Part 9

“Bretheren and sisters of Jonesville,” says he; “Friends and patrons of Liberty, in risin’ upon this aeroter, I have signified by that act, a desire and a willingness to address you. I am not here fellow and sister citizens, to outrage your feelings by triflin’ remarks, I am not here male patrons of liberty to lead your noble, and you female patrons your tender footsteps into the flowery fields of useless rhetorical eloquence; I am here noble brothers and sisters of Jonesville not in a mephitical manner, and I trust not in a mentorial, but to present a few plain truths in a plain manner, for your consideration. My friends we are in one sense but tennifolious blossoms of life; or, if you will pardon the tergiversation, we are all but mineratin’ tennirosters, hovering upon an illinition of mythoplasm.”

“Jess so,” cried old Bobbet, who was settin’ on a bench right under the speaker’s stand, with his fat red face lookin’ up shinin’ with pride and enthusiasm, (and the brandy he had took to honor the old Revolutionary heroes) “Jess so! so we be!”

Prof. Todd looked down on him in a troubled kind of a way for a minute, and then went on--

“Noble inhabitants of Jonesville and the rural districts, we are actinolitic bein’s, each of our souls, like the acalphia, radiates a circle of prismatic tentacles, showing the divine irridescent essence of which composed are they.”

“Jes’ so,” shouted old Bobbet louder than before. “Jes’ so, so they did, I’ve always said so.”

“And if we are content to moulder out our existence, like fibrous, veticulated, polypus, clingin’ to the crustaceous courts of custom, if we cling not like soarin’ prytanes to the phantoms that lower thier sceptres down through the murky waves of retrogression, endeavorin’ to lure us upward in the scale of progressive bein’--in what degree do we differ from the accolphia?”

“Jes’ so,” says old Bobbet, lookin’ defiantly round on the audience. “There he has got you, how can they?”

Prof. Todd stopped again, looked doun on Bobbet, and put his hand to his brow in a wild kind of a way, for a minute, and then went on.

“Let us, noble brethren in the broad field of humanity, let us rise, let us prove that mind is superior to matter, let us prove ourselves superior to the acalphia--”

“Yes, less,” says old Bobbet, “less prove ourselves.”

“Let us shame the actinia,” said the Professor.

“Yes, jes’ so!” shouted old Bobbet, “less shame him!” and in his enthusiasm he got up and hollered agin, “Less shame him.”

Prof. Todd stopped stone still, his face red as blood, he drinked several swallows of water, and then he whispered a few words to the Editer of the Gimlet who immegiately come forward and said--

“Although it is a scene of touchin’ beauty, to see an old gentleman, and a bald-headed one, so in love with eloquence, and to give such remarkable proofs of it at his age, still as it is the request of my young friend--and I am proud to say ‘my young friend’ in regard to one gifted in so remarkable a degree--at his request I beg to be permitted to hint, that if the bald-headed old gentleman in the linen coat can conceal his admiration, and supress his applause, he will confer a favor on my gifted young friend, and through him indirectly to Jonesville, to America, and the great cause of humanity, throughout the length and breadth of the country.”

Here he made a low bow and sot down. Prof. Todd continued his piece without any more interruption, till most the last, he wanted the public of Jonesville to “dround black care in the deep waters of oblivion, mind not her mad throes of dissolvin’ bein’, but let the deep waters cover her black head, and march onward.”

Then the old gentleman forgot himself, and sprang up and hollered--

“Yes! dround the black cat, hold her head under! What if she is mad! don’t mind her screamin’! there will be cats enough left in the world! do as he tells you to! less dround her!”

Prof. Todd finished in a few words, and set doun lookin’ gloomy and morbid.

The next speaker was a large, healthy lookin’ man, who talked aginst wimmin’s rights. He didn’t bring up no new arguments, but talked as they all do who oppose ’em. About wimmin outragin’ and destroyin’ thier modesty, by bein’ in the same street with a man once every ’lection day. And he talked grand about how woman’s weakness arroused all the shivelry and nobility of a man’s nature, and how it was his dearest and most sacred privilege and happiness, to protect her from even a summer’s breeze, if it dared to blow too hard on her beloved and delicate form.

Why, before he had got half through, a stranger from another world who had never seen a woman, wouldn’t have had the least idee that they was made of clay as man was, but would have thought they was made of some thin gauze, liable at any minute to blow away, and that man’s only employment was to stand and watch ’em, for fear some zephyr would get the advantage of ’em. He called wimmin every pretty name he could think of, and says he, wavin’ his hands in the air in a rapped eloquence, and beatin’ his breast in the same he cried,

“Shall these weak, helpless angels, these seraphines, these sweet, delicate, cooin’ doves--whose only mission it is to sweetly coo--these rainbows, these posys vote? Never! my bretheren, never will we put such hardships upon ’em.”

As he sot down, he professed himself and all the rest of his sect ready to die at any time, and in any way wimmin should say, rather than they should vote, or have any other hardship. Betsey Bobbet wept aloud, she was so delighted with it.

Jest as they concluded thier frantic cheers over his speech, a thin, feeble lookin’ woman come by where I stood, drawin’ a large baby wagon with two children in it, seemin’ly a two-year-old, and a yearlin’. She also carried one in her arms who was lame. She looked so beat out and so ready to drop down, that I got up and give her my seat, and says I,

“You look ready to fall down.”

“Am I too late,” says she, “to hear my husband’s speech?”

“Is that your husband,” says I, “that is laughin’ and talkin’ with that pretty girl?”

“Yes,” says she with a sort of troubled look.

“Well, he jest finished.”

She looked ready to cry, and as I took the lame child from her breakin’ arms, says I--

“This is too hard for you.”

“I wouldn’t mind gettin’ ’em on to the ground,” says she, “I haint had only three miles to bring ’em, that wouldn’t be much if it wasn’t for the work I had to do before I come.”

“What did you have to do?” says I in pityin’ accents.

“Oh, I had to fix him off, brush his clothes and black his boots, and then I did up all my work, and then I had to go out and make six length of fence--the cattle broke into the corn yesterday, and he was busy writin’ his piece, and couldn’t fix it--and then I had to mend his coat,” glancin’ at a thick coat in the wagon. “He didn’t know but he should want it to wear home, he knew he was goin’ to make a great effort, and thought he should sweat some, he is dreadful easy to take cold,” says she with a worried look.

“Why didn’t he help you along with the children?” says I, in a indignant tone.

“Oh, he said he had to make a great exertion to-day, and he wanted to have his mind free and clear; he is one of the kind that can’t have their minds trammeled.”

“It would do him good to be trammeled--hard!” says I, lookin’ darkly on him.

“Don’t speak so of him,” says she beseechingly.

“Are you satisfied with his doin’s?” says I, lookin’ keenly at her.

“Oh yes,” says she in a trustin’ tone, liftin’ her care-worn, weary countenance to mine, “oh yes, you don’t know how beautiful he can _talk_.”

I said no more, for it is a invincible rule of my life, not to make no disturbances in families. But I give the yearlin’ pretty near a pound of candy on the spot, and the glances I cast on _him_ and the pretty girl he was a flirtin’ with, was cold enough to freeze ’em both into a male and female glazier.

Lawyer Nugent now got up and said, “That whereas the speaking was foreclosed, or in other words finished, he motioned they should adjourn to the dinner table, as the fair committee had signified by a snowy signal that fluttered like a dove of promise above waves of emerald, or in plainer terms by a _towel_, that dinner was forthcoming; whereas he motioned that they should adjourn _sine die_ to the aforesaid table.”

Old Mr. Bobbet, and the Editer of the Gimlet seconded the motion at the same time. And Shakespeare Bobbet wantin’ to do somethin’ in a public way, got up and motioned “that they proceed to the table on the usial road,” but there wasn’t any other way--only to wade the creek--that didn’t seem to be necessary, but nobody took no notice of it, so it was jest as well.

The dinner was good, but there was an awful crowd round the tables, and I was glad I wore my old lawn dress, for the children was thick, and so was bread and butter, and sass of all kinds, and jell tarts. And I hain’t no shirk, I jest plunged right into the heat of the battle, as you may say, waitin’ on the children, and the spots on my dress skirt would have been too much for anybody that couldn’t count 40. To say nothin’ about old Mr. Peedick steppin’ through the back breadth, and Betsey Bobbet ketchin’ holt of me, and rippin’ it off the waist as much as ½ a yard. And then a horse started up behind the widder Tubbs, as I was bendin’ down in front of her to get somethin’ out of a basket, and she weighin’ above 200, was precipitated onto my straw bonnet, jammin’ it down almost as flat as it was before it was braided. I came off pretty well in other respects, only about two yards of the ruflin’ of my black silk cape was tore by two boys who got to fightin’ behind me, and bein’ blind with rage tore it off, thinkin’ they had got holt of each other’s hair. There was a considerable number of toasts drank, I can’t remember all of ’em, but among ’em was these,

“The eagle of Liberty; May her quills lengthen till the proud shadow of her wings shall sweetly rest on every land.”

“The 4th of July; the star which our old four fathers tore from the ferocious mane of the howling lion of England, and set in the calm and majestic brow of _E pluribus unum_. May it gleam with brighter and brighter radience, till the lion shall hide his dazzled eyes, and cower like a stricken lamb at the feet of _E pluribus_.”

“Dr. Bombus our respected citizen; how he tenderly ushers us into a world of trial, and professionally and scientifically assists us out of it. May his troubles be as small as his morphine powders, and the circle of his joys as well rounded as his pills.”

“The press of Jonesville, the Gimlet, and the Augur; May they perforate the crust of ignorance with a gigantic hole, through which blushing civilization can sweetly peer into futurity.”

“The fair sect: first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of their countrymen. May them that love the aforesaid, flourish like a green bayberry tree, whereas may them that hate them, dwindle down as near to nothin’ as the bonnets of the aforesaid.”

That piece of toast was Lawer Nugent’s.

Prof. Aspire Todd’s was the last.

“The Luminous Lamp of Progression, whose sciatherical shadows falling upon earthly matter, not promoting sciolism, or Siccity, may it illumine humanity as it tardigradely floats from matter’s aquius wastes, to minds majestic and apyrous climes.”

Shakspeare Bobbet then rose up, and says he,

“Before we leave this joyous grove I have a poem which I was requested to read to you, it is dedicated to the Goddess of Liberty, and was transposed by another female, who modestly desires her name not to be mentioned any further than the initials B. B.” He then read the follerin’ spirited lines:

Before all causes East or West, I love the Liberty cause the best, I love its cheerful greetings; No joys on earth can e’er be found, Like those pure pleasures that abound, At Jonesville Liberty meetings.

To all the world I give my hand, My heart is with that noble band, The Jonesville Liberty brothers; May every land preserved be, Each clime that dotes on Liberty-- Jonesville before all others.

The picknick never broke up till most night, I went home a little while before it broke, and if there was a beat out creeter, I was; I jest dropped my delapidated form into a rockin’ chair with a red cushien and says I,

“There needn’t be another word said, I will never go to another 4th as long as my name is Josiah Allen’s wife.”

“You haint patriotic enough Samantha,” says Josiah, “you don’t love your country.”

“What good has it done the nation to have me all tore to pieces?” says I, “Look at my dress, look at my bonnet and cape, any one ought to be a iron clad to stand it, look at my dishes!” says I.

“I guess the old heroes of the Revolution went through more than that,” says Josiah.

“Well I haint a old hero!” says I coolly.

“Well you can honor ’em can’t you?”

“Honor ’em! Josiah Allen what good has it done to old Mr. Layfayette to have my new earthern pie plates smashed to bits, and a couple of tines broke off of one of my best forks? What good has it done to old Thomas Jefferson, to have my lawn dress tore off of me by Betsey Bobbet? what benefit has it been to John Adams, or Isaac Putnam to have old Peedick step through it? what honor has it been to George Washington to have my straw bonnet flatted down tight to my head? I am sick of this talk about honorin’, and liberty and duty, I am sick of it,” says I “folks will make a pack horse of duty, and ride it to circuses, and bull fights, if we had ’em. You may talk about honorin’ the old heroes and goin’ through all these performances to please ’em. But if they are in Heaven they can get along without heerin’ the Jonesville brass band, and if they haint, they are probably where fireworks haint much of a rarity to ’em.”

Josiah quailed before my lofty tone and I relapsed into a weary and delapidated silence.

SIMON SLIMPSEY AND HIS MOURNFUL FOREBODIN’S.

Two or three weeks after this, Thomas Jefferson went to the school house to meetin’ one Sunday night, and he broke out to the breakfast table the next mornin’--

“Mother, I am sick of the Jews,” says he, “I should think the Jews had a hard enough time a wanderin’ for 40 years, it seems to me if I was in minister’s places I would let ’em rest a little while now, and go to preachin’ to livin’ sinners, when the world is full of ’em. There was two or three drunkards there last night, a thief, four hypocrites, and--”

“One little conceited creeter that thinks he knows more than his old minister,” says I in a rebukin’ tone.

“Yes, I noticed Shakespeare Bobbet was there,” says he calmly. “But wouldn’t it have been better, mother, to have preached to these livin’ sinners that are goin to destruction round him, and that ought to be chased up, and punched in the side with the Gospel, than to chase round them old Jews for an hour and a half? Them old men deserve rest, and ought to have it.”

Says I, “Elder Wesley Minkley used ’em as a means of grace to carry his hearers towards heaven.”

Says Thomas, “I can go out in the woods alone, and lay doun and look up to the sky, and get nearer to heaven, than I can by follerin’ up them old dead Jews.”

Says I in awful earnest tones, “Thomas Jefferson, you are gettin’ into a dangerous path,” says I, “don’t let me hear another word of such talk; we should all be willin’ to bear our crosses.”

“I am willin’ to bear any reasonable cross, mother, but I hate to tackle them old Jews and shoulder ’em, for there don’t seem to be any need of it.”

I put on about as cold a look onto my face as I could under the circumstances, (I had been fryin’ buckwheat pancakes,) and Thomas J. turned to his father--

“Betsey Bobbet talked in meetin’ last night after the sermon, father, she said she knew that she was religious, because she felt that she loved the bretheren.”

Josiah laughed, the way he encourages that boy is awful, but I spoke in almost frigid tones, as I passed him his 3d cup of coffee,

“She meant it in a scriptural sense, of course.”

“I guess you’d think she meant it in a earthly sense, if you had seen her hang on to old Slimpsey last night, she’ll marry that old man yet, if he don’t look out.”

“Oh shaw!” says I coolly, “she is payin’ attention to the Editer of the Augur.”

“She’ll never get him,” says he; “she means to be on the safe side, and get one or the other of ’em; how stiddy she has been to meetin’ sense old Slimpsey moved into the place.”

“You shall not make light of her religion, Thomas Jefferson,” says I, pretty severely.

“I won’t, mother, I shouldn’t feel right to, for it is light enough now, it don’t all consist in talkin’ in meetin’, mother. I don’t believe in folks’es usin’ up all their religion Sunday nights, and then goin’ without any all the rest of the week, it looks as shiftless in ’em as a three-year-old hat on a female. The religion that gets up on Sunday nights, and then sets down all the rest of the week, I don’t think much of.”

Says I in a tone of deep rebuke, “Instead of tendin’ other folks’es motes, Thomas Jefferson, you had better take care of your own beams, you’ll have plenty work, enough to last you one spell.”

“And if you have got through with your breakfast,” says his father, “you had better go and fodder the cows.”

Thomas J. arose with alacraty and went to the barn, and his father soon drew on his boots and follered him, and with a pensive brow I turned out my dishwater. I hadn’t got my dishes more than half done, when with no warnin’ of no kind, the door bust open, and in tottered Simon Slimpsey, pale as a piece of a white cotton shirt. I wildly wrung out my dishcloth, and offered him a chair, sayin’ in a agitated tone, “What is the matter, Simon Slimpsey?”

“Am I pursued?” says he in a voice of low frenzy, as he sunk into a wooden bottomed chair. I cast one or two eagle glances out of the window, both ways, and replied in a voice of choked doun emotion,

“There haint nobody in sight; has your life been attackted by burglers and incindiarys? speak, Simon Slimpsey, speak!”

He struggled nobly for calmness, but in vain, and then he put his hand wildly to his brow, and murmured in low and hollow accents--

“Betsey Bobbet.”

I see he was overcome by as many as six or seven different emotions of various anguishes, and I give him pretty near a minute to recover himself, and then says I as I sadly resumed my dishcloth,

“What of her, Simon Slimpsey?”

“She’ll be the death on me,” says he, “and that haint the worst on it, my sole is jeopardized on account of her. Oh,” says he, groanin’ in a anguish, “could you believe it, Miss Allen, that I--a member of a Authodox church and the father of 13 small children--could be tempted to swear? Behold that wretch. As I come through your gate jest now, I said to myself ‘By Jupiter, I can’t stand it so, much longer.’ And last night I wished I was a ghost, for I thought if I was a apperition I could have escaped from her view. Oh,” says he, groanin’ agin, “I have got so low as to wish I was a ghost.”

He paused, and in a deep and almost broodin’ silence, I finished my dishes, and hung up my dishpan.

“She come rushin’ out of Deacon Gowdey’s, as I come by jest now, to talk to me, she don’t give me no peace, last night she would walk tight to my side all the way home, and she looked hungry at the gate, as I went through and fastened it on the inside.”

Agin he paused overcome by his emotions, and I looked pityingly on him. He was a small boned man of about seventy summers and winters. He was always a weak, feeble, helpless critter, a kind of a underlin’ always. He never had any morals, he got out of morals when he was a young man, and haint been able to get any sense. He has always drinked a good deal of liquor, and has chawed so much tobacco that his mouth looks more like a old yellow spitoon than anything else. As I looked sadly on him I see that age, who had ploughed the wrinkles into his face, had turned the furrows deep. The cruel fingers of time, or some other female, had plucked nearly every hair from his head, and the ruthless hand of fate had also seen fit to deprive him of his eye winkers, not one solitary winker bein’ left for a shade tree (as it were) to protect the pale pupils below; and they bein’ a light watery blue, and the lids bein’ inflamed, they looked sad indeed. Owin’ to afflictive providences he was dressed up more than men generally be, for his neck bein’ badly swelled he wore a string of amber beads, and in behalf of his sore eyes he wore ear rings. But truly outside splendor and glitter won’t satisfy the mind, and bring happiness. I looked upon his mournful face, and my heart melted inside of me, almost as soft as it could, almost as soft as butter in the month of August. And I said to him in a soothin’ and encouragin’ tone,

“Mebby she will marry the Editer of the Augur, she is payin’ attention to him.”

“No she won’t,” says he in a solemn and affectin’ way, that brought tears to my eyes as I sot peelin’ my onions for dinner. “No she won’t, I shall be the one, I feel it. I was always the victim, I was always down trodden. When I was a baby my mother had two twins, both of ’em a little older than me, and they almost tore me to pieces before I got into trowses. Mebby it would have been better for me if they had,” says he in a mewsin’ and mournful tone--I knew he thought of Betsey then--and heavin’ a deep sigh he resumed,

“When I went to school and we played leap frog, if there was a frog to be squshed down under all the rest, I was that frog. It has always been so--if there was ever a underlin’ and a victim wanted, I was that underlin’ and that victim. And Betsey Bobbet will get round me yet, you see if she don’t, wimmen are awful perseverin’ in such things.”

“Cheer up Simon Slimpsey, you haint obleeged to marry her, it is a free country, folks haint obleeged to marry unless they are a mind to, it don’t take a brass band to make that legal.” I quoted these words in a light and joyous manner hopin’ to rouse him from his dispondancy, but in vain, for he only repeated in a gloomy tone,

“She’ll get round me yet, Miss Allen, I feel it.” And as the dark shade deepened on his eye brow he said,

“Have you seen her verses in the last week’s Augur?”

“No,” says I “I haint.”

In a silent and hopeless way, he took the paper out of his pocket and handed it to me and I read as follers:--

A SONG.

Composed not for the strong minded females, who madly and indecently insist on rights, but for the retiring and delicate minded of the sex, who modestly murmer, “we will not have any rights, we scorn them.” Will some modest and bashful sisteh set it to music, that we may timidly, but loudly warble it; and oblige, hers ’till deth, in the glorious cause of wimmen’s only true speah.

BETSEY BOBBET.

Not for strong minded wimmen, Do I now tune up my liah; Oh, not for them would I kin- dle up the sacred fiah. Oh, modest, bashful female, For you I tune up my lay; Although strong minded wimmen sneah, We’ll conqueh in the fray. CHORUS.--Press onward, do not feah, sistehs, Press onward, do not feah; Remembeh wimmen’s speah, sistehs, Remembeh wimmen’s speah.

It would cause some fun if poor Miss Wade Should say of her boy Harry, I shall not give him any trade, But bring him up to marry; And would cause some fun, of course deah maids, If Miss Wades’es Harry, Should lose his end and aim in life, And find no chance to marry. CHORUS.--Press onward, do not feah, sistehs, &c.