or three others had a hand in it, and helped git it up. It had a almost thrillin’ effect on the audience; though, by jest readin’ it over, nobody can git any clear idee how it sounded to hear Solomon Cypher declaim it forth with appropriate and impressive gestures, and a lofty and majestic expression onto him. This was the motion:
“Be it resolved over, and motioned at, and acted upon by us, ‘Creation Searchers and World Investigators,’ that wimmen’s body and mind, are both of ’em, as much too weak and feeble to tackle the subjects that will be brung up here, as a span of pismires are, to lay to and move a meetin’ house.”
After he had finished makin’ the motion, he stood a moment and a half lookin’ round on the audience with a smile on his lips, while such is the perfect control he has got by hard practice over his features, that at the same time his mouth was a smilin’, there was a severe and even gloomy expression on the upper part of his face, and an empty and vacant look in his eyes. Then he smote himself meaningly and impressively in the pit of his stomach, and sot down. And then, as it was considerable still for a moment, I spoke calmly out of my seat to the Editor of the Gimlet, who happened to be a standin’ near, and thanked him and the others on his side, for their labors in my behalf, and told ’em I hadn’t no idee of takin’ part in their Debatin’-school, (I called it so before I thought,) and hadn’t had, none of the time. And then, with a calm and collected mean onto me, I knit in the middle of my needle, and Josiah wound up my ball of yarn, and we started for home.
But I wasn’t goin’ to stay away from the Debatin’-school because they looked down on the female sect and felt awful kinder contemptible towards ’em. Other folks’es opinions of us hadn’t ort to influence us ag’inst them. Because a person is prejudiced ag’inst me, and don’t like me, that haint no reason why I shouldn’t honor what good qualities she has, and respect what is respectable in him. (I don’t know jest how to git the sect down, to git it right. I calculate to be very exact, as strict and scientific as a yard-stick, even in the time of allegorin’; but havin’ so much work, and the Widder Doodle on my hands, I haint studied into it so deep as I had ort to, whether a Debatin’-school, in the times of allegorin’, should be called a he, or a she.)
But howsumever, as I said, I laid out to be present at ’em, jest the same. And it was to this Debatin’-scho—I mean Lyceum, that the idee first entered my head, of goin’ to Filadelfy village to see the Sentinal; of which, more hereafter, and anon.
THE WIDDER DOODLE.
As I mentioned, more formally Josiah’s brother’s wife had come to live with us. My opinion is she is most a natural fool; howsumever, bein’ one of the relations on his side, I haint told her what I think of her, but bear with her as I would wish the relations on my side to be bore with by Josiah. How long she will live with us, that I don’t know. But she haint no place to go to, and we can’t turn her out of doors; so it looks dark to me, for it is a considerable sized tribulation, that I don’t deny; fools was always dretful wearin’ to me. But I don’t ort to call her a fool, and wouldn’t say it where it would git out, for the world. But she don’t know no more’n the law’l allow, that I will contend for boldly with my last breath.
But if her principles was as hefty as cast-iron, and her intellect as bright as it is t’other way—if it was bright as day—she would be a sort of a drawback to happiness—anybody would, whether it was a he or a she. Home is a Eden jest large enough to hold Adam and Eve and the family, and when a stranger enters its gate to camp down therein for life with you, a sort of a cold chill comes in with ’em. You may like ’em, and wish ’em well, and do the best you can with ’em, but you feel kinder choked up, and bound down; there is a sort of a tightness to it; you can’t for your life feel so loose and soarin’ as you did when you was alone with Josiah and the childern.
But I am determined to put up with her and do the best I can. She hadn’t no home, and was a comin’ on the town, so Josiah thought for the sake of Tim—that was his brother—it was our duty to take her in and do for her. And truly Duty’s apron strings are the only ones we can cling to with perfect safety. Inclination sometimes wears a far more shining apron, and her glitterin’ strings flutter down before you invitingly, and you feel as if you must leggo of Duty, and lay holt of ’em. But my friends, safety is not there; her strings are thin, and slazy, and liable to fall to pieces any minute. But hang on to Duty’s apron strings boldly and blindly, get a good holt and have no fear; let her draw you over rough pathways, through dark valleys, up the mounting side, and through the deep waters; don’t be afraid, but hang on. The string won’t break with you, and the country she will lead you into is one that can’t be bettered.
Her first husband was Josiah’s only brother. He died a few years after they were married, and then she married to another man, David Doodle by name and a shiftless creeter by nater—but good lookin’, so I hearn. Howsumever, I don’t know nothin’ about it only by hearsay, for I never laid eyes on none of the lot till she come on to us for a home. They lived out to the Ohio. But she fairly worships that Doodle to this day, talks about him day and night. I haint heerd her say a dozen words about Josiah’s brother Timothy, though they say he was a likely man, and a good provider, and did well by her. Left her a good farm, all paid for, and Doodle run through it; and five cows and two horses; and Doodle run through them, and a colt.
But she don’t seem to remember that she ever had no such husband as Timothy Allen, which I know makes it the more wearin’ onto Josiah, though he don’t complain. But he thought a sight of Tim—they used to sleep together when they was children, and heads that lay on the same mother’s bosom, can’t git so fur apart but what memory will unite ’em. They got separated when they grew up; Tim went to the Ohio to live, as I say, but still, when Josiah’s thoughts git to travelin’, as thoughts will,—I never see such critters to be on the go all the time—they take him back to the old trundle-bed, and Tim.
But she don’t mention brother Timothy only when Josiah asks her about him. But Doodle! I can truly say without lyin’ that if ever a human bein’ got sick of any thing on earth, I got sick of Doodle, sick enough of him. Bein’ shet up in the house with her I sense it more than Josiah does. It is Doodle in the morning, and Doodle at noon, and Doodle at night, and Doodle between meals; and if she talks in her sleep—which she is quite a case to—it is about Doodle. I don’t complain to Josiah much, knowin’ it will only make his road the harder; but I told Thomas Jefferson one day, after she had jest finished a story about her and Doodle that took her the biggest part of the forenoon, for the particulars that she will put in about nothin’, is enough to make any body sweat in the middle of winter. She had went and lay down in her room after she got through; and good land! I should think she would want to—I should think she would have felt tuckered out. And I says to Thomas Jefferson—and I sithed as I said it:
“It does seem as if Doodle will be the death of me.” And I sithed again several times.
“Wall,” says he, “if he should, I will write a handsome piece of poetry on it;” says he, “Alf Tennyson and Shakespeare have written some pretty fair pieces, but mine shall
“Beat the hull caboodle, And the burden of the him shall be, That mother died of Doodle.”
I stopped sithin’ then, and I says to him in real severe tones, “You needn’t laugh Thomas J., I’d love to see _you_ try it one day.” Says I, “You and your father bein’ outdoors all day, when you come in for a few minutes to your meals, her stiddy stream of talk is as good as a circus to you, sunthin’ on the plan of a side show. But you be shet up with it all day long, day after day, and week after week, and then see how you would feel in your mind; then see how the name of Doodle would sound in your ear.”
But I try to do the best I can with her. As I said, how long she will stay with us I don’t know. But I don’t s’pose there is any hopes of her marryin’ again. When she first came to live with us, I did think—to tell the plain truth—that she would marry again if she got a chance. I thought I see symptoms of it. But it wasn’t but a few days after that that I give up the hope, for she told me that it wasn’t no ways likely that she should ever marry again. She talks a sight about Doodle’s face, always calls it his ‘linement’, says it is printed on her heart, and it haint no ways likely that she will ever see another linement, that will look to her as good as Mr. Doodle’s linement.
I declare for’t, sometimes when she is goin’ on, I have to call on the martyrs in my own mind almost wildly, call on every one I ever heerd of, to keep my principles stiddy, and keep me from sayin’ sunthin’ I should be sorry for. Sometimes when she is goin’ on for hours about “Doodle and his linement” and so forth, I set opposite to her with my knittin’ work in my hand, with no trace on the outside, of the almost fearful tempest goin’ on inside of me. There I’ll be, a bindin’ off my heel, or seamin’ two and one, or toein’ off, as the case may be; calm as a summer mornin’ on the outside, but on the inside I am a sayin’ over to myself in silent but almost piercin’ tones of soul agony:
“John Rogers! Smithfield! nine children, one at the breast! Grid-irons! thum-screws! and so 4th, and so 4th!” It has a dretful good effect on me, I think over what these men endured for principle, and I will say to myself:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, has not your heart almost burnt up within you a thinkin’ of these martyrs? Have you not in rapped moments had longin’s of the sole to be a martyr also? Lofty principle may boy the soul up triumphant, but there can’t be anybody burnt up without smartin’, and fire was jest as hot in them days as it is now, and no hotter. If David Doodle is the stake on which you are to be offered up, be calm Samantha—be calm.”
So I would be a talkin’ to myself, and so she would be a goin’ on, and though I have suffered pangs that can’t be expressed about, my principles have grown more hefty from day to day. I begun to look more lofty in mean, and sometimes I have been that boyed up by hard principle, that jest to see what heights a human mind could git up on to, while the body was yet on the ground, I would begin myself about Doodle. And so, speakin’ in a martyr way, the Widder Doodle was not made in vain.
She is a small boneded woman, dretful softly lookin’; and truly, her looks don’t belie her, for she seems to me _that_ soft, that if she should bump her head, I don’t see what is to hinder it from flattin’ right out like a piece of putty. I guess she was pretty good lookin’ in her day; on no other grounds can I account for it, that two men ever took after her. Her eyes are round as blue beads, and sort of surprised lookin’, she is light complected, and her mouth is dretful puckered up and drawed down. Josiah can’t bear her looks—he has told me so in confidence a number of times—but I told him I have seen wimmen that looked worse; and I have.
“I have seen them that looked far better,” says he.
“Who Josiah?” says I.
Says he, “Father Smith’s daughter, Samantha.”
Josiah thinks a sight of me, it seems to grow on him; and with me also, it is ditto and the same.
When two souls set out in married life, a sailin’ out on the sea of True Love, they must expect to steer at first through rocks, and get tangled in the sea weed, the rocks of opposing wills, and the sea weed of selfishness. And before they get the hang of the boat it will go contrary, squalls will rise and most upset it, and they’ll hist up the wrong sails and tighten the wrong ropes and act like fools generally. And they’ll be sick, very; and will sometimes look back with regret to the lonesome, but peaceful shores they have left, and wish they hadn’t never sot out.
But if they’ll be patient and steer their boat straight and wise, a calmer sea is ahead, deeper waters of trust and calm affection, in which their boat will sail onwards first rate. They’ll git past the biggest heft of the rocks, and git the nack of sailin’ round the ones that are left so’s not to hit ’em nigh so often, and the sea weed, unbeknown to them, will kinder drizzle out, and disappear mostly.
I don’t have to correct Josiah near so much as I used to, though occasionally, when I know I am in the right, I set up my authority, and _will_ be minded; and he hisen. I never see a couple yet, whether they’d own it or not, but what would have their little spats; but good land! if they love each other they git right over it, and it is all fair weather again. The little breeze clears the air, and the sun will shine out again clear as pure water, and bright as a dollar.
Sister Doodle, (Josiah thought it was best to call her so some of the time, he thought it would seem more friendly) she says, the widder does, that she never see a couple live together any happier and agreabler than me and Josiah live together. She told me it reminded her dretfully of her married life with Doodle. (Josiah had cooed at me a very little that mornin’—not much, for he knows I don’t encourage it in him.)
Truly Doodle is her theme, but I hold firm.
She was a helpin’ me wash my dishes, and she begun: how much Josiah and I reminded her of her and Doodle.
Says she—“Nobody knows how much that man thought of me; he would say sometimes in the winter when we would wake up in the mornin’: ‘My dear Dolly,’—he used to call me that, though my name is Nabby, but he said I put him in mind so of a doll, that he couldn’t help callin’ me so—‘My dear Dolly,’ he’d say, ‘I have been a dreamin’ about you.’
“‘Have you Mr. Doodle?’ says I.
“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘I have been a dreamin’ how much I love you, and how pretty you are—jest as pretty as a pink posy.’ Them was Mr. Doodle’ses very words: ‘a pink posy.’
“I’d say,—‘Oh shaw, Mr. Doodle, I guess you are tryin’ to foolish me.’
“Says he—‘I haint, I dremp it.’ And then there would come such a sweet smile all over his linement, and he would say:
“‘Dolly, I love to dream about you.’
“‘Do you, Mr. Doodle?’ says I.
“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘and it seems jest as if I want to go to sleep and have another nap, jest a purpose to dream about you.’