Part 6
I didn’t say no more, and that very day the axident happened. Josiah heard me holler, and he come runnin’ from the barn--and a scairter man I never see. He took me right up, and was carryin’ of me in. I was in awful agony--and the first words I remember sayin’ was these, in a faint voice.
“I wonder if you’ll keep that pup now?”
Says he firmly, yet with pity, and with pale and anxious face.
“Mebby you didn’t encourage him enough.”
Says I deliriously, “Did you expect I was goin’ to carry him in my arms and throw him at the hens? I tried every other way.”
“Wall, wall!” says he, kinder soothin’ly, “Do keep still, how do you expect I’m goin’ to carry you if you touse round so.”
He laid me down on the lounge in the settin’ room, and I never got off of it, for two weeks. Fever set in--I had been kinder unwell for quite a spell, but I wouldn’t give up. I would keep ’round to work. But this axident seemed to be the last hump on the camel’s back, I had to give in, and Tirzah Ann had to come home from school to do the work.
When the news got out that I was sick, lots of folks came to see me. And every one wanted me to take some different kinds of patented medicine, or herb drink--why my stomach would have been drounded out, a perfect wreck--if I had took half. And then every one would name my desease some new name. Why I told Josiah at the end of the week, that accordin’ to their tell, I had got every desease under the sun, unless it was the horse distemper.
One mornin’ Miss Gowdey came in, and asked me in a melancholy way, if I had ever had the kind pox. I told her I had.
“Well,” says she, “I mistrust you have got the very oh Lord.”
It was a Saturday mornin’ and Thomas Jefferson was to home, and he spoke up and said “that was a good desease, and he hoped it would prevail; he knew quite a number that he thought it would do ’em good to have it.”
She looked real shocked, but knew it was some of Thomas J.’s fun. There was one woman that would come in, in a calm, quiet way about 2 times a week, and say in a mild, collected tone,
“You have got the tizick.”
Says I, “the pain is in my foot mostly.”
“I can’t help that,” says she gently, but firmly, “There is tizick with it. And I think that is what ailed Josiah when he was sick.”
“Why,” says I, “that was the newraligy, the doctors said.”
“Doctors are liable to mistakes,” says she in the same firm but modest accents, “I have always thought it was the tizick. There are more folks that are tiziky than you think for, in this world. I am a master hand for knowin’ it when I see it.” She would then in an affectionate manner advise me to doctor for the tizick, and then she would gently depart.
There are 2 kinds of wimmen that go to see the sick. There’s them low voiced, still footed wimmen, that walks right in, and lays their hands on your hot foreheads so soothin’ like, that the pain gets ashamed of itself and sneaks off. I call ’em God’s angels. Spozen they haint got wings, I don’t care, I contend for it they are servin’ the Lord jest as much as if they was a standin’ up in a row, all feathered out, with a palm tree in one hand and a harp in the other.
So I told old Gowdey one cold winter day--(he is awful stingy, he has got a big wood lot--yet lets lots of poor families most freeze round him, in the winter time. He will pray for ’em by the hour, but it don’t seem to warm ’em up much)--he says to me,
“Oh! if I was only a angel! if I only had holt of the palm tree up yonder that is waitin’ for me.”
Says I, coolly, “if it is used right, I think good body maple goes a good ways toward makin’ a angel.”
As I say, I have had these angels in my room--some kinder slimmish ones, some, that would go nigh on to 2 hundred by the stellyards, I don’t care if they went 3 hundred quick, I should call ’em angels jest the same.
Then there is them wimmen that go to have a good time of it, they get kinder sick of stayin’ to home, and nothin’ happenin’. And so they take thier work, and flock in to visit the afflicted. I should think I had pretty near 25 a day of ’em, and each one started 25 different subjects. Wild, crazy subjects, most of ’em, such as fires, runaway matches, and whirlwinds; earthquakes, neighberhood fightin’, and butter that wouldn’t come; great tidal waves, railroad axidents, balky horses, and overskirts; man slaughter, politix, schism, and frizzled hair.
I believe it would have drawed more sweat from a able bodied man to have laid still and heard it, than to mow a five acre lot in dog days. And there my head was takin’ on, and achin’ as if it would come off all the time.
If I could have had one thing at a time, I could have stood it better. I shouldn’t have minded a earthquake so much, if I could have give my full attention to it, but I must have conflegrations at the same time on my mind, and hens that wouldn’t set, and drunken men, and crazy wimmin, and jumpin’ sheep, and female suffragin’ and calico cut biasin’, and the Rushen war, and politix. It did seem some of the time, that my head must split open, and I guess the doctor got scairt about me, for one mornin’ after he went away, Josiah came into the room, and I see that he looked awful sober and gloomy, but the minute he ketched my eye, he began to snicker and laugh. I didn’t say nothin’ at first, and shet my eyes, but when I opened ’em agin, there he was a standin’ lookin’ down on me with the same mournful, agonized expression onto his features; not a word did he speak, but when he see me a lookin’ at him, he bust out laughin’ agin, and then says I--
“What is the matter, Josiah Allen?”
Says he, “I’m a bein’ cheerful, Samantha!”
Says I in the faint accents of weakness, “You are bein’ a natural born idiot, and do you stop it.”
Says he, “I won’t stop it, Samantha, I _will_ be cheerful;” and he giggled.
Says I, “Won’t you go out, and let me rest a little, Josiah Allen?”
“No!” says he firmly, “I will stand by you, and I will be cheerful,” and he snickered the loudest he had yet, but at the same time his countenance was so awfully gloomy and anxious lookin’ that it filled me with a strange awe as he continued--
“The doctor told me that you must be kep’ perfectly quiet, and I must be cheerful before you, and while I have the spirit of a man I _will_ be cheerful,” and with a despairin’ countenance, he giggled and snickered.
I knew what a case he was to do his duty, and I groaned out, “There haint no use a tryin’ to stop him.”
“No,” says he, “there haint no use a arguin’ with me--I shall do my duty.” And he bust out into a awful laugh that almost choked him.
I knew there wouldn’t be no rest for me, while he stood there performin’ like a circus, and so says I in a strategim way--
“It seems to me as if I should like a little lemonade, Josiah, but the lemons are all gone.”
Says he, “I will harness up the old mare and start for Jonesville this minute, and get you some.”
But after he got out in the kitchen, and his hat on, he stuck his head into the door, and with a mournful countenance, snickered.
After he fairly sot sail for Jonesville, now, thinks I to myself, I will have a good nap, and rest my head while he is gone, and I had jest got settled down, and was thinkin’ sweetly how slow the old mare was, when I heerd a noise in the kitchen. And Tirzah Ann come in, and says she--
“Betsey Bobbet has come; I told her I guessed you was a goin’ to sleep, and she hadn’t better come in, but she acted so mad about it, that I don’t know what to do.”
Before I could find time to tell her to lock the door, and put a chair against it, Betsey come right in, and says she--
“Josiah Allen’s wife, how do you feel this mornin’?” and she added sweetly, “You see I have come.”
“I feel dreadful bad and feverish, this mornin’,” says I, groanin’ in spite of myself. For my head felt the worst it had, everything looked big, and sick to the stomach to me, kinder waverin’ and floatin’ round like.
“Yes, I know jest how you feel, Josiah Allen’s wife, for I have felt jest so, only a great deal worse--why, talkin’ about fevahs, Josiah Allen’s wife, I have had such a fevah that the sweat stood in great drops all ovah me.”
She took her things off, and laid ’em on the table, and she had a bag hangin’ on her arm pretty near as big as a flour sack, and she laid that down in one chair and took another one herself, and then she continued,
“I have come down to spend the entiah day with you, Josiah Allen’s wife. We heerd that you was sick, and we thought we would all come doun and spend the day with you. We have got relations from a distance visitin’ us,--relations on fathah’s side--and they are all a comin’. Mothah is comin’ and Aunt Betsey, and cousin Annah Mariah and her two children. But we don’t want you to make any fuss for us at all--only cousin Annah Mariah was sayin’ yesterday that she did want an old-fashioned boiled dinnah, before she went back to New York. Mothah was goin’ to boil one yesterday, but you know jest how it scents up a house, and in _my_ situation, not knowin’ _when_ I shall receive interestin’ calls, I _do_ want to keep up a agreeable atmospheah. I told Annah Mariah _you_ had all kinds of garden sauce. We don’t want you to make any difference for us--not in the least--but boiled dinnahs, with a boiled puddin’ and sugar sauce, are perfectly beautiful.”
I groaned in a low tone, but Betsey was so engaged a talkin’, that she didn’t heed it, but went on in a high, excited tone--
“I come on a little ahead, for I wanted to get a pattern for a bedquilt, if you have got one to suit me. I am goin’ to piece up a bedquilt out of small pieces of calico I have been savin’ for yeahs. And I brought the whole bag of calicoes along, for Mothah and cousin Annah Mariah said they would assist me in piecin’ up to-day, aftah I get them cut out. You know I may want bedquilts suddenly. A great many young girls are bein’ snatched away this spring. I think it becomes us all to be prepared. Aunt Betsey would help me too, but she is in a dreadful hurry with a rag carpet. She is goin’ to bring down a basket full of red and yellow rags that mothah gave her, to tear up to-day. She said that it was not very pretty work to carry visatin’, but I told her you was sick and would not mind it. I guess,” she continued, takin’ up her bag, “I will pour these calicoes all out upon the table, and then I will look at your bedquilts and patterns.” And she poured out about half a bushel of crazy lookin’ pieces of calico on the table, no two pieces of a size or color.
I groaned loudly, in spite of myself, and shut my eyes. She heard the groan, and see the agony on to my eye brow, and says she,
“The doctor said to our house this morning, that you must be kept perfectly quiet--and I tell you Josiah Allen’s wife, that you _must not_ get excited. We talked it over this morning, we said we were all going to put in together, that you should keep perfectly quiet, and not get excited in your mind. And now what would you advise me to do? Would you have a sunflower bedquilt, or a blazing stah? Take it right to yourself Josiah Allen’s wife, what would you do about it? But do not excite yourself any. Blazing stahs look more showy, but then sun-flowehs are easier to quilt. Quilt once around every piece, and it is enough, and looks well on the other side, I am going to line it with otteh coloh--white looks betteh, but if two little children jest of an age, should happen to be a playing on it, it would keep clean longeh.”
Agin I groaned, and says Betsey, “I do wish you would take my advice Josiah Allen’s wife, and keep perfectly quiet in your mind. I should think you would,” says she reproachfully. “When I have told you, how much betteh it would be for you. I guess,” says she, “that you need chirking up a little. I must enliven you, and make you look happier before I go on with my bedquilt, and before we begin to look at your patterns and bedquilts, I will read a little to you, I calculated too, if you was low spirited; I came prepared.” And takin’ a paper out of her pocket she says,
“I will now proceed to read to you one of the longest, most noble and eloquent editorials that has eveh come out in the pages of the Augah, written by its noble and eloquent Editah. It is six columns in length, and is concerning our relations with Spain.”
This was too much--too much--and I sprung up on my couch, and cried wildly,
“Let the Editor of the Augur and his relations go to Spain! And do you go to Spain with your relations!” says I, “and do you start this minute!”
Betsey was appalled, and turned to flee, and I cried out agin,
“Do you take your bedquilt with you.”
She gathered up her calicoes, and fled. And I sunk back, shed one or two briny tears of relief, and then sunk into a sweet and refreshin’ sleep. And from that hour I gained on it. But in the next week’s Augur, these and 10 more verses like ’em come out.
BLASTED HOPES.
I do not mind my cold rebuffs To be turned out with bedquilt stuffs; Philosophy would ease my smart, Would say, “Oh peace, sad female heart.” But Oh, this is the woe to me, She would not listen unto he.
If it had been _my_ soaring muse, That she in wild scorn did refuse, I could like marble statute rise, And face her wrath with tearless eyes; ’Twould not have been such a blow to me, But, she would not listen unto _he_.
THE JONESVILLE SINGIN’ QUIRE.
Thomas Jefferson is a good boy. His teacher to the Jonesville Academy told me the other day, says he,
“Thomas J. is full of fun, but I don’t believe he has a single bad habit; and I don’t believe he knows any more about bad things, than Tirzah Ann, and she is a girl of a thousand.”
This made my heart beat with pure and fervent emotions of joy, for I knew it was true, but I tell you I have had to work for it. I was determined from the first, that Thomas Jefferson needn’t think because he was a boy he could do anything that would be considered disgraceful if he was a girl. Now some mothers will worry themselves to death about thier girls, so afraid they will get into bad company and bring disgrace onto ’em. I have said to ’em sometimes,
“Why don’t you worry about your boys?”
“Oh things are winked at in a man that haint in a woman.”
Says I, “There is one woman that no man can get to wink at ’em, and that is Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith.” Says I, “It is enough to make anybody’s blood bile in thier vains to think how different sin is looked upon in a man and woman. I say sin is sin, and you can’t make goodness out of it by parsin’ it in the masculine gender, no more’n you can by parsin’ it in the feminine or neutral.
“And wimmin are the most to blame in this respect. I believe in givin’ the D----I won’t speak the gentleman’s name right out, because I belong to the Methodist Meetin’ house, but you know who I mean, and I believe in givin’ him his due, if you owe him anything, and I say men haint half so bad as wimmen about holdin’ up male sinners and stompin’ down female ones.
“Wimmen are meaner than pusley about some things, and this is one of ’em. Now wimmen will go out and kill the fatted calf with thier own hands to feast the male prodigal that has been livin’ on husks. But let the woman that he has been boardin’ with on the same bundle of husks, ask meekly for a little mite of this veal critter, will she get it? No! She won’t get so much as one of the huffs. She will be told to keep on eatin’ her husks, and after she has got through with ’em to die, for after a _woman_ has once eat husks, she can’t never eat any other vittles. And if she asks meekly, why is her stomach so different from the male husk eater, _he_ went right off from husks to fatted calves, they’ll say to her ‘what is sin in a woman haint sin in a man. Men are such noble creatures that they _will_ be a little wild, it is expected of ’em, but after they have sowed all thier wild oats, they always settle down and make the very best of men.’
“‘Can’t I settle down too?’ cries the poor woman. ‘_I_ am sick of wild oats too, _I_ am sick of husks--I want to live a good life, in the sight of God and man--can’t I settle down too?’
“‘Yes you can settle down in the grave,’ they say to her--‘When a woman has sinned once, that is all the place there is for her--a woman _cannot_ be forgiven.’ There is an old sayin’ ‘Go and sin no more.’ But that is eighteen hundred years old--awful old fashioned.”
And then after they have feasted the male husk eater, on this gospel veal, and fell on his neck and embraced him a few times, they will take him into thier houses and marry him to their purest and prettiest daughter, while at the same time they won’t have the female husker in thier kitchen to wash for ’em at 4 cents an article.
I say it is a shame and a disgrace, for the woman to bear all the burden of sufferin’ and all the burden of shame too; it is a mean, cowardly piece of business, and I should think the very stuns would go to yellin’ at each other to see such injustice.
But Josiah Allen’s children haint been brought up in any such kind of a way. They have been brought up to think that sin of any kind is jest as bad in a man as it is in a woman. And any place of amusement that was bad for a woman to go to, was bad for a man.
Now when Thomas Jefferson was a little feller, he was bewitched to go to circuses, and Josiah said,
“Better let him go, Samantha, it haint no place for wimmin or girls, but it won’t hurt a boy.”
Says I, “Josiah Allen, the Lord made Thomas Jefferson with jest as pure a heart as Tirzah Ann, and no bigger eyes and ears, and if Thomas J. goes to the circus, Tirzah Ann goes too.”
That stopped that. And then he was bewitched to get with other boys that smoked and chewed tobacco, and Josiah was jest that easy turn, that he would have let him go with ’em. But says I--
“Josiah Allen, if Thomas Jefferson goes with those boys, and gets to chewin’ and smokin’ tobacco, I shall buy Tirzah Ann a pipe.”
And that stopped that.
“And about drinkin’,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson, if it should ever be the will of Providence to change you into a wild bear, I will chain you up, and do the best I can by you. But if you ever do it yourself, turn yourself into a wild beast by drinkin’, I will run away, for I never could stand it, never. And,” I continued, “if I ever see you hangin’ round bar-rooms and tavern doors, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.”
Josiah argued with me, says he, “It don’t look so bad for a boy as it does for a girl.”
Says I, “Custom makes the difference; we are more used to seein’ men. But,” says I, “when liquor goes to work to make a fool and a brute of anybody it don’t stop to ask about sect, it makes a wild beast and a idiot of a man or a woman, and to look down from Heaven, I guess a man looks as bad layin’ dead drunk in a gutter as a woman does,” says I; “things look different from up there, than what they do to us--it is a more sightly place. And you talk about _looks_, Josiah Allen. I don’t go on clear looks, I go onto principle. Will the Lord say to me in the last day, ‘Josiah Allen’s wife, how is it with the sole of Tirzah Ann--as for Thomas Jefferson’s sole, he bein’ a boy it haint of no account?’ No! I shall have to give an account to Him for my dealin’s with both of these soles, male and female. And I should feel guilty if I brought him up to think that what was impure for a woman, was pure for a man. If man has a greater desire to do wrong--which I won’t dispute,” says I lookin’ keenly on to Josiah, “he has greater strength to resist temptation. And so,” says I in mild accents, but firm as old Plymouth Rock, “if Thomas Jefferson hangs, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.”
I have brought Thomas Jefferson up to think that it was jest as bad for him to listen to a bad story or song, as for a girl, or worse, for he had more strength to run away, and that it was a disgrace for him to talk or listen to any stuff that he would be ashamed to have Tirzah Ann or me hear. I have brought him up to think that manliness didn’t consist in havin’ a cigar in his mouth, and his hat on one side, and swearin’ and slang phrases, and a knowledge of questionable amusements, but in layin’ holt of every duty that come to him, with a brave heart and a cheerful face; in helpin’ to right the wrong, and protect the weak, and makin’ the most and the best of the mind and the soul God had given him. In short, I have brought him up to think that purity and virtue are both masculine and femanine gender, and that God’s angels are not necessarily all she ones.
Tirzah Ann too has come up well, though I say it, that shouldn’t, her head haint all full, runnin’ over, and frizzlin’ out on top of it, with thoughts of beaux and flirtin’. I have brought her up to think that marriage wasn’t the chief end of life, but savin’ her soul. Tirzah Ann’s own grandmother on her mother’s side, used to come visatin’ us and stay weeks at a time, kinder spyin’ out I spose how I done by the children,--thank fortune, I wasn’t afraid to have her spy, all she was a mind too, I wouldn’t have been afraid to had Benedict Arnold, and Major Andre come as spys. I did well by ’em, and she owned it, though she did think I made Tirzah Ann’s night gowns a little too full round the neck, and Thomas Jefferson’s roundabouts a little too long behind. But as I was a sayin’, the old lady begun to kinder train Tirzah Ann up to the prevailin’ idee of its bein’ her only aim in life to catch a husband, and if she would only grow up and be a real good girl she should marry.
I didn’t say nothin’ to the old lady, for I respect old age, but I took Josiah out one side, and says I,
“Josiah Allen, if Tirzah Ann is to be brought up to think that marriage is the chief aim of her life, Thomas J. shall be brought up to think that marriage is his chief aim.” Says I, “it looks just as flat in a woman, as it does in a man.”
Josiah didn’t make much of any answer to me, he is an easy man. But as that was the old lady’s last visit (she was took bed rid the next week, and haint walked a step sense), I haint had no more trouble on them grounds.
When Tirzah Ann gets old enough, if a good true man, a man for instance, such as I think Whitfield Minkley, our minister’s oldest boy is a goin’ to make, if such a man offers Tirzah Ann his love which is the greatest honor a man can do a woman, why Tirzah will, I presume, if she loves him well enough, marry him. I should give my consent, and so would Josiah. But to have all her mind sot onto that hope and expectatin’ till she begins to look wild, I have discouraged it in her.
I have told her that goodness, truth, honor, vertue and nobility come first as aims in life. Says I,
“Tirzah Ann, seek these things first, and then if a husband is added unto you, you may know it is the Lord’s will, and accept him like any other dispensation of Providence, and--” I continued as dreamy thoughts of Josiah floated through my mind, “make the best of him.”
I feel thankful to think they have both come up as well as they have. Tirzah Ann is more of a quiet turn, but Thomas J., though his morals are sound, is dreadful full of fun, I worry some about him for he haint made no professions, I never could get him forred onto the anxious seat. He told Elder Minkley last winter that “the seats were all made of the same kind of basswood, and he could be jest as anxious out by the door, as he could on one of the front seats.”
Says Elder Minkley, “My dear boy, I want you to find the Lord.”
“I haint never lost him,” says Thomas Jefferson.