Part 7
If Thomas J. and Maggy could feel contented to settle down in Jonesville after they was married, the cup of my happiness would be full and runnin’ over, and so would Josiah’s cup; for we could see him every day, or three times a day if we wanted to. But they have got a good Doctor there now—Thomas J. has studied for a Doctor; goin’ to get his sheep-skin in July. Though I have said and I say still, that I never heerd of such a present to give the last day of school as a sheep-skin. And it looks to me as if his teachers was dretful hard up for presents, to have to fall back on a sheep-skin. I told Thomas J. that when a scholar had studied day and night as he had for three years and over, it seemed as if (if they was goin’ in to sheep presents at all,) they ort to give him as much as a live sheep, instead of killin’ it and eatin’ the mutton themselves, and givin’ him the hide; howsumever, it haint none of my business, and if he is satisfied I ort to be. Old Dr. Bombus speaks dretful well of him, says he is jest as good a Doctor to-day as he is; but folks have got kinder attached to the old Doctor, he havin’ helped their friends into life and out of it, for years, they naturally take to him, and there don’t seem to be much of any chance for a young Doctor, I think; and I know that Thomas J. and Maggy had ruther stay in Jonesville if it wasn’t for that he and Maggy settle down by themselves there—than to go west. But if he makes up his mind to go, I am determined to put my shoulder blades to the wheel, keep my mind stiddy and stabled, so’s to do justice to my own principles, and be a comfort to my Josiah.
As I said, Thomas J. took Maggy over to Tirzah Ann’s in the mornin’ a calculatin’ to stay to the Debatin’ school, and I told Josiah we’d have an early supper, and go in good season. We had stewed oysters, and warm biscuit and canned peaches, a first rate supper, and Josiah said it was. And it went off dretful agreeable all but one thing; the Widder Doodle shed tears when Josiah passed the oysters to her, she said them oysters put her in mind so of Doodle.
But she wiped up in a minute or two, and enjoyed her supper first rate. She didn’t want to go out in the cold she said, and she offered to wash up the dishes—there wasn’t but a handful of ’em and so I let her. The dish-pan put her in mind of Doodle again, and we left her a cryin; it was time to go and we started off.
Josiah went to the Post-office, and I had a little tradin’ to do to the stores and the groceries. But Jonesville was all up in end, as you may say, and every place where I went to I could see that every man was rent with excitement to his very foundations.
A grocer man where we did our tradin’ had been burgled the night before. A poor man, a chair bottomer by trade, had stole a codfish weighin’ two pounds and a half, and a dozen of onions. He had tried to git work and couldn’t git a thing to do, so he was obleiged to follow his trade in a different way from what he wanted to follow it; and the consequence was, his family was perishin’ for food. And his wife havin’ the consumption thought she could eat a little codfish and onions if she had ’em. So, as he couldn’t get trusted for 22 cents he lay to and stole ’em. And Jonesville rose to a man in anger and wrath, I never see so big a excitement there, and Josiah said he never seen a excitement there or any where else, any where near the size of this. More’n a dozen told us the story before we had been in the grocery twenty minutes, for they was rampant to tell it.
They said: they got on the track of the codfish and onions early in the mornin’, tracked ’em to the haunt of the robber (he lived in a shanty on the age of the village) and tore the booty he had obtained by lawless rapine from his grasp. The grocer man that was rapined got back the biggest part of the codfish skin, and three of the onions. Though they said the robber’s pardner in iniquity tried to conceal her guilty treasure beneath the straw bolster, for she was sick abed, and didn’t know when she should ever get anything to eat again.
They said they demolished the straw bolster right there on the spot, in their righteous anger and as an example to the woman of the mighty power and justice of the law, and dragged the man off to jail of course. But they wasn’t satisfied with that, they wanted to make an example of him. The man he rapined came out boldly and said he ort to be masicreed right there in the streets. Says he, “What is the nation comin’ to, if thieves and robbers haint made public patterns and examplers of?”
An old man in a blue soldier overcoat who was tryin’ to get trusted for some plug tobacco said to the grocer man: “He ort to be guletined.”
But the grocer didn’t know what that meant; he thought the old man was kinder praisin’ him up, so he acted mad and wouldn’t trust him. But the one that seemed to talk the biggest about it was P. Cypher Bumpus. Bein’ a lawyer by trade, he has got well acquainted with some uncommon big words, and he naturally loves to let folks see on what familiar terms he is with ’em.
He uses ’em like a master workman. He didn’t gesture a mite; they say he wont on common occasions. I’d give a cent though if he had been willin’ to, for I s’pose it is a sight worth goin’ miles to see. But he used words more’n three inches long, and I don’t know but some would have come nigh onto four inches in length, a goin’ on about this rapine.
“Yes,” says Cornelius Cork takin’ aim at us with his forefinger as if we was rabbits eatin’ his early cabbages. “Stealin’ is sunthin’ that Jonesville and the nation cannot and _will_ not, put up with. And such villains and robbers will find out that we wont; _fur frummit_.”
“He ort to be gulentined,” says the old man again. “Ort to have his head chopped right off with an axe.”
They all looked favorably at the old man now, and the grocer man trusted him right on the spot for a plug of tobacco.
Josiah come in jest then with the _World_ in his hand, and he turned to Cornelius Cork, and says he:
“I see by the _World_ to-day, there has been another case of public stealin’; another hundred and fifty thousand stole from us out of the public treasury.”
“Yes,” said Cornelius Cork in a mild gentle tone: “A little case of fraud, that is all.”
“Merely a deficit in accounts,” says the grocer man who was rapined, in a ’poligy tone.
“Only a triflin’ defalcation from the revenue,” says the old man, bitin’ off another chew of his tobacco with a serene countenance.
“Nothin’ to speak of,” says P. Cypher Bumpus. “Nothin’ worth mentionin’, a triflin’ abstraction, a diminution, a withdrawal of funds, a emblezzlement.”
Oh, what feelin’s I felt to hear ’em go on; but I didn’t say a word to ’em, I don’t believe in a woman bein’ bold and forred in her demeanor. But to see every one on ’em givin’ that stealin’ a bigger and a bigger name, swellin’ and puffin’ it out from fraud clear up to embezzlement, and no knowin’ where they would stop, if somebody didn’t interfere. I declare for’t, it give me such feelin’s that I spoke right out to Josiah, and my tones sounded low and awful, for I heerd ’em unbeknown to me.
Says I, “Josiah Allen, what feelin’s it makes me feel to see folks strain so, and hang back from eatin’ a gnat, and then swaller a elephant and a rinosterrous and a drumedary.” Says I, “When a poor man in the case of sickness steals a onion and a codfish, he is called a thief and a robber; he is drummed out of camp, sent to jail, knocked down by public opinion, and kicked after he is down by the same, till he is completely mortified, and shame and disgrace bow his forward down into the dust. But let a rich man steal all he can lay his hands to, and they think it is sunthin’ pretty in him, so pretty that they make a new name for it, and he wears that name like a feather in his cap. If he breaks down a purpose to cheat his creditors, they call it ‘compromisin’ ‘repudiation,’ both of these name stand up like beautiful feathers over his forward, and he looks grand and feels so. If he lays to and steals right out openly hundreds of thousands of dollars they have lots of curious and handsome names to ornament him with, all the way from defalcator and deficitor up to embezzler. Why, if some politician should steal the hull United States treasury, they would have to make a new set of names to trim him off with, there wouldn’t be none in the dictionary half big and noble enough.”
I follered my pardner almost mekanically out of the store. What they said to my back after I left, I know not. But we must all expect to be backbited some, else why do we have backs.
In about seven minutes time we was seated in front of the Jonesville Creation Searchers, a listenin’ to a epicac poem from Shakespeare Bobbet—or that is how Josiah understood it; I myself thought they called it a epock poem; but Josiah said when we was a talkin’ it over a goin’ home, that he would bet the colt it was a epicac.
Says he, “You know epicac means sunthin’ kinder weakenin’, and sickenin’, and that is why such poems as hisen are called epicacs.”
“Well,” says I, “seein’ we haint either of us certain, we wont lay out too much breath arguin’ about it. But this I know, that the poetry was as long and dreary as the desert of Sarah, and as dry as Sarah ever was in her dryest times.”
It happened dretful kinder curious, but the question up that night before the Creation Searchers was about Kleptomania—another big name for stealin’ that I never heerd before—and they proved it out so beautiful, how Kleptomania worked in the system, and how anybody couldn’t help stealin’ who had the distemper.
After they settled this to their own satisfaction, and the enlightenment of the world, the President got up and in a awful thrillin’ and impressive manner,—and usein his gesture as handy as I ever see a gesture used—went on and talked in a foamin’ manner about the Sentinal that was goin’ to be at Filadelfy village to celebrate old Epluribus’es birthday; and he went on for probable half an hour about its uncommon and amazin’ bigness, and he said when all the rest of the celebrated men of America and the world was to be there, it didn’t look well for them to hang back, and shirk out of goin’, and he motioned that the Creation Searchin’ Society should send a body there, to encourage the Sentinal, and collect information as a body, and he went on to say that if they concluded to send a body there, they would proceed to vote on who should be the body, and how many it should be.
Solomon Cypher got up and said the name told on the face of it: Sent-ten-al. He said the doin’s was named with the view that there would be ten sent there from the Jonesville Creation Searchin’ Society.
The minute he sot down, Simon Slimpsey got up lookin’ as if he would sink right down through the floor into the suller. I’d seen that Betsey, his wife had been a hunchin’ and pokin’ him, tryin’ to make him git up, and whisperin’ to him in a loud angry whisper. And says he in a heart broken tone: “If it will add any to the gloom and melancholy”—here Betsey give such a jerk at his coat skirts that he crumpled right down for a minute, and his tone was skairt as he went on—“and highlarity of Filadelfy to have a poem sent by Betsey, I can carry it, I s’pose.” And he sunk down a murmurin’: “I may live through it, and I may not.” And he almost buried his face in his right hand, and I think shed tears. It come hard on Simon.
But Solomon Cypher’s face looked dark and severe, and he rose up and smote himself powerful and frequent as he said:
“For the time bein’ I represent the body. And speakin’ in the name of the body which I now am, I say, that we, the body cannot, and _will_ not be trammeled and bound down by either poetry, or bed-quilts.” (Two wimmen jest in front of him was a whisperin’ loud; rampant to send a blazin’ star and a sunflower.) “The body has got a great reputation to keep up, the eye or eyes of the different globes assembled there will be on it, watchin’ the demeanor of the body and copyin’ after it. A great reputation is to be kep’ up.”
Here he made a low bow and set down. And Shakespeare Bobbet, Secretary of the Creation Searchers, got up, and said as it was doubtless the aim of all present to make as great a stir as possible in the literary and scientific world, and as they were all a workin’ for that end, and as there was now nine shillings and six pence in the treasury, he proposed those moneys should be expended in purchasing spectacles for the body to wear on the body.
The Editor of the Auger jumped up and seconded the motion, sayin’ he hadn’t a doubt about its increasin’ its reputation for deep and scientific wisdom. And he thought large round eyes would be best adapted to givin’ the body a wise look, and that heavy brass bows would help to give weight to its opinions.
They all agreed on this and the motion was carried in triumphant. Then one feller who had been round to literary conventions a good deal and had got high notions in his head, proposed that the body should let their hair grow long in their necks; he said it would be a great help to ’em. But as the President, and Solomon Cypher and the most of the head ones was as bald as a bald eagle—hadn’t hardly a mite of hair to their heads—the motion was laid down under the table; and they began to vote on who was to be sent. They voted in Cornelius Cork, and Solomon Cypher, and the Editor of the Auger, and Shakespeare Bobbet and several others, and everything seemed peaceful and happy—Solomon Cypher countin’ ’em serenely out of his hat—when all of a sudden without no warnin’ he jumped up, and brandished a vote in his hand, and yelled out in a voice a good deal like thunder:
“Who! where is the villain who has dared to demean this society and put it to shame by votin’ for a woman? Where is the wretch and the demeaner?”
And he looked as black and wrathful as an iron musket, and he struck himself in the breast powerful blows, and with every smite he would call out for “that villain and demeaner.” It was a fearful time; but right when the excitement was rainin’ most fearfully, I felt a motion by the side of me, and my companion got up and stood on his feet and says in pretty firm tones, though some sheepish:
“I did, and there’s where I stand now; I vote for Samantha.”
And then he sot down again. Oh! the fearful excitement and confusion that rained down again. The President got up and tried to speak, the Editor of the Auger talked wildly, Shakespeare Bobbet talked to himself incoherently, but Solomon Cypher’s voice drownded ’em all out, as he kep’ a smitin’ his breast and a hollerin’ that he wasn’t goin’ to be infringed upon, or come in contract with by no woman! No female woman needn’t think she was the equal of man; and I should go as a woman or stay to home.
I was so almost wore out by their talk that I spoke right out, and says I, “Good land! how did you _s’pose_ I was a goin’?”
The President then said that he meant, if I went I musn’t look upon things with the eye of a “Creation Searcher” and a man, (here he pinted his forefinger right up in the air and waved it round in a real free and soarin’ way,) but look at things with the eye of a Private Investigator and a woman; (here he pinted his finger firm and stiddy right down into the wood-box, and a pan of ashes,) it was impressive, very. Then he went on to ask me, if I was willin’ to go as a woman, and with what eyes I was willin’ to look at things.
I kep’ on a knittin’ with considerable calm, and assured ’em with quite a lot of dignity, that bein’ a woman, I should most probable go as one, and not bein’ blind, I should look at things with my own eyes.
“But will you promise to look upon things in a private way, not as a man and a ‘Creation Searcher?’ Will you go as Josiah Allen’s wife, P. I., which means Private Investigator?”
I declare, their talk was enough to wear out a snipe; and as I sot there hearin’ ’em go on, big, lofty idees and hefty aspirations began to tackle me. Truly the fires of persecutions are always fruitful of great idees; and while the storms of opposition, and Cornelius Cork and Solomon Cypher and etcetery was a ravin’ round me, I see a mission a loomin’ up in front of me, like a war-horse a waitin’ for me to mount and ride off to victory promiscous. And I spoke out in a noble tone, and says I: “No! I will not go as a P. I., I will go as a P. A.;” and I continued in still firmer axents, “I am not one of the whifflin’ ones of earth, my mind is firm and stabled, and my principles are high and foundered on a rock; if I go at all I shall go as Josiah Allen’s wife, P. A., which means Promiscous Advisor, in the cause of Right.” But Josiah whispered to me, and says he: “Let ’em put on the P. I., Samantha; it has a sort of a good sound; go as a P. A. and a P. I.”
And finally, after givin’ it a half a moment’s thought, and meditatin’ it wasn’t nothin’ ag’inst my principles, and would please my companion, I consented to go as Josiah Allen’s wife, P. A. and P. I., which bein’ translated from the original means, Promiscous Advisor, and Private Investigator. And bein’ dretfully worked up by more than a dozen different emotions, and almost by the side of myself with principles and everything—without mistrustin’ what I was a doin’—I riz right up and stood on my feet, and spoke right out about my mission; wavin’ my knittin’ work almost eloquently. Says I:
“When childern was a bein’ brung up, and mortgages was abroad, my place was to home, and to home I stayed. But when liberated from these cumberin’ cares, and mortgages was flown and childern growed up; my mind was a mind that couldn’t be curbed in, when great questions was before the world: deep conundrums that has puzzled the ages waitin’ for an answer, and them answers to be worked out by individual men and wimmen, by the sweat of their brows and the might of their shoulder-blades, says I. My mind was one that worked nobly for the good of the human race, and women; and on that great and lofty mission it took a tower. And now it is a mind that can’t be held in and hitched to the fence that cowards set acrost, while the conflict is a ragin’ on every side of ’em. The battle-field where Right opposes Wrong is a broad one, as broad as the hull world, and in every great warfare of principle there has been martyrs, from St. Stephen—whose body was stunned to death while heaven’s glory was a shinin’ out of his soul—to old John Brown who died faithful to that eternal spirit of justice, that old Error never could stand.”
Says I,—“Old Mr. Brown was none the less a martyr because he fell in our day, and has not been cannonized by the hand of old Time;” says I, “that same old warfare of Justice with Injustice, Freedom with Oppression, and True Religion with Bigotry, is a goin’ on now, and the spirit of Martyrdom is strong in me. Gladly would I lead on the hull army of the Right triumphant into victory, even if I fell in the conflict, and was drownded in my own goar. But such a crown of honor is reserved for a nobler and mebby a higher forward, but not a more well-wisher to the cause. And if I can’t head a army, and lead the vanguard on to glory and to victory, I can tussle with the little guerillas of wrong, that are let loose in society; I can grapple with the solitary pickets that Error sends out ahead of his army to see how the land lays, and if the enemy is asleep on a post. I can lay holt of his spies that are hid under the ambush of fashion and custom.”
“Any Advisor is a martyr more or less, for when was advice not scorned and rejected of men and wimmen? In my mission of Promiscous Advisor, I shall go forth, expectin’ to tread on the hot coals of public opinion; be briled on the gridiron old bigotry keeps to brile her enemies on; be scalded by the melted lead of old custom; and be burnt up on the stake of opposition.” Says I—wipin’ my heated forward—“I am happy in the thought.
“And I am ready to set forth to-night, or to-morrow, or next summer, not harnessed up in the splendid trappin’s of a Major-General, but in the modest mean of a humble militia officer, earnest and sincere, and therefore feelin’ as much self-respect, as if I was Commander-in-Chief over the hull caboodle. I can go,” says I—wavin’ my knittin’-work outward with as noble a wave as I ever see waved—“I can go forth with Josiah by my side a conqueror and to conquer.”
And then I sot down, for principle had tuckered me almost completely out; and while they was a votin’ on who else was to be the body, Josiah and I started for home. There was a contented look to his face, as he started off; finally he spoke out in gentle axents:
“I am glad we are goin’ to git home in such good season, Samantha. I guess we will hang over the kettle, and have a little bite of sunthin’ to eat; I didn’t eat much supper.”
HOW I WENT TO ’LECTION.
I was a makin’ Josiah some cotton flannel shirts, and I lacked enough for the gussets and one shoulder band. I had also run out of shirt buttons; and I was a tellin’ the Widder Doodle in the forenoon, that I couldn’t work another stitch on ’em till I had been to Jonesville. And she said, speakin’ of cotton flannel, made her think of Doodle. She took in work—hetchelled tow for a woman—and bought some cotton flannel to make him some shirts; and when she got ’em all done, they didn’t set exactly right somehow, kinder wrinkled in the back a little, and she had to take ’em all to pieces and make ’em over; and Mr. Doodle would set and read the Evenin’ Grippher to her, and smile at her so sweet when she was a rippin’ of ’em up. She said, nobody knew but jest her, how much that man worshipped her. Says she, “I can’t never forget his linement, and I can’t never marry again and there needn’t nobody ask me to, for no linement can ever look to me like Mr. Doodle’ses linement.”
Says I, “Don’t take on so sister Doodle; he’s most probable in a land where he’ll have justice done to him.”
Josiah looked up from the _World_, and says he:
“I am goin’ to Jonesville to ’lection bime by, Samantha; you’d better ride down, and get the stuff for my shirts.” Says he, “The Town Hall, as you know, is bein’ fixed, and the pole is sot up right in the store. It will be handy, and you can go jest as well as not.”
But I looked my companion in the face with a icy, curious mean, and says I in low, strange tones:
“Wouldn’t it be revoltin’ to the finer feelin’s of your sole, to see a tender woman, your companion, a crowdin’ and elboin’ her way amongst the rude throng of men surroundin’ the pole; to have her hear the immodest and almost dangerous language, the oaths and swearin’; to see her a plungin’ down in the vortex of political warfare, and the arena of corruption?” Says I, “How is the shrinkin’ modesty and delicacy of my sect a goin’ to stand firm a jostlin’ its way amongst the rude masses, and you there to see it?” Says I, “Aint it a goin’ to be awful revoltin’ to you, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh no!” says he in calm gentle axents, “not if you was a goin’ for shirt buttons.”
“Oh!” says I almost wildly, “a woman can plunge up head first ag’inst the pole, and be unharmed if she is in search of cotton flannel; she can pursue shirt buttons into the very vortex of political life, into the pool of corruption, and the mirey clay, and come out white as snow, and modest as a lilly of the valley. But let her step in them very tracks, a follerin’ liberty and freedom, and justice, and right, and truth and temperance, and she comes out black as a coal.” And says I in a almost rapped way, liftin’ up my eyes to the ceelin’: “Why are these things so?”