Part 6
I believe in workin’ and earnin’ your honest bread, etc. and so 4th; but still, I believe in makin’ things agreeable and pleasant, very. We Americans, as a nation, are a dretful anxious-lookin’, hard-workin’, long-faced, ambitious, go-ahead race, and we tackle a holiday as if it was a hard day’s work we had got to git through with jest as quick as we could; and we face enjoyments with considerable the same countenance we do funerals. But I am layin’ out now to take a good deal of comfort the 14th of next September, Providence permittin’.
I think a sight of Tirzah Ann. I’ve done well by her, and she sees it now; she thinks a sight of old mother, I can tell you. She enjoys middlin’ poor health, now-a-days, and her pa and I feel anxious about her, and we talk about her a good deal nights, after we git to bed; and I wake up and think of her considerable, and worry.
And truly, if anybody is goin’ to set up in the worry business, nights is the best time for it in the hull twenty-four hours; middlin’-sized troubles swell out so in the dark; tribulations that haint by daylight much bigger’n a pipes-tail, at midnight will look bigger’n a barn. I declare for’t, I’ve had bunnets before now, that didn’t suit me,—was trimmed up too gay, or come over my face too much, or sunthin’, and when I’d wake up in the night and think on ’em, they’d look as big to me as a bushel basket, and humblier; and I’d lay and sweat to think of ever wearin’ ’em to meetin’; but at daylight, they would kinder dwindle down again to their natural shape. And so with other sufferin’s that come tougher to me to bear. When I was a bringin’ up Thomas Jefferson, tryin’ to git him headed right, how many times he has stood before me at midnight a black-leg—his legs as black as a coal, both of ’em;—a pirate; a burglar; he has burgled his pa and me, night after night; set Jonesville afire; burnt New York village to ashes; and has swung himself on the gallows.
And Tirzah Ann has had cancers; and childern; and consumptions; and has been eloped with; and drownded in the canal, night after night; but good land! in the mornin’ the childern was all right. The sunshine would shine into my heart like the promises in the Bible to them that try to bring up their childern in the fear of the Lord; and I could lay holt of them promises and feel first rate.
And Josiah Allen! I s’pose I have buried that man as many times as he has got hairs on his head, (he is pretty bald) when he’d have a cold or anything. I’d wake up in the latter part of the night, when it was dark as Egyptian darkness, and I’d git to thinkin’ and worryin’, and before I knew it, there Josiah would be all laid out and the procession a meanderin’ off towards Jonesville buryin’ ground, and I a follerin’ him, a weepin’ widder. And there I’d lay and sweat about it; and I’ve gone so far as to see myself lay dead by the side of him, killed by the feelin’s I felt for that man; and there we’d lay, with one stun over us, a readin’:
“Here lays Josiah and Samantha; Their warfare is accomplished.”
Oh! nobody knows the feelin’s I would feel there in the dead of night, with Josiah a snorin’ peacefully by my side. But jest as quick as the sun would rise up and build up his fire in the east, and Josiah would rise up and build up his fire in the stove, why them ghosts of fears and anxieties that haunted me, would, in the language of the poem Thomas J. was readin’ the other day:—Fold up their tents like an Arab man and silently go to stealin’ somewhere else. And I’d git up and git a splendid breakfast, and Josiah and I would enjoy ourselves first rate.
There is sunthin’ in the sunlight that these phantoms can’t stand; curious, but so it is. Their constitution seems to be like the Serious flower that blows out in the night. These serious ghosts—as you may say—are built jest right for livin’ in the dark; they eat darkness and gloom for a livin’, die off in the daytime, and then resurrect themselves when it comes dark, ready to tackle anybody again, and haunt ’em, and make ’em perfectly miserable for the time bein’. But truly, I am a episodin’; and to resoom and go on:
Tirzah Ann, as I said, come down a visitin’; she brought down a little pail of canned sweet corn, all fixed for the table. I thought that sweet corn would be the death of the Widder Doodle; it made her think so of Doodle.
“Oh!” says she, “when I think how I used to raise sweet corn in my garden, and how Mr. Doodle would set out on the back stoop and read to me them beautiful arguments ag’inst wimmen’s rights, when I was a hoein’ it; and how he would enjoy eatin’ it when I’d cook it, it seems as if I can’t stand it; and shant I never see that man?” says she, “shant I never see that dear linement again?”
And she out with her snuff handkerchief and covered her face with it. Whether she cried or not, I don’t know. I shant say she did, or didn’t; but she went through with the motions, that I know.
Tirzah Ann was all offen the hooks, yesterday, she felt down-hearted and nervous. She is dretful nervous lately; but I tell Josiah that I’ve seen other wimmen jest as nervous, and I have; and they got over it, and Tirzah Ann will. There was she that was Celestine Gowdey, she was so nervous—I’ve heerd her mother say—her husband was most afraid of his life; she would throw anything at him—the tea-pot, or anything—if he said a word to her she didn’t like; scalded him a number of times, real bad. But he, bein’ considerable of a family man—he had had three wives and fourteen or fifteen childern, before he married Celestine—didn’t mind it, knowin’ what wimmen was, and that she’d git over it and she did; and so will Tirzah Ann. It comes considerable hard on Whitfield now, but he will git over it and wont mind bein’ scolded at, if it rains, or if it don’t rain, or if the old cat has kittens.
After dinner the Widder Doodle went up stairs and laid down for a nap, as she makes a practice of doin’ every day; and glad enough was I to see her go. And after she had laid down and our ears had got rested off, and I had got the work all done up, and Tirzah Ann and me had sot down to our sewin’—she was doin’ some fine sewin’ and I laid to and helped her—as we sot there all alone by ourselves she began on me, and her face lengthened down a considerable number of inches longer than I had ever seen it as she went on:
She was afraid Whitfield didn’t think so much of her as he used to; he didn’t act a mite as he used to when he was a courtin’ of her. Didn’t kiss her so much in a week now, as he used to one Sunday night. Didn’t set and look at her for hours and hours at a time, as he did then. Didn’t seem to be half as ’fraid of her wings spreadin’ out, and takin’ her up to heaven. Didn’t seem to be a bit afraid of her goin’ up bodily. Didn’t call her “seraph” any more, or “blessed old honey-cake,” or “heavenly sweetness,” or “angel-pie.” About all he called her now besides Tirzah Ann, was “my dear.”
I see in a minute the cause of the extra deprested look onto her face that day, I see in a minute “where the shoe pinched” as the poet says. And I see here was a chance for me to do good; and I spoke up real earnest like, but considerable calm, and says I:
“Tirzah Ann, that is a first-rate word, and your husband Whitfield Minkley hits the nail on the head every time he says it. ‘Dear!’ that is jest what you are to him, and when he puts the ‘my’ onto it that tells the hull of the story; you are dear, and you are hisen, that is the hull on’t.” Says I, in a real solemn and almost camp-meetin’ tone, “Tirzah Ann you are a sailin’ by that rock now that the happiness of a great many hearts founder on, that a great many life boats are wrecked on.” Says I, “lots of happy young hearts have sailed smilin’ out of the harbor of single blessedness, hit ag’inst that rock and gone down; don’t you be one of ’em;” says I, “don’t make a shipwreck of the happiness of T. A. Minkley late Allen; histe up the sail of common sense and go round the rock with flyin’ colors,” and says I in agitated tones, “I’ll help you, I’ll put my shoulder blades to the wheel.” And I continued in almost tremblin’ tones—as I trimmed off the edge of the linen cambric, and went to overcastin’ of it:
“I never could bear to see anybody want to set down and stand up at the same time,” says I, “it always looked so unreasonable to me.” And says I: “Tirzah Ann, you are in the same place; you want to be courted, and you want to be married at the same time; you want a husband and you want a bo out of the same man, simultaneous, as it were.”
Says I: “Truly we can’t have everything we want at one time. There is a time for apple trees to blow out, rosy color—sweet—with honey bees a hummin’ round ’em; and there is a time for the ripe fruit, and apple sass. We can’t have good sleighin’ in hot weather, we can’t be drawed out to a peach tree to eat ripe peaches on a hand sled. Slidin’ down hill is fun, but you can’t slide down hill over sweet clover blows, for clover and snow don’t blow out at the same time. And you can’t have peace, and rest, and quiet of mind, at the same time with delerious enjoyment, and highlarious mirth.
“There is as many kinds of happiness as ‘there is stars in the heavens,’ and no two stars are alike, they all differ from each other in their particular kind of glory.
“Now courtin’ is considerable fun, sunthin’ on the plan of catchin’ a bird, kind o’ resky and uncertin’ but excitin’ like, and considerable happyfyin’. To set down after a good supper, contented and quiet, by a bright fireside with your knittin’ work, and your affectionate pardner fast asleep and a snorin’ in the arm chair opposite, is another kind of happiness, nothin’ delerious nor highlarious about it, but considerable comfortin’ and consolin’ after all. Now you have got a good affectionate husband Tirzah Ann, a man that will look out for your comfort, do well by you, and be a good provider; and you musn’t expect to keep the lover; I mean, you musn’t expect him to go through with all the performances he used to when he was tryin’ to get you; why it is as unreasonable as anything in the world can be unreasonable.”
“Now” says I, “there’s your pa and me, Tirzah Ann; we have lived together in the neighborhood of twenty years, and we are attached to each other with a firm and cast-iron affection, our love for each other towers up like a pillow. But if that man should go to talkin’ to me as he used to when he came a courtin’ me, I’d shet him up in the smoke house, for I should be afraid of him, I’ll be hanged if I shouldn’t; I should think he was a luny.
“I s’pose he thought it was necessary to go through with all them mysterious, curious performances,—talkin’ strange; praisin’ me up to the skies; runnin’ other wimmen down to the lowest notch; jealous of likely men; actin’ wild, spooney; eyein’ me all the time as close as if he was a cat, and I was a rat hole; writin’ the curiousest letters to me; threatenin’ to kill himself if I wouldn’t have him; and jumpin’ up as if he would jump out of his skin, if I went to wait on myself any, pick up a ball of yarn, or open a door or anything. I s’pose he thought he had got to go through all this, or else it wouldn’t be courtin’. But good land! he couldn’t keep it up, I hadn’t no idee he could, or he couldn’t get no rest nor I nuther. It wore on me, he used to talk so dretful curious to me, so ’fraid I’d get killed or wait on myself a little or sunthin’; and eat! why I s’pose he eat next to nothin’, till I promised to have him. Why! when we got engaged he wasn’t much more’n skin and bones. But good land! he eats enough now to make it up; we hadn’t been married a month before he’d eat everything that was put before him, and instead of settin’ down and talkin’ strange at me, or jumpin’ up as if he was shot to open the door—so ’fraid that I would strain myself openin’ a door;—why, he would set and whittle and let me wait on myself jest as natural—let me sprain my back a reachin’ for things at the table, or bring in wood, or anything. Or he would drop to sleep in his chair, and sleep most the hull evenin’ he felt so contented and happy in his mind.”
I see I was a impressin’ Tirzah Ann the way I wanted to—and it made me feel so neat, that I went to allegorin, as I make a practice of doin’ real often, when I get eloquent; sunthin’ in the Bunyan style, only not so long. It is a dretful impressive way of talkin’.
Says I, “S’posen a man was a racin’ to catch a boat, that was liable to start off without him. How he would swing his arms and canter, and how the sweat would pour offen his eyebrows, so dretful afraid he wouldn’t get there in time to embark. But after he had catched it, and sot down as easy as could be, sailin’ along comfortable and happy towards the place he wants to go to; how simple it would be in him, if he should keep up his performances. Do you s’pose he is any more indifferent about the journey he has undertook because he haint a swingin’ his arms, and canterin’? No! the time for that was when he was a catchin’ the boat, ’fraid he shouldn’t git it in time. That was the time for racin’, that was the time for lookin’ wild, that was the time for sweat. And when he had catched it that was the time for quiet and happiness.
“When Whitfield Minkley was a tryin’ to git you, anxious, ’fraid he shouldn’t, jealous of Shakespeare Bobbet, and etcetery,—that was the time for exertion, that was the time for strange talk, spoony, wild, spiritual runnin’ and swingin’ of the arms, sentimental canterin’ and sweat. Now he has got you, he is jest as comfortable and happy as the man on the boat, and what under the sun is the use of his swingin’ his arms and hollerin’.
“There you two are, in your boat a sailin’ down the river of life, and don’t you go to upsetin’ it and your happiness, by insistin’ on makin’ him go through with all the performances he did when he was a tryin’ to catch you. It is unreasonable.”
I never see any one’s mean change much more in same length of time than Tirzah Ann’s mean did, while I was a allegorin’. Her face seemed to look a number of inches shorter than it did when I begun.
Pretty soon Whitfield come, and he and Tirzah Ann stayed and eat supper, and we should have got along first rate, only there was a nutcake—a long slim one with two legs—that put the Widder in mind of Doodle; it happened to be put on her plate, and she cried one hour and a half by the clock.
P. A. AND P. I.
Last Tuesday, Thomas J. took Maggy Snow over to Tirzah Ann’s a visitin’, and they stayed to the Debatin’ school; and it was that evenin’ that Josiah and me first talked it over about goin’ to the Sentinal.
Thomas J. and Maggy haint married yet; when they will be I don’t exactly know, but before long I think. Josiah can’t bear the thought of havin’ Thomas J. goin’ away from home, and Squire Snow wants to keep Maggy jest as long as he can. He has been awful sot, the old Squire has, on havin’ ’em live there right in the family after they was married. But Thomas J. is as determined as a rock in one thing, that when he and Maggy are married they are goin’ to keep house by themselves. And I don’t blame him a mite. The Squire’s folks are well off and have got everything nice and convenient, hot and cold water comes right up into the chambers, and other things for their comfort. But his sister Sophronia Snow, lives with ’em; has got to have a home there always accordin’ to old Mr. Snow’ses will. And I’ve heerd, and haint a doubt of it in my own mind, that she is a meddlesome critter, and grows worse as she grows older. You know time affects different natures different, etcetery, and to wit:—it will make wine softer, and sweeter, and mellower, and make vinegar sour, and sharper than a serpent’s tooth, if serpents have got teeth, which I never believed for a minute.
I don’t blame Thomas J. a mite for not wantin’ to settle down and live with ’em, neither do I blame ’em for not wantin’ to come and live with us, though it would be dretful agreeable to me and Josiah. Thomas J. talks about goin’ west to live, when he gets married, and if he does it will be a awful blow to me, but still I want him to do what is best for him, and I tell Josiah that we all ort to use reason if we have got any to use. Let the young birds build a nest for themselves, even if the old birds are lonesome. Says I to Josiah:
“We left two old birds lonesome Josiah Allen, when we built our own nest and feathered it out on the inside to our own comfort and likin’, with the pure white feathers of love and content;” (I meant by the two old birds father Smith and mother Allen, though they don’t look a mite like birds either of ’em.) “and them feathers we feathered it out with, are warm and soft now as anything.”
“Well,” says Josiah, “we didn’t go west.”
That thought seems to plague him the most of anything, and it does me too, I don’t deny.
But Thomas J. is in the right on’t about wantin’ to set out in married life without any outside weights and incumbrances. The first years in married life is a precarious time, make the best of it. A dretful curious, strange, precarious time; and if ever a woman wants a free room for meditation and prayer, it is then; and likewise the same with the man. There never was two persons so near alike, but what they was different, and had their different ways and eccentricities; and folks don’t realize the difference in their dispositions so much, I can tell you, when they live from a half to three quarters of a mile apart, as they do when they cook over the same stove, and sleep under the same comforter. A woman may think she knows a man jest as well as if she had been through his head with a lantern a number of times; but let her come to live with him from day to day, and from week to week—in sunshine and in storm; when dinner is ready at noon, and when it is late; when his boot-jack is on the nail, and when it gets lost; when stove pipes are up, and when they are bein’ put up; and in all other trials and reverses of life. I tell you she will come acrost little impatient obstinate streaks in him she never laid eyes on before, little selfish, overbearin’ streaks. And the same with her. He may have been firm as a rock in the belief he was marryin’ an angel, but the very first time he brings unexpected company home to dinner on washin’ day, he’ll find he haint. They may be awful good-principled well-meanin’ folks nevertheless, but there are rocks they have got to sail round, and they want strength, and they want patience, and they want elbo’ room. It is a precarious time for both on ’em, and they don’t want no third person round be she male or female, sacred or profane, to intermeddle or molest. Let ’em fight their own warfare, enjoy their own blessings, build up their own homes in the fear of God, sacred to their own souls alone, and to Him.
They don’t want any little hasty word they may say to each other, commented on and repeated five minutes after, when it is all made up and forgiven. They don’t want anybody to run and complain to, in the little storms of temper that sometimes darken the honeymoon. Good land! if they are let alone the little clouds will disperse of themselves. And there is another moon, what you may call the harvest moon of married life, that rises to light true married lovers on their pilgrimage. It may not be so brilliant and dazzlin’ as the honeymoon, but its light is stiddy, and calm, and mellow as anything, and it shines all the way down to the dark valley, and throws its pure light clear acrost it to the other side. Thomas J. and Maggy will walk in its light yet, if they are let alone, for they love each other with a firm and cast-iron affection, that reminds me of Josiah and me, my affection and hisen.
So as I say I don’t blame ’em a mite for not wantin’ to live with his folks or hern. When passion has burnt itself out, and been purified into a calm tender affection but firm as anything can be firm, and patience has been born of domestic tribulation; when they have built up their own home on the foundations of mutual forbearance, and unselfishness, and trust in each other, as they will have to build it in order to have it stand—then in the true meanin’ of the term the two twain have become one. The separate strands of their own individual existence will become twisted into one firm cord, strong enough to stand any outside pressure—Sophronia Snow, or any other strain. Then if they want to take in a few infirm or even bedrid relations on his side or on hers, let ’em take ’em in, it would be perfectly safe. Let ’em do as they are a mind to, with fear and tremblin’.
But though I tell all this to Josiah Allen a tryin’ to make him reconciled to the idee of lettin’ Thomas J. go, though I keep a firm demeanor on the outside of me, nobody knows the feelin’s I feel when I think of his goin’ west to live.
Why when Tirzah Ann was married, the day after she moved away, the feelin’s I felt, the lonesomeness that took holt on me, wore on me so that I had to go to bed regular, ondress, and everything. But I held firm there in the bed, I hung on to reason, and never let on what ailed me. And Josiah and the Widder Doodle, was skairt most to death about me, and sweat me—give me a hemlock sweat. And though I didn’t say nothin’ thinks’es I to myself, with the bitter feelin’s I have got inside of me, and a hemlock sweat on the outside, I am in a pretty hot place.
But I persume that sweat was the best thing they could have done. It kinder opened the pours, and took my mind offen my troubles. It was so oncommon disagreeable, and hard to bear, that I couldn’t think of anything else while it was a goin’ on. And then it satisfied them, that was why I let ’em go on with it; it kinder took up their minds, and kep’ ’em from talkin’ to me every minute, and mournin’ to me about Tirzah Ann’s goin’ away. Truly, feelin’ as I felt, I could stand a hemlock sweat better than I could that.
But as I said more formally, I held firm there in the bed. Though my body was wet with sweat, my mind was dry and firm, and my principles cool and hefty. I knew it was the way of nater, what I ort to have expected, and what was perfectly right. I couldn’t expect to keep the childern with me always, it was unreasonable. And though it would seem as lonesome and roomy as if one side of the house was gone, I must stand it the best I could. Now when a bird lets her young ones fly away from the old nest, I dare persume to say, lots of memories almost haunt that old bird’s heart, of sweet May mornin’s, and the little ones chirpin’ in the nest, and her mate a workin’ for ’em, and a singin’ to ’em close by. I dare say she thought it all over, that old bird did, how the sweet May mornin’ with its bloom and gay brightness, she couldn’t never see again, and the little soft, dependent, lovin’ things couldn’t never come back to her heart again, to be loved and to be worked for, and she, paid for that work every minute by watchin’ their growin’ strength and beauty. But she held firm—and when the time came for ’em to fly, she let ’em fly. No matter what she felt, upheld by duty and principle she pushed ’em out of the nest herself. She held firm, and so Samantha Allen is determined to, she whose maiden name was Smith.