Part 4

She took out her work, and says she, “I have come to spend the day. I saw thier deah Pa bringin’ the deah little twins in heah, and I thought maybe I could comfort the precious little motherless things some, if I should come over heah. If there is any object upon the earth, Josiah Allen’s wife, that appeals to a feelin’ heart, it is the sweet little children of widowers. I cannot remember the time when I did not want to comfort them, and thier deah Pa’s. I have always felt that it was woman’s highest speah, her only mission to soothe, to cling, to smile, to coo. I have always felt it, and for yeahs back it has been a growin’ on me. I feel that you do not feel as I do in this matter, you do not feel that it is woman’s greatest privilege, her crowning blessing, to soothe lacerations, to be a sort of a poultice to the noble, manly breast when it is torn with the cares of life.”

This was too much, in the agitated frame of mind I then was.

“Am I a poultice Betsey Bobbet, do I look like one?--am I in the condition to be one?” I cried turnin’ my face, red and drippin’ with prespiration towards her, and then attacked one of Josiah’s shirt sleeves agin. “What has my sect done,” says I, as I wildly rubbed his shirt sleeves, “That they have got to be lacerator soothers, when they have got everything else under the sun to do?” Here I stirred down the preserves that was a runnin’ over, and turned a pail full of syrup into the sugar kettle. “Everybody says that men are stronger than women, and why should they be treated as if they was glass china, liable to break all to pieces if they haint handled careful. And if they have got to be soothed,” says I in an agitated tone, caused by my emotions (and by pumpin’ 6 pails of water to fill up the biler), “Why don’t they get men to sooth’em? They have as much agin time as wimmen have; evenin’s they don’t have anything else to do, they might jest as well be a soothin’ each other as to be a hangin’ round grocery stores, or settin’ by the fire whittlin’.”

I see I was frightenin’ her by my delerious tone and I continued more mildly, as I stirred down the strugglin’ sugar with one hand--removed a cake from the oven with the other--watched my apple preserves with a eagle vision, and listened intently to the voice of the twins, who was playin’ in the woodhouse.

“I had jest as soon soothe lacerations as not, Betsey, if I hadn’t everything else to do. I had jest as lives set down and smile at Josiah by the hour, but who would fry him nut-cakes? I could smoothe down his bald head affectionately, but who would do off this batch of sugar? I could coo at him day in and day out, but who would skim milk--wash pans--get vittles--wash and iron--and patch and scour--and darn and fry--and make and mend--and bake and bile while I was a cooin’, tell me?” says I.

Betsey spoke not, but quailed, and I continued--

“Women haint any stronger than men, naturally; thier backs and thier nerves haint made of any stouter timber; their hearts are jest as liable to ache as men’s are; so with thier heads; and after doin’ a hard day’s work when she is jest ready to drop down, a little smilin’ and cooin’ would do a woman jest as much good as a man. Not what,” I repeated in the firm tone of principle “Not but what I am willin’ to coo, if I only had time.”

A pause enshued durin’ which I bent over the wash-tub and rubbed with all my might on Josiah’s shirt sleeve. I had got one sleeve so I could see streaks of white in it, (Josiah is awful hard on his shirt sleeves), and I lifted up my face and continued in still more reesonable tones, as I took out my rice puddin’ and cleaned out the bottom of the oven, (the pudden had run over and was a scorchin’ on), and scraped the oven bottom with a knife,

“Now Josiah Allen will go out into that lot,” says I, glancein’ out of the north window “and plough right straight along, furrow after furrow, no sweat of mind about it at all; his mind is in that free calm state that he could write poetry.”

“Speaking of poetry, reminds me,” said Betsey, and I see her hand go into her pocket; I knew what was a comin’, and I went on hurriedly, wavin’ off what I knew must be, as long as I could. “Now, I, a workin’ jest as hard as he accordin’ to my strength, and havin’ to look 40 ways to once, and 40 different strains on my mind, now tell me candidly, Betsey Bobbet, which is in the best condition for cooin’, Josiah Allen or me? but it haint expected of him,” says I in agitated tones, “I am expected to do all the smilin’ and cooin’ there is done, though you know,” says I sternly, “that I haint no time for it.”

“In this poem, Josiah Allen’s wife, is embodied my views, which are widely different from yours.”

I see it was vain to struggle against fate, she had the poetry in her hand. I rescued the twins from beneath a half a bushel of beans they had pulled over onto themselves--took off my preserves which had burnt to the pan while I was a rescuin’, and calmly listened to her, while I picked up the beans with one hand, and held off the twins with the other.

“There is one thing I want to ask your advice about, Josiah Allen’s wife. This poem is for the Jonesville Augah. You know I used always to write for the opposition papah, the Jonesville Gimlet, but as I said the othah day, since the Editah of the Augah lost his wife I feel that duty is a drawing of me that way. Now do you think that it would be any more pleasing and comforting to that deah Editah to have me sign my name Bettie Bobbet--or Betsey, as I always have?” And loosin’ herself in thought she murmured dreamily to the twins, who was a pullin’ each other’s hair on the floor at her feet--

“Sweet little mothahless things, you couldn’t tell me, could you, deahs, how your deah Pa would feel about it?”

Here the twins laid holt of each other so I had to part ’em, and as I did so I said to Betsey, “If you haint a fool you will hang on to the Betsey. You can’t find a woman nowadays that answers to her true name. I expect,” says I in a tone of cold and almost witherin’ sarcasm, “that these old ears will yet hear some young minister preach about Johnnie the Baptist, and Minnie Magdalen. Hang on to the Betsey; as for the Bobbet,” says I, lookin’ pityingly on her, “that will hang on for itself.”

I was too well bread to interrupt her further, and I pared my potatoes, pounded my beefsteak, and ground my coffee for dinner, and listened. This commenced also as if she had been havin’ a account with Love, and had come out in his debt.

OWED TO LOVE.

Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife, With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life, Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be, Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?

And if he have any companions lost--if they from earth have risen, Ah, I could weep tears of joy--for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en; Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties, Ah, _how willingly_ on the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would sacrifice.

I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling, And live for love--and live to cling. Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be, His smile on me--my sweet smile on he.

There was pretty near twenty verses of ’em, and as she finished she said to me--

“What think you of my poem, Josiah Allen’s wife?”

Says I, fixin’ my sharp grey eyes upon her keenly, “I have had more experience with men than you have, Betsey;” I see a dark shadow settlin’ on her eye-brow, and I hastened to apologise--“you haint to blame for it, Betsey--we all know you haint to blame.”

She grew calm, and I proceeded, “How long do you suppose you could board a man on clear smiles, Betsey--you jest try it for a few meals and you’d find out. I have lived with Josiah Allen 14 years, and I ought to know somethin’ of the natur of man, which is about alike in all of ’em, and I say, and I contend for it, that you might jest as well try to cling to a bear as to a hungry man. After dinner, sentiment would have a chance, and you might smile on him. But then,” says I thoughtfully, “there is the dishes to wash.”

Jest at that minute the Editor of the Augur stopped at the gate, and Betsey, catchin’ up a twin on each arm, stood up to the winder, smilin’.

He jumped out, and took a great roll of poetry out from under the buggy seat--I sithed as I see it. But fate was better to me than I deserved. For Josiah was jest leadin’ the horse into the horse barn, when the Editor happened to look up and see Betsey. Josiah says he swore--says he “the d----!” I won’t say what it was, for I belong to the meetin’ house, but it wasn’t the Deity though it begun with a D. He jumped into the buggy agin, and says Josiah,

“You had better stay to dinner, my wife is gettin’ a awful good one--and the sugar is most done.”

Josiah says he groaned, but he only said--

“Fetch out the twins.”

Says Josiah, “You had better stay to dinner--you haint got no women folks to your house--and I know what it is to live on pancakes,” and wantin’ to have a little fun with him, says he, “Betsey Bobbet is here.”

Josiah says he swore agin, and agin says he, “fetch out the twins.” And he looked so kind o’ wild and fearful towards the door, that Josiah started off on the run.

Betsey was determined to carry one of the twins out, but jest at the door he tore every mite of hair off’en her head, and she, bein’ bald naturally, dropped him. And Josiah carried ’em out, one on each arm, and he drove off with ’em fast. Betsey wouldn’t stay to dinner all I could do and say, she acted mad. But one sweet thought filled me with such joyful emotion that I smiled as I thought of it--I shouldn’t have to listen to any more poetry that day.

THE MINISTER’S BEDQUILT.

The Baptists in our neighborhood have been piecen’ up a bedquilt for their minister. He has preached considerable, and held a Sunday school to our school-house, and I wasn’t goin’ to have any bedquilts done for him without havin’ my hand in it to help it along. I despise the idee of folks bein’ so sot on their own meetin’ housen. Thier is enough worldly things for neighbors to fight about, such as hens, and the school-marm, without takin’ what little religion they have got and go to peltin’ each other with it.

Sposen’ Baptists do love water better’n they do dry land? What of it? If my Baptist brethren feel any better to baptise thierselves in the Atlantic ocian, it haint none of my business. Somehow Josiah seems to be more sot onto his own meetin’ house than I do. Thomas Jefferson said when we was a arguin’ about it the mornin’ of the quiltin’, says he, “The more water the better,” says he, “it would do some of the brethren good to put ’em asoak and let ’em lay over night.”

I shet him up pretty quick, for I will not countenance such light talk--but Josiah laughed, he encourages that boy in it, all I can do and say.

I always make a pint of goin’ to quiltin’s any way, whether I go on Methodist principle (as in this case) or not, for you can’t be backbited to your face, that is a moral certainty. I know women jest like a book, for I have been one quite a spell. I always stand up for my own sect, still I know sartin effects foller sartin causes. Such as two bricks bein’ sot up side by side, if one tumbles over on to the other, the other can’t stand up, it haint natur. If a toper holds a glass of liquor to his mouth he can’t help swallowin’ it, it haint nater. If a young man goes out slay-ridin’ with a pretty girl, and the buffalo robe slips off, he can’t help holdin’ it round her, it haint nater. And quiltin’ jest sets women to slanderin’ as easy and beautiful as any thing you ever see. I was the first one there, for reasons I have named; I always go early.

I hadn’t been there long before Mrs. Deacon Dobbins came, and then the Widder Tubbs, and then Squire Edwards’es wife and Maggie Snow, and then the Dagget girls. (We call ’em _girls_, though it would be jest as proper to call mutton, lamb.)

Miss Wilkins’ baby had the mumps, and the Peedicks and Gowdey’s had unexpected company. But with Miss Jones where the quiltin’ was held, and her girls Mary Ann and Alzina, we made as many as could get round the quilt handy.

The quilt was made of different kinds of calico; all the women round had pieced up a block or two, and we took up a collection to get the battin’ and linin’ and the cloth to set it together with, which was turkey red, and come to quilt it, it looked well. We quilted it herrin’ bone, with a runnin’ vine round the border.

After the pathmaster was demorilized, the school-teacher tore to pieces, the party to Peedicks scandalized, Sophronia Gowdey’s charicter broke doun--and her mother’s new bunnet pronounced a perfect fright, and twenty years too young for her--and Miss Wilkins’ baby voted a unquestionable idiot, and the rest of the unrepresented neighborhood dealt with, Lucinda Dagget spoke up and says she--

“I hope the minister will like the bedquilt.” (Lucinda is the one that studies mathematics to harden her mind, and has the Roman nose.)

“It haint no ways likely he will,” says her sister Ophelia; (she is the one that frizzles her hair on top and wears spectacles.) “It haint no ways likely he will--for he is a cold man, a stun statute.”

Now you see I set my eyes by that minister, if he is of another persuasion. He is always doin’ good to somebody, besides preachin’ more like a angel than a human bein’. I can’t never forget--and I don’t want to--how he took holt of my hand, and how his voice trembled and the tears stood in his eyes, when we thought our Tirzah Ann was a dyin’--she was in his Sunday School class. There is some lines in your life you can’t rub out, if you try to ever so hard. And I wasn’t goin’ to set still and hear him run down. It riled up the old Smith blood, and when that is riled, Josiah says he always feels that it is best to take his hat and leave, till it settles. I spoke right up and says I--

“Lucky for him he was made of stun before he was married, for common flesh and blood would have gin’ out a hundred times, chaste round by the girls as he was.” You see it was the town talk, how Ophelia Dagget acted before he was married, and she almost went into a decline, and took heaps of motherwort and fetty.

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Allen,” says she, turnin’ red as a red brick, “I never heard of his bein’ chaste, I knew I never could bear the sight of him.”

“The distant sight,” says Alzina Jones.

Ophelia looked so mad at that, that I don’t know but she would have pricked her with her quiltin’ needle, if old Miss Dobbins hadn’t spoke up. She is a fat old lady, with a double chin, mild and lovely as Mount Vernon’s sister. She always agrees with everybody. Thomas Jefferson calls her “Woolen Apron” for he says he heard her one day say to Miss Gowdy--“I don’t like woolen aprons, do you Miss Gowdy?”

“Why yes, Miss Dobbin, I do.”

“Well so do I,” says she. But good old soul, if we was all such peace makers as she is, we should be pretty sure of Heaven. Though Thomas Jefferson says, “if Satan should ask her to go to his house, she would go, rather than hurt his feelin’s.” That boy worrys me, I don’t know what he is a comin’ to.

As I said, she looked up mildly over her spectacles, and nodded her purple cap ribbons two or three times, and said “yes,” “jest so,” to both of us. And then to change the subject says she;

“Has the minister’s wife got home yet?”

“I think not,” says Maggie Snow. “I was to the village yesterday, and she hadn’t come then.”

“I suppose her mother is well off,” says the Widder Tubbs, “and as long as she stays there, she saves the minister five dollars a week, I should think she would stay all summer.” The widder is about as equinomical a woman as belongs to his meetin’ house.

“It don’t look well for her to be gone so long,” says Lucinda Dagget, “I am very much afraid it will make talk.”

“Mebby it will save the minister five dollars a week,” says Ophelia, “as extravagant as she is in dress, as many as four silk dresses she has got, and there’s Baptist folks as good as she is that hain’t got but one--and one certain Baptist person _full_ as good as she is that hain’t got any.” (Ophelia’s best dress is poplin.) “It won’t take her long to run out the minister’s salary.”

“She had her silk dresses before she was married, and her folks were wealthy,” says Mrs. Squire Edwards.

“As much as we have done for them, and are still doing,” says Lucinda, “it seems ungrateful in her to wear such a bunnet as she wore last summer, a plain white straw, with a little bit of ribbon onto it, not a flower nor a feather, it looked so scrimped and stingy, I have thought she wore it on purpose to mortify us before the Methodists. Jest as if we couldn’t afford to dress our minister’s wife as well as they did theirs.”

Maggie Snow’s cheeks was a getting as red as fire, and her eyes began to shine, jest as they did that day she found some boys stonein’ her kitten. She and the minister’s wife are the greatest friends that ever was. And I see she couldn’t hold in much longer. She was jest openin’ her mouth to speak, when the door opened and in walked Betsey Bobbet.

“My! it seems to me you are late, Betsey, but walk right into the spare bedroom, and take off your things.”

“Things!” says Betsey, in a reckless tone, “who cares for things!” And she dropped into the nearest rocking chair and commenced to rock herself violently and says she “would that I had died when I was a infant babe.”

“Amen!” whispered Alzina Jones, to Maggie Snow.

Betsey didn’t hear her, and again she groaned out, “Would that I had been laid in yondeh church yard, before my eyes had got open to depravity and wickedness.”

“Do tell us what is the matter Betsey,” says Miss Jones.

“Yes do,” says Miss Deacon Dobbins.

“Matter enuff,” says she, “No wondeh there is earthquakes and jars. I heard the news jest as I came out of our gate, and it made me weak as a cat, I had to stop to every house on the way doun heah, to rest, and not a soul had heard of it, till I told ’em. Such a shock as it gave me, I shant get over it for a week, but it is just as I always told you, I always said the minister’s wife wasn’t any _too_ good. It didn’t surprise me not a bit.”

“You can’t tell me one word against Mary Morton that I’ll believe,” says Maggie Snow.

“You will admit that the minister went North last Tuesday, won’t you.”

Seven wimmin spoke up at once and said: “Yes, his mother was took sick, and telegraphed for him.”

“So he said,” said Betsey Bobbet, “so he said, but I believe it is for good.”

“Oh dear,” shrieked Ophelia Dagget, “I shall faint away, ketch hold of me, somebody.”

“Ketch hold of yourself,” says I coolly, and then says I to Betsey, “I don’t believe he has run away no more than I believe that I am the next President of the United States.”

“Well, if he is not, he will wish he had, his wife come home this morning on the cars.”

Four wimmens said “Did she,” two said, “Do tell,” and three opened their mouths and looked at her speechless. Amongst these last was Miss Deacon Dobbins. But I spoke out in a collected manner, “What of it?”

Says she, “I believe the poor, deah man mistrusted it all out and run away from trouble and disgrace brought upon him by that female, his wife.”

“How dare you speak the word disgrace in connection with Mary Morton?” says Maggie Snow.

“How dare I?” says Betsey. “Ask Thomas Jefferson Allen, as it happened, I got it from his own mouth, it did not come through two or three.”

“Got what?” says I, and I continued in pretty cold tones, “If you can speak the English language, Betsey Bobbet, and have got sense enough to tell a straight story, tell it and be done with it,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson has been to Jonesville ever sense mornin’.”

“Yes,” says she, “and he was coming home, jest as I started for heah, and he stopped by our gate, and says he, ‘Betsey, I have got something to tell you. I want to tell it to somebody that can keep it, it ought to be kept,’ says he; and then he went on and told; says he,--‘The minister’s wife has got home, and she didn’t come alone neither.’

“Says I, what do you mean? He looked as mysterious as a white ghost, and says he, ‘I mean what I say.’ Says he, ‘I was in the men’s room at the depot this morning, and I heard the minister’s wife in the next room talking to some body she called Hugh, you know her husband’s name is Charles. I heard her tell this Hugh that she loved him, loved him better than the whole world;’ and then he made me promise not to tell, but he said he heerd not only one kiss, but fourteen or fifteen.

“Now,” says Betsey, “what do you think of that female?”

“Good Heavens!” cried Ophelia Dagget, “am I deceived? is this a phantagory of the brain? have I got ears? have I got ears?” says she wildly, glaring at me.

“You can feel and see,” says I pretty short.

“Will he live with the wretched creature?” continued Ophelia, “no he will get a divorcement from her, such a tender hearted man too, as he is, if ever a man wanted a comforter in a tryin’ time, he is the man, and to-morrow I will go and comfort him.”

“Methinks you will find him first,” says Betsey Bobbet. “And after he is found, methinks there is a certain person he would be as glad to see as he would another certain person.”

“There is some mistake,” says Maggie Snow. “Thomas Jefferson is always joking,” and her face blushed up kinder red as she spoke about Thomas J.

I don’t make no matches, nor break none, but I watch things pretty keen, if I don’t say much.

“It was a male man,” says Lucinda Dagget, “else why did she call him Hugh? You have all heerd Elder Morton say that his wife hadn’t a relative on earth, except a mother and a maiden aunt. It couldn’t have been her mother, and it couldn’t have been the maiden aunt, for her name was Martha instead of Hugh; besides,” she continued, (she had so hardened her mind with mathematics that she could grapple the hardest fact, and floor it, so to speak,) “besides, the maiden aunt died six months ago, that settles the matter conclusively, it was not the maiden aunt.”

“I have thought something was on the Elders’ mind, for quite a spell, I have spoke to sister Gowdy about it a number of times,” then she kinder rolled up her eyes just as she does in conference meetin’s, and says she, “it is an awful dispensation, but I hope he’ll turn it into a means of grace, I hope his spiritual strength will be renewed, but I have borryed a good deal of trouble about his bein’ so handsome, I have noticed handsome ministers don’t turn out well, they most always have somethin’ happen to ’em, sooner or later, but I hope he’ll be led.”

“I never thought that Miss Morton was any too good.”

“Neither did I,” said Lucinda Dagget.

“She has turned out jest as I always thought she would,” says Ophelia, “and I think jest as much of her, as I do of them that stand up for her.” Maggie Snow spoke up then, jest as clear as a bell her voice sounded. She hain’t afraid of anybody, for she is Lawyer Snow’s only child, and has been to Boston to school. Says she “Aunt Allen,” she is a little related to me on her mother’s side. “Aunt Allen, why is it as a general rule, the worst folks are the ones to suspect other people of bein’ bad.”

Says I, “Maggy, they draw their pictures from memery, they think, ‘now if _I_ had that opportunity to do wrong, I should certainly improve it--and so of course _they_ did.’ And they want to pull down other folks’es reputations, for they feel as if their own goodness is in a totterin’ condition, and if it falls, they want somethin’ for it to fall on, so as to come down easier like.”

Maggy Snow laughed, and so did Squire Edwards’ wife, and the Jones’es--but Betsey Bobbet, and the Dagget girls looked black as Erobius. And says Betsey Bobbet to me, “I shouldn’t think, Josiah Allen’s wife, that _you_ would countenance such conduct.”