Part 2

As I said in the commencement of this plain and unvarnished history, I had almost a deadly objection to widowers owin’ to their habit of comparin’ their second wives to their first relict, to the disadvantage of the first-named pardner. Josiah tride it with me when we was first married. But I _didn’t encourage him in it_. He began on several various times, “It seems to me Samantha that Polly Ann used to fry up her meat a little cripsier,” or “It seems as if Polly Ann used to make my collers a little stiffer.” He stopped it before we had been married a year, for _I didn’t encourage it in him_.

As I mean that this book shall be a Becon light, guidin’ female wimmen, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of true happiness, I would insert right here this word of solem’ warnin’ to my sect situated in the tryin’ place of second consorts, if the relict goes to comparin’ you to his foregone consort, _don’t encourage him in it_. On this short rule hangs the hope of domestick harmony.

ABOUT JOSIAH AND THE CHILDREN.

But step-mothers have a pretty hard row to hoe, though I don’t complain. I like children, clean children first rate, and I have tried to do my duty by his’en. I have done as well by ’em as I knew how to, and I think a sight of Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah Ann. Tirzah Ann is dreadful sentimental, that is what spiles her mostly. And Thomas Jefferson thinks he knows more than his father, that is his greatest failin’. But take ’em all through, they are _full_ as good as other folks’es children, and I know it. Thomas Jefferson is dreadful big feelin’, he is 17 years old, he wears a stove pipe hat, and is tryin’ to raise a moustache, it is now jest about as long as the fuzz on cotton flannel and most as white. They both go to Jonesville to high school, (we hire a room for ’em to Mother Allen’s, and they board themselves,) but they are to home every Saturday, and then they kinder quarell all day jest as brothers and sisters will. What agravates Thomas J. the worst is to call him “bub,” and Tirzah Ann don’t call him anything else unless she forgets herself.

He seems to think it is manly to have doubts about religeon. I put him through the catechism, and thought he was sound. But he seems to think it is manly to argue about free moral agency, foreordination, and predestination, and his father is jest fool enough to argue with him. Sez he last Saturday,

“Father, if it was settled beyond question six or seven thousand years ago that I was goin’ to be lost what good does it do for me to squirm? and if it was settled that I was goin’ to be saved, how be I goin’ to help myself?” sez he, “I believe we can’t help ourselves, what was meant to happen, will happen.”

Before his father had time to speak--Josiah is a slow spoken man, Tirzah Ann spoke up--

“Bub, if it was settled six or seven thousand years ago that I should take your new jockey club and hair oil, and use ’em all myself, why then I shall.”

“Tirzah Ann,” says he “If you should touch ’em it was foreordained from creation that you would get dreadfully hurt.” But I spoke up then for the first time, says I,

“You see Thomas J. that come to fighting you have moral agency enough--or immoral agency. Now,” says I, “I won’t hear another word from you, you Thomas J. are a young fool, and you Josiah Allen are a old one, now,” says I “go to the barn, for I want to mop.”

Tirzah Ann as I said is dreadful sentimental, I don’t know which side she took it from, though I mistrust that Josiah if he had any encouragement would act spoony. I am not the woman to encourage any kind of foolishness. I remember when we was first engaged, he called me “a little angel.” I jest looked at him calmly and says I,

“I weigh two hundred and 4 pounds,” and he didn’t call me so again.

No! sentiment aint my style, and I abhor all kinds of shams and deceitfulness. Now to the table you don’t ketch me makin’ excuses. I should feel as mean as pusley if I did. Though once in a while when I have particuler company, and my cookin’ turns out bad, I kinder turn the conversation on to the sufferin’s of our four fathers in the Revolution, how they eat their katridge boxes and shoe leather. It don’t do us no hurt to remember their sufferin’s, and after talkin’ about eatin’ shoe leather most any kind of cake seems tender.

I spose that life runs along with Josiah and the children and me about as easy as it does with most men and female wimmen. We have got a farm of 75 acres of land all paid for. A comfortable story and a half yeller house--good barns, and a bran new horse barn, and health. Our door yard is large and shady with apple, and pear, and cherry trees; and Tirzah Ann has got posy beds under the winders that look first rate. And where there haint no posy beds nor shade trees, the grass grows smooth and green, and it is a splendid place to dry clothes. On the north side of the house is our orchard, the trees grow clear up to our kitchen winder, and when the north door is open in the spring of the year, and I stand there ironin’, the trees all covered with pink blows it is a pleasant sight. But a still pleasanter sight is it in the fall of the year to stand in the door and see Josiah and Thomas Jefferson pickin’ up barells of the great red and yeller grafts at a dollar a bushel. Beyond the orchard down a little bit of a side hill runs the clear water of the canal. In front of the house towards the south--but divided from it by a good sized door yard and a picket fence, runs the highway, and back of the house, if I do say it that ortn’t to, there is as good a garden as there is in these parts. For I set my foot down in the first ont, that I _would_ have garden sass of all kinds, and strawberrys, and gooseberrys, and currant, and berry bushes, and glad enough is Josiah now to think that he heard to me. It took a little work of course, but I believe in havin’ things good to eat, and so does Josiah. That man has told me more’n a hundred times sense that “of all the sass that ever was made, garden sass was the best sass.” To the south of the house is our big meadow--the smell of the clover in the summer is as sweet as anything, our bees get the biggest part of their honey there, the grass looks beautiful wavin’ in the sunshine, and Josiah cut from it last summer 4 tons of hay to the acre.

AN UNMARRIED FEMALE.

I suppose we are about as happy as the most of folks, but as I was sayin’, a few days ago to Betsy Bobbet a neighborin’ female of ours--“Every Station house in life has its various skeletons. But we ort to try to be contented with that spear of life we are called on to handle.” Betsey haint married and she don’t seem to be contented. She is awful opposed to wimmen’s rights, she thinks it is wimmen’s only spear to marry, but as yet she can’t find any man willin’ to lay holt of that spear with her. But you can read in her daily life and on her eager willin’ countenance that she fully realizes the sweet words of the poet, “while there is life there is hope.”

Betsey haint handsome. Her cheek bones are high, and she bein’ not much more than skin and bone they show plainer than they would if she was in good order. Her complexion (not that I blame her for it) haint good, and her eyes are little and sot way back in her head. Time has seen fit to deprive her of her hair and teeth, but her large nose he has kindly suffered her to keep, but she has got the best white ivory teeth money will buy; and two long curls fastened behind each ear, besides frizzles on the top of her head, and if she wasn’t naturally bald, and if the curls was the color of her hair they would look well. She is awful sentimental, I have seen a good many that had it bad, but of all the sentimental creeters I ever did see Betsey Bobbet is the sentimentalest, you couldn’t squeeze a laugh out of her with a cheeze press.

As I said she is awful opposed to wimmin’s havein’ any right only the right to get married. She holds on to that right as tight as any single woman I ever see which makes it hard and wearin’ on the single men round here. For take the men that are the most opposed to wimmin’s havin’ a right, and talk the most about its bein’ her duty to cling to man like a vine to a tree, they don’t want Betsey to cling to them, they _won’t let_ her cling to ’em. For when they would be a goin’ on about how wicked it was for wimmin to vote--and it was her only spear to marry, says I to ’em “Which had you ruther do, let Betsey Bobbet cling to you or let her vote?” and they would every one of ’em quail before that question. They would drop their heads before my keen grey eyes--and move off the subject.

But Betsey don’t get discourajed. Every time I see her she says in a hopeful wishful tone, “That the deepest men of minds in the country agree with her in thinkin’ that it is wimmin’s duty to marry, and not to vote.” And then she talks a sight about the retirin’ modesty and dignity of the fair sect, and how shameful and revoltin’ it would be to see wimmen throwin’ ’em away, and boldly and unblushin’ly talkin’ about law and justice.

Why to hear Betsey Bobbet talk about wimmin’s throwin’ their modesty away you would think if they ever went to the political pole, they would have to take their dignity and modesty and throw ’em against the pole, and go without any all the rest of their lives.

Now I don’t believe in no such stuff as that, I think a woman can be bold and unwomanly in other things besides goin’ with a thick veil over her face, and a brass mounted parasol, once a year, and gently and quietly dropping a vote for a christian president, or a religeous and noble minded pathmaster.

She thinks she talks dreadful polite and proper, she says “I was cameing” instead of “I was coming,” and “I have saw” instead of “I have seen,” and “papah” for paper, and “deah” for dear. I don’t know much about grammer, but common sense goes a good ways. She writes the poetry for the Jonesville Augur, or “Augah,” as she calls it. She used to write for the opposition paper, the Jonesville Gimlet, but the editer of the Augur, a long haired chap, who moved into Jonesville a few months ago, lost his wife soon after he come there, and sense that she has turned Dimocrat, and writes for his paper stiddy. They say that he is a dreadful big feelin’ man, and I have heard--it came right straight to me--his cousin’s wife’s sister told it to the mother in law of one of my neighbor’s brother’s wife, that he didn’t like Betsey’s poetry at all, and all he printed it for was to plague the editer of the Gimlet, because she used to write for him. I myself wouldn’t give a cent a bushel for all the poetry she can write. And it seems to me, that if I was Betsey, I wouldn’t try to write so much, howsumever, I don’t know what turn I should take if I was Betsey Bobbet, that is a solemn subject and one I don’t love to think on.

I never shall forget the first piece of her poetry I ever see. Josiah Allen and I had both on us been married goin’ on a year, and I had occasion to go to his trunk one day where he kept a lot of old papers, and the first thing I laid my hand on was these verses. Josiah went with her a few times after his wife died, a 4th of July or so and two or three camp meetin’s, and the poetry seemed to be wrote about the time _we_ was married. It was directed over the top of it “Owed to Josiah,” just as if she were in debt to him. This was the way it read.

“OWED TO JOSIAH.

Josiah I the tale have hurn, With rigid ear, and streaming eye, I saw from me that you did turn, I never knew the reason why. Oh Josiah, It seemed as if I must expiah.

Why did you, Oh why did you blow Upon my life of snowy sleet, The fiah of love to fiercest glow, Then turn a damphar on the heat? Oh Josiah, It seemed as if I must expiah.

I saw thee coming down the street, _She_ by your side in bonnet bloo; The stuns that grated ’neath thy feet Seemed crunching on my vitals too. Oh Josiah, It seemed as if I must expiah.

I saw thee washing sheep last night, On the bridge I stood with marble brow, The waters raged, thou clasped it tight, I sighed, ‘should both be drownded now--’ I thought Josiah, Oh happy sheep to thus expiah.”

I showed the poetry to Josiah that night after he came home, and told him I had read it. He looked awful ashamed to think I had seen it, and says he with a dreadful sheepish look,

“The persecution I underwent from that female can never be told, she fairly hunted me down, I hadn’t no rest for the soles of my feet. I thought one spell she would marry me in spite of all I could do, without givin’ me the benefit of law or gospel.” He see I looked stern, and he added with a sick lookin’ smile, “I thought one spell, to use Betsey’s language, ‘I was a gonah.’”

I didn’t smile--oh no, for the deep principle of my sect was reared up--I says to him in a tone cold enough to almost freeze his ears, “Josiah Allen, shet up, of all the cowardly things a man ever done, it is goin’ round braggin’ about wimmen’ likin’ em, and follerin’ em up. Enny man that’ll do that is little enough to crawl through a knot hole without rubbing his clothes.” Says I, “I suppose you made her think the moon rose in your head, and set in your heels, I dare say you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you make fun of her now to please me I let you know you have got holt of the wrong individual.” Now, says I, “go to bed,” and I added in still more freezing accents, “for I want to mend your pantaloons.” He gathered up his shoes and stockin’s and started off to bed, and we haint never passed a word on the subject sence. I believe when you disagree with your pardner, in freein’ your _mind_ in the first on’t, and then not be a twittin’ about it afterwards. And as for bein’ jealous, I should jest as soon think of bein’ jealous of a meetin’-house as I should of Josiah. He is a well principled man. And I guess he wasn’t fur out o’ the way about Betsey Bobbet, though I wouldn’t encourage him by lettin’ him say a word on the subject, for I always make it a rule to stand up for my own sect; but when I hear her go on about the editor of the Augur, I can believe anything about Betsey Bobbet. She came in here one day last week, it was about ten o’clock in the mornin’. I had got my house slick as a pin, and my dinner under way, (I was goin’ to have a biled dinner, and a cherry puddin’ biled, with sweet sass to eat on it,) and I sot down to finish sewin’ up the breadth of my new rag carpet. I thought I would get it done while I hadn’t so much to do, for it bein’ the first of March, I knew sugarin’ would be comin’ on, and then cleanin’ house time, and I wanted it to put down jest as soon as the stove was carried out in the summer kitchen. The fire was sparklin’ away, and the painted floor a shinin’ and the dinner a bilin’, and I sot there sewin’ jest as calm as a clock, not dreamin’ of no trouble, when in came Betsey Bobbet.

I met her with outward calm, and asked her to set down and lay off her things. She sot down, but she said she couldn’t lay off her things. Says she, “I was comin’ down past, and I thought I would call and let you see the last numbah of the Augah, there is a piece in it concernin’ the tariff that stirs men’s souls, I like it evah so much.”

She handed me the paper, folded so I couldn’t see nothin’ but a piece of poetry by Betsey Bobbet. I see what she wanted of me and so I dropped my breadths of carpetin’ and took hold of it and began to read it.

“Read it audible if you please,” says she, “Especially the precious remahks ovah it, it is such a feast for me to be a sitting, and heah it reheahsed by a musical vorce.”

Says I, “I spose I can rehearse it if it will do you any good,” so I began as follers:

“It is seldem that we present to the readers of the Augur (the best paper for the fireside in Jonesville or the world) with a poem like the following. It may be by the assistance of the Augur (only twelve shillings a year in advance, wood and potatoes taken in exchange) the name of Betsey Bobbet will yet be carved on the lofty pinnacle of fame’s towering pillow. We think however that she could study such writers as Sylvanus Cobb, and Tupper with profit both to herself and to them.

EDITOR OF THE AUGUR.”

Here Betsey interrupted me, “The deah editah of the Augah had no need to advise me to read Tuppah, for he is indeed my most favorite authar, you have devorhed him havn’t you Josiah Allen’s wife?”

“Devoured who?” says I, in a tone pretty near as cold as a cold icicle.

“Mahten, Fahyueah, Tuppah, that sweet authar,” says she.

“No mom,” says I shortly, “I hain’t devoured Martin Farquhar Tupper, nor no other man, I hain’t a cannibal.”

“Oh! you understand me not, I meant, devorhed his sweet, tender lines.”

“I hain’t devoured his tenderlines, nor nothin’ relatin’ to him,” and I made a motion to lay the paper down, but Betsey urged me to go on, and so I read.

GUSHINGS OF A TENDAH SOUL.

Oh let who will, Oh let who can, Be tied onto A horrid male man.

Thus said I ’ere, My tendah heart was touched, Thus said I ’ere My tendah feelings gushed.

But oh a change Hath swept ore me, As billows sweep The “deep blue sea.”

A voice, a noble form, One day I saw; An arrow flew, My heart is nearly raw.

His first pardner lies Beneath the turf, He is wandering now, In sorrows briny surf.

Two twins, the little Deah cherub creechahs, Now wipe the teahs, From off his classic feachahs.

Oh sweet lot, worthy Angel arisen, To wipe the teahs, From eyes like his’en.

“What think you of it?” says she as I finished readin’.

I looked right at her most a minute with a majestic look. In spite of her false curls, and her new white ivory teeth, she is a humbly critter. I looked at her silently while she sot and twisted her long yeller bunnet strings, and then I spoke out,

“Hain’t the Editor of the Augur a widower with a pair of twins?”

“Yes,” says she with a happy look.

Then says I, “If the man hain’t a fool, he’ll think you are one.”

“Oh!” says she, and she dropped her bunnet strings, and clasped her long bony hands together in her brown cotton gloves, “oh, we ahdent soles of genious, have feelin’s, you cold, practical natures know nuthing of, and if they did not gush out in poetry we should expiah. You may as well try to tie up the gushing catarack of Niagarah with a piece of welting cord, as to tie up the feelings of an ahdent sole.”

“Ardent sole!” says I coldly. “Which makes the most noise, Betsey Bobbet, a three inch brook or a ten footer? which is the tearer? which is the roarer? deep waters run stillest. I have no faith in feelin’s that stalk round in public in mournin’ weeds. I have no faith in such mourners,” says I.

“Oh Josiah’s wife, cold, practical female being, you know me not; we are sundered as fah apart as if you was sitting on the North pole, and I was sitting on the South pole. Uncongenial being, you know me not.”

“I may not know you, Betsey Bobbet, but I do know decency, and I know that no munny would tempt me to write such stuff as that poetry and send it to a widower, with twins.”

“Oh!” says she, “what appeals to the tendah feeling heart of a single female woman more, than to see a lonely man who has lost his relict? And pity never seems so much like pity as when it is given to the deah little children of widowehs. And,” says she, “I think moah than as likely as not, this soaring soul of genious did not wed his affinity, but was united to a weak women of clay.”

“Mere women of clay!” says I, fixin’ my spektacles upon her in a most searchin’ manner, “where will you find a woman, Betsey Bobbet, that hain’t more or less clay? and affinity, that is the meanest word I ever heard; no married woman has any right to hear it. I’ll excuse you, bein’ a female, but if a man had said it to me, I’d holler to Josiah. There is a time for everything, and the time to hunt affinity is before you are married; married folks hain’t no right to hunt it,” says I sternly.

“We kindred souls soah above such petty feelings, we soah fah above them.”

“I hain’t much of a soarer,” says I, “and I don’t pretend to be, and to tell you the truth,” says I, “I am glad I hain’t.”

“The Editah of the Augah,” says she, and she grasped the paper off’en the stand and folded it up, and presented it at me like a spear, “the Editah of this paper is a kindred soul, he appreciates me, he undahstands me, and will not our names in the pages of this very papah go down to posterety togathah?”

Then says I, drove out of all patience with her, “I wish you was there now, both of you, I wish,” says I, lookin’ fixedly on her, “I wish you was both of you in posterity now.”

HAVING MY PICTURE TOOK.

The very next Saturday after I had this conversation with Betsey, I went down to Jonesville to have my picture took, Tirzah Ann bein’ to home so she could get dinner for the menfolks. As for me I don’t set a great deal of store by pictures, but Josiah insisted and the children insisted, and I went. Tirzah Ann wanted me to have my hair curled, but there I was firm, I give in on the handkerchief pin, but on the curl business, there I was rock.

Mr. Gansey the man that takes pictures was in another room takin’ some, so I walked round the aunty room, as they call it, lookin’ at the pictures that hang up on the wall, and at the people that come in to have theirs took. Some of ’em was fixed up dreadful; it seemed to me as if they tried to look so that nobody wouldn’t know whose pictures they was, after they was took. Some of ’em would take off their bunnets and gaze in the lookin’-glass at themselves and try to look smilin’, and get an expression onto their faces that they never owned.

In one corner of the room was a bewrow, with a lookin’-glass and hair brushes onto it, and before it stood a little man dreadful dressed up, with long black hair streamin’ down over his coat coller, engaged in pouring a vial of oil onto his head, and brushing his hair with one of the brushes. I knew him in a minute, for I had seen him come into the meetin’ house. Afterwards when I was jest standin’ before the picture of a dreadful harmless lookin’ man--he looked meek enough to make excuses to his shadder for goin’ before it, and I was jest sayin’ to myself, “There is a man who would fry pancakes without complainin’,” I heard a voice behind me sayin’,

“So the navish villian stalks round yet in decent society.”

I turned round imegiately and see the little man, who had got through fixin’ his hair to have his pictur took, standin’ before me.

“Who do you mean?” says I calmly. “Who is stalkin’ round?”

“The Editor of the Gimlet,” says he, “whose vile image defiles the walls of this temple of art, the haunt of Aglia, Thalia, and Euphrosine.”

“Who?” says I glancin’ keenly at him over my specks, “the haunt of who?”

Says he “The daughters of Bachus and Venus.”

Says I “I don’t know anything about Miss Bachus, nor the Venus girls,” and says I with spirit, “if they are any low creeters I don’t thank you for speakin’ of ’em to me, nor Josiah won’t neether. This room belongs to Jeremiah Gansey, and he has got a wife, a likely woman, that belongs to the same meetin’ house and the same class that I do, and he haint no business to have other girls hauntin’ his rooms. If there is anything wrong goin’ on I shall tell Sister Gansey.”

Says he “Woman you mistake, I meant the Graces.”