Part 13

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, we’re goin’ to get dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain.”

“Oh, wall,” says he, “a little rain, more or less, hain’t a goin’ to hender a man from meditatin’.”

I was wore out, and says I, “Do you stop meditatin’ this minute, Josiah Allen!”

Says he, “I won’t stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain’t a goin’ to break it up.”

Jest at that minute they called to me from the shore to come that minute to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But oh! the gloom of my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions and looks of Josiah wore on me. Had the sufferin’s of the night, added to the trials of the day, made him crazy? I thought more’n as likely as not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days.

And then, oh how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the smoke so into my face that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And then a perfect swarm of yellow wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick as we laid ’em down, so you couldn’t touch a thing without runnin’ a chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time! the distress of that pleasure exertion! But I kep’ to work, and when we had got dinner most ready, I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there, and her Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would try to dig one to give him. So we started up the hill again. He set in the same position, all huddled up, with his leg under him, as uncomfortable a lookin’ creeter as I ever see. But when we both stood in front of him, he pretended to look careless and happy, and smiled that sick smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, dinner is ready.”

“Oh! I hain’t hungry,” says he. “The table will probable be full. I had jest as lieves wait.”

“Table full!” says I. “You know jest as well as I do that we are eatin’ on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute.”

“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet, “we can’t get along without you.”

“Oh!” says he, with that ghastly smile, a pretendin’ to joke, “I have got plenty to eat here—I can eat muskeeters.”

The air was black with ’em, I couldn’t deny it.

“The muskeeters will eat you, more likely,” says I. “Look at your face and hands; they are all covered with ’em.”

“Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don’t begrech ’em. I hain’t small enough, nor mean enough, I hope, to begrech ’em one good meal.”

Miss Bobbet started off in search of her wild turnip, and after she had got out of sight Josiah whispered to me with a savage look, and a tone sharp as a sharp axe:

“Can’t you bring forty or fifty more wimmen up here? You couldn’t come here a minute, could you, without a lot of other wimmen tight to your heels?”

I begun to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet had got her wild turnip and some spignut, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then Josiah told me all about why he had gone off by himself alone, and why he had been a settin’ in such a curious a position all the time since we had come in sight of him.

It seems he had sot down on that bottle of rass-berry jell. That red stripe on the side wasn’t hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn’t fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin’ at ’em to try to wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein’ sewed on a machine, that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he had walked off sideways towards the woods for. But Josiah Allen’s wife hain’t one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned ’em up as well as I could, and I didn’t say a word to hurt his feelin’s, only I jest said this to him, as I was a fixin’ em: I fastened my grey eye firmly and almost sternly onto him, and says I:

“Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?” Says I, “You was determined to come.”

“Throw that in my face agin, will you? What if I was? There goes a pin into my leg! I should think I had suffered enough without your stabbin’ of me with pins.”

“Wall then, stand still, and not be a caperin’ round so. How do you s’pose I can do anything with you a tousin’ round so?”

“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”

I fixed ’em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and there they was all covered with jell, too. What to do I didn’t know. But finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up corner-ways as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind, and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he wouldn’t, and I told him if he wouldn’t that he must make his own excuses to the company about wearin’ the shawl. So he told ’em he always loved to wear summer shawls; he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink all the time he was a sayin’ it. They all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin’ as if he had stole sheep—and meachin’er—and he never took a minute’s comfort, nor I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the shore, and so was I. And jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain began to pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time. My lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bonnet. And I says to Josiah:

“This bonnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy some new ones.”

“Wall! wall! who said you wouldn’t?” he snapped out.

But it wore on him. Oh! how the rain poured down. Josiah havin’ nothin’ but a handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a apron to put on a gettin’ dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on his head. But says he, firmly:

“I hain’t proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin’ out with a pink apron on for a hat.”

“Wall then,” says I, “get as wet as sop if you had ruther.”

I didn’t say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down; the wind howled at us; the old mare went slow; the rheumatiz laid holt of both of us; and the thought of the new bonnet and dress was a wearin’ on Josiah, I knew.

There wasn’t a house for the first seven miles, and after we got there I thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had got to get home to milk, anyway, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as thirteen miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward, with the rain drippin’ offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his blue pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:

“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”

He give the old mare a awful cut, and says he: “I’d like to know what you want to be so agrevatin’ for.”

I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud-puddle, I says to him:

“Mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”

And I’ll bet he will. I hain’t afraid to bet a ten cent bill that that man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a pleasure exertion.

A VISIT TO THE CHILDREN.

It was a fair and lovely forenoon, and I thought we would go and spend the day with the childern. Kitty Smith had gone the day before to visit a aunt on her mother’s side to Log London. She was a layin’ out to stay 3 or 4 weeks, and I declare, it seemed lonesome as a dog—and lonesomer. And I told Josiah that I guessed we would go to Jonesville and visit the childern, for we hadn’t been there to stay all day with ’em for a number of weeks. He sort o’ hung back, and said he didn’t know how to spend the time. But I only says, decided like and firm, and in a solemn and warnin’ way:

“You can do as you are a mind to, Josiah Allen, and as your conscience will let you. But croup is round, that I know, and I worried last night a good deal about little Samantha Joe.”

Says he: “I will hitch up the old mare this minute, Samantha, and do you throw your things on as quick as you can.” And he started for the barn almost on the run.

My natural nature is very truthful and transparent,—almost like rain-water,—and little figurative expressions like these are painful to me—very. But every woman who has a man to deal with for above twenty years will know that they _have_ to use ’em in order to move men as men ort to be moved.

I won’t come right out and lie for nobody—man or beast. Croup _was_ round promiscus in Jonesville, and I _had_ worried about little Samantha Joe. But my conscience told me, as I tied up my back hair, and hooked up my dress, that I had talked in a sort of a parable way. And it smote me; not so hard as it had smote; but hardish.

And if there ever was a old tyrant on the face of the earth, my conscience is one. It won’t let me do nothin’ the least mite out of the way without poundin’ me almost to death. Sometimes I get fairly tuckered out with it.

Wall, I had jest finished hookin’ up my dress, and was a pinnin’ on my collar at the lookin’-glass, when, happenin’ to throw one of the eyes of my spectacles out of the window, I see Kellup Cobb a drivin’ up; and he hitched the hearse to the front gate, and come in.

He looked quite well for him. His hair and whiskers was a good, dark, tan color, bearin’ a little on the orange. Quite a becomin’ color to him, he bein’ so saller.

He inquired where Kitty was. And then he wanted to know most the first thing he said, and his mean looked anxious as he said it, “If her health was a keepin’ up?”

“Why, yes,” says I, “why shouldn’t it?”

“Wall,” says he, “I was obleeged to go away on business, and couldn’t get here last week, and I didn’t know how she would take it. I should have wrote to her,” says he, “but not havin’ quite made up my mind whether I would marry her or not, I thought it would be cruel to her to pay her such a close attention as a letter would be. It wuzn’t the postage that I minded. Three cents wouldn’t have stood in the way of my writin’ to her, if I had made up my mind full and complete.

“But,” says he, a knittin’ up his forward hard, “them two old reasons that did stand in the way of my marryin’ stands there now—stands there a headin’ of me off. It hain’t so much because she is a poor girl that I hesitate. No, that wouldn’t influence me much, for she is sound and healthy, good to work, and would pay her way. No, it is them wimmen! What will be done with the rest of the wimmen that I shall have to disapinte?

“But,” says he, lookin’ gloomy into the oven, “I have jest about made up my mind that I will marry her, whether or no, and leave the event to Providence. If I do, they’ll have to stand it somehow. They hadn’t ort to expect, and if they used a mite of reason they wouldn’t expect, that a man would sacrifice himself always, and keep single forever, ruther than hurt their feelin’s.”

Says he, lookin’ as bitter and gloomy into that oven as a oven was ever looked into, “Even if ten or a dozen of ’em die off, the law can’t touch me for it, for if ever a man has been careful, I have been. Look at my clothes, now,” says he, lookin’ down on himself with a sort of a self-righteous, admirin’ sort of a look, “I wore these old clothes to-day jest out of solid principle and goodness towards wimmen. It wuzn’t to be savin’, and because it looked like rain. No, I knew I had got to be round amongst wimmen a good deal, to-day, a settlin’ up accounts, and so I wore this old overcoat of father’s. I have got a brand new one, but I wouldn’t wear it round amongst ’em.

“I am on my guard, and they can’t come back on me for damages. They have only got themselves to blame if they are ondone. They might have realized that they couldn’t all have got me. And I have jest about made up my mind that I will run the resk and marry her. She is to Log London, you say. It happens jest right,” says he, a brightenin’ up.

“There is a funeral down that way, to-morrow, not more than thirteen or fourteen miles from there, and I will go round that way on my way back, and call and see her.”

I declare his talk sickened me so that I was fairly sick to my stomach. It was worse than thoroughwort or lobelia, and so I told Josiah afterwards. But I didn’t say a word back to him, for I knew I might jest as well try to convince the wind right in a whirlwind that it hadn’t better blow, as to convince him that he was a fool.

But, as he got up to go, I told him that I had a little mite of business of my own with him. You see our new minister, Elder Bamber, is a likely feller as ever drawed the breath of life, and hard-workin’—couldn’t get a cent of his pay from the meetin’-house. They had got into a kind of a quarrel, the men had, and wouldn’t pay what they had signed. And I proposed to the women, the female sisters, that we should try to get him up a present of 50 dollars to last ’em through the storm—the meetin’-house storm. For they was fairly sufferin’ for provisions, and clothes, and stuff. And as Kellup was a member of the same meetin’-house, and talked and sung powerful in conference meetin’s, I thought it wouldn’t be no more than right for me to tackle him, and get him to pay a little sunthin’ towards it. So I tackled him.

“Wall, Sister Allen,” says he, in that hypocritical, sneakin’ way of hisen (he was always powerful at repeatin’ Scriptural texts), “I can say with Peter, ‘Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I will give unto thee.’”

“Wall, what is it?” says I. “What are you goin’ to give?”

Says he, “I will work for the cause. If religion is worth anything,” says he, a rollin’ up the whites of his eyes, “it is worth workin’ for—it is worth makin’ sacrifices for.”

“So I think,” says I, in a very dry tone. “And I want a half a dollar out of you.”

“No!” says he, kinder puttin’ his hand over his pocket, as if he was afraid a cent would drop out of it. “No! I will do better than that. To-night is our conference meetin’, and I will talk powerful on the subject.”

Says I, coldly: “Wind is a powerful element, but it hain’t a goin’ to blow comfort into the Elder’s household, nor meat and flour into his empty buttery-shelves, nor fire-wood into his wood-box. Song and oritery are good in their place, but they hain’t goin’ to feed the starvin’ or clothe the naked.” Says I, in more reasonable tones: “As I said, wind is good in its place—I hain’t a word to say aginst it—but jest at the present time money is goin’ to do the Elder more good than the same amount of wind can.” And says I, in the same firm but mild tone: “I want a half a dollar out of you.” Says I: “The Elder is fairly sufferin’ for things to eat and drink and wear. And you know,” says I, “that if ever there was a good, earnest, Christian man, it is Elder Bamber. He is a Christian from the top of his head to the sole of his boots. He don’t wear his religion on the top of his head for a hat, and take it off Sunday nights. It goes clear through him, and works out from the inside.”

“Yes,” says Kellup, a clutchin’ his pocket with a firmer grip, “he is a worthy man, and I should think the thought of his noble and lofty mission would be meat and drink to him. It probable is. It would be to me—and clothin’. Oh!” says he, a rollin’ up his eyes still further in his head, “oh! the thought of savin’ souls; what a comfort that must be to the Elder; what a rich food for him.”

Says I, in colder tones than I had used yet, for I was fairly wore out with him: “The Elder can’t eat souls, and if he could he would starve to death on such souls as your’n, if he eat one every five minutes.”

He didn’t say nothin’ more, but onhitched his hearse and started off. I don’t know but he was mad, and don’t care. But though I didn’t get a cent from him or his father, I raised 50 dollars with my own hands and the might of my shoulder-blades, and sent it to him in a letter marked, “From friends of religion and the Elder.”

Wall, jest as Josiah driv up with the old mare, a hull load of company driv up from the other way—come to spend the day. I was disappinted, but I didn’t murmur. I took ’em as a dispensation, killed a fat duck, and made considerable of a fuss; done well by ’em. They come from a distance, and had to start for home the sun 2 hours high. And I told Josiah it was so pleasant I guessed we would go to Jonesville then, and he (havin’ that babe on his mind) consented to at once and immediately. So we sot off. About half a mile this side of Jonesville we met Thomas J. and Maggie jest a settin’ off for a ride. We stopped our 2 teams and visited a spell back and forth. I wouldn’t let ’em go back home, as they both offered and insisted on, but made an appintment to take dinner with ’em the next day, Providence and the weather permittin’. And then we drove on to Whitfield’s. And I don’t never want to see a prettier sight than I see as we driv up.

There Tirzah Ann sot out on the portico, all dressed up in a cool mull dress. It was one I had bought her before she was married, but it was washed and done up clean and fresh, and looked as good as new. It was pure white, with little bunches of blue forget-me-nots on it, and she had a bunch of the same posys and some pink rose-buds in her hair, and on the bosom of her frock. There is a hull bed of ’em in the yard. She is a master hand for dressin’ up and lookin’ pretty, but at the same time is very equinomical, and a first-rate housekeeper. She looked the very picture of health and enjoyment—plump and rosy, and happy as a queen; and she was a queen. Queen of her husband’s heart; and settin’ up on that pure and lofty throne of constant and deathless love, she looked first-rate, and felt so.

It had been a very warm day, nearly hot, and Whitfield I s’pose had come home kinder tired. So he had stretched himself out at full length on the grass in front of the portico, and there he lay with his hands under his head, a laughin’, and a lookin’ up into Tirzah Ann’s face as radiant and lovin’ as if she was the sun and he a sun-flower. But that simely, though very poetical and figurative, don’t half express the good looks, and health, and rest, and happiness on both their faces, as they looked at each other, and then at that _babe_.

That most beautifulest and intelligentest of childern was a toddlin’ round, first up to one of ’em and then the other, with her bright eyes a dancin’, and her cheeks red as roses. You see their yard is so large and shady, and the little thing havin’ got so it can run round alone, is out in the yard a playin’ most all the time, and it is dretful good for her. And she enjoys it the best that ever was, and Tirzah Ann enjoys it, too, for after she gets her work done up, all she has to do is to set in the door and watch the little thing a playin’ round, and bein’ perfectly happy. The minute she ketched sight of the old mare and me and her grandpa, she run down to the gate as fast as her little feet could carry her. She had a little pink dress on, and pink stockin’s, and white shoes, and a white ruffled apron, with her pretty, shining hair a hangin’ down in curls over it, and she did, jest as sure as I live and breathe—she _did_ look almost too beautiful for earth. I guess she got a pretty good kissin’ from Josiah and me, and then Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come a hurryin’ down to the gate, glad enough to see us, as they always be.

Josiah, of course, had to take that beautiful child for a little ride, and Whitfield said he guessed he would go, too. But I got out and went in, and as we sot there on the stoop, Tirzah Ann up and told me what she and Whitfield was a goin’ to do. They was goin’ off for the summer for a rest and change. And I thought from the first minute she spoke of it that it was foolish in her. Now rests are as likely things as ever was; so are changes.

But I have said, and I say still, that I had ruther lay down to home, as the poet says, “on my own delightful feather-bed,” with a fan and a newspaper, and take a rest, than dress up and travel off 2 or 300 milds through the burnin’ sun, with achin’ body, wet with presperation and sweat, to take it. It seems to me that I would get more rest out of the former than out of the more latter course and proceedin’. Howsumever, everybody to their own mind.

Likewise with changes: I have said, and I say still, that changes are likely and respectable, if you can get holt of ’em; but how can you?

Havin’ such powerful and eloquent emotions as I have, havin’ such hefty principles a performin’ inside of my mind, enjoyin’ such idees, and faiths, and aspirations, and longin’s, and hopes, and despairs, and everything—I s’pose that is what makes me think that what is goin’ on round me, the outside of me, hain’t of so much consequence. I seem to live inside of myself (as it were) more than I do on the outside. And so it don’t seem of so much consequence what the lay of the land round me may happen to be, whether it is sort o’ hilly and mountainous or more level-like; or whether steam-cars may be a goin’ by me (on the outside of me), or boats a sailin’ round me, or milk-wagons.

You see the real change, the real rest, would have to be on the inside, and not on the outside. Nobody, no matter how much their weight may be by the steel-yards, can carry round such grand, hefty principles as I carry round without gettin’ tired; or enjoy the lofty hopes, and desires, and aspirations that I enjoy, and meditate on all the sad, and mysterious, and puzzlin’ conundrums of the old world as I meditate on ’em, without gettin’ fairly tuckered out.

Great hearts enjoy greatly and suffer greatly. And so sometimes, when heart-tired and brain-weary, if I could quell down them soarin’ emotions and make ’em lay still for a spell, and shet up my heart like a buro-draw, and hang up the key, and onscrew my head and lay it onto the manteltry-piece, then I could go off and enjoy a change that would be refreshin’ and truly delightful. But as it is, from Jonesville clear to the Antipithies, the puzzlin’ perplexities, the woes, and the cares of the old world foller right on after us tight as our shadders. Our pure and soarin’ desires, our blind mistakes, and deep despairs; our longin’s, strivin’s, memories, heartaches; all the joys and burdens of a soul, has to be carried by us up the steepest mountains or down into the lowest vallies. The same emotions that was a performin’ inside of our minds down in the Yo Semity, will be a performin’ jest the same up on the Pyramids.

The same questionin’ eyes, sort o’ glad and sort o’ sorrowful, that looked out over New York Harbor will look out over the Bay of Naples—and then beyond ’em both, out into a deeper, more mysterious ocean, the boundless sea that lays beyond everything, and before everything, and round everything, that great, misty sea of the Unknown, the Hereafter; tryin’ to see what we hain’t never seen, and wonderin’ when we shall see it, and how? and where? and wherefore? and if things be so? and why?

Tryin’ to hear the murmur of them waves that we know are a washin’ up round us on every side, that nobody hain’t never heard, but we know are there; the mighty Past, the mysterious Future. Tryin’ to ketch a glimpse of them shadowy sails that are floatin’ in and out forever more, with a freight of immortal souls, bearin’ them here, and away. We know we have sailed on ’em once, and have got to again—and can’t ketch no glimpse on ’em—can’t know nothin’ about ’em—sealed baby lips, silent, dead lips, never tellin’ nothin’ about ’em. Each soul has got to embark and sail out alone, out into the silence and the shadows—sail out into the mysterious Beyond.