Part 14

We can’t get away from ourselves, and get a real change, nohow, unless we knock our heads in and make idiots and lunys of ourselves. Movin’ our bodies round here and there is only a shadow of a change, a mockery, as if I should dress up my Josiah in soldier coats or baby clothes. There he is inside of ’em, clear Josiah, no change in him, only a little difference in his outside circumstances.

Standin’ as we do on a narrow belt of land, which is the Present, and them endless seas a beatin’ round us on every side of us, bottomless, shoreless, ageless—and we a not seein’ either on ’em; under them awful, and lofty, and curious circumstances, what difference does it really make to us whether we are a layin’ down or a standin’ up—whether we are on a hill, or down in a valley—whether a lot on us get together in cities and villages, like aunts on a aunt-hill; or whether we are more alone, like storks or ostridges?

This is a very deep and curious subject. I have talked eloquent on it, I know, and my readers know. But I could go on and filosifize on it jest as powerful and deep for hours and hours. But I have already episoded too far, and to resoom and continue on. I told Tirzah Ann that I thought it was foolish in her.

And she said, “It was very genteel to go away from home for the summer.” She said, “Miss Skidmore was goin’.” She is the other lawyer’s wife to Jonesville, and Tirzah Ann said she was bound to not come in behind her. She said, “Miss Skidmore said that nobody who made any pretensions to bein’ genteel stayed to home durin’ the heated term.”

“What do they go away for, mostly?” says I, in a cool tone, for I didn’t over and above like the plan.

“Oh! for health and—”

“But,” says I, “hain’t you and Whitfield enjoyin’ good health?”

“Never could be better health than we both have got,” says she; “but folks go for health and pleasure.”

“Hain’t you a takin’ comfort now,” says I, “solid comfort?”

“Yes,” says she, “nobody can be happier than Whitfield and I are every day of our lives.”

“Wall,” says I coolly, “then you had better let well enough alone.”

“But,” says she, “folks go for a rest.”

“Rest from what?” says I. “It seems to me that I never in my hull life see nobody look more rested than you and Whitfield do.” Says I, askin’ her right out plain, “Don’t you feel rested, Tirzah Ann?”

“Why yes,” she said, “she did.”

“Wall,” says I, “I knew you did from your looks. Don’t you and Whitfield feel fresh and vigorous and rested every mornin’, ready to take up the labor of the day with a willin’ heart? Do you either of you have any more work to do than is for your health to do? Don’t you find plenty of time for rest and recreation every day as you go along?” Says I: “It is with health jest as it is with cleanin’ house. I don’t believe in lettin’ things get all run down, and nasty, and then once a year tear everything to pieces, and do up the hull cleanin’ of a year to once, and then let everything go again for another year. No! I believe in keepin’ everything slick and comfortable day by day, and year by year. In housens, have a daily mixture of cleanin’ and comfort. In health, have a daily mixture of labor, recreation, and rest. I mean for folks like you and Whitfield, who can do so. Of course some have to work beyond their strength, and stiddy; let them take their rest and comfort when they can get it; better take it once a year, like a box of pills, than not at all. But as for you and Whitfield, I say again, in the almost immortal words of the poet, ‘better let well enough alone.’”

“But,” says she, “I want to do as other folks do. I am bound not to let Miss Skidmore get the upper hands of me. I want to be genteel.”

“Wall,” says I, “if you are determined to foller them paths, Tirzah Ann, you mustn’t come to your ma for advice. She knows nothin’ about them pathways; she never walked in ’em.”

I could see jest where it was. I could see that Miss Skidmore was to the bottom of it all—she and Tirzah Ann’s ambition. I could lay the hull on it to them 2. The Skidmores hadn’t lived to Jonesville but a little while, and Miss Skidmore was awful big-feelin’ and was determined to lead the fashion. She wouldn’t associate with hardly anybody; wouldn’t speak to only jest a few. And when she wuz to parties, or anywhere, she would set kind o’ stunny and motionless—some as if her head was stiff and she couldn’t bend it.

Why, I s’posed the first time I see her appear—it was to quite a big party to Elder Bamber’ses—why, I s’posed jest as much as if I had it on myself, that she had a stiff neck; s’posed she had took cold, and it had settled there. I never mistrusted it was tryin’ to act genteel that ailed her. I see when I was introduced to her that she acted sort o’ curious and stunny, and I stood by and watched her (sunthin’ as I would a small circus), and I see that she acted in jest that way to most everybody that was introduced to her. And I knew, judgin’ her by myself, that she would want to move her head more and act more limber if she could, so I up and told her in a friendly way, that if I was in her place I would steep up some camfrey roots, and take ’em three times a day; and at night I would take some burdock leaves, and wilt ’em, and bind ’em on her neck. Says I:

“Burdock will take that stiffness out of your neck if anything will.”

But Sister Bamber winked me out, and told me what ailed her; told me she kep’ her head up in that sort of a stiff way, and sot in them stunny, motionless autitudes and postures, in order to be genteel and aristocratic. And I felt like a fool to think I had been a recommendin’ burdock for it. For I knew in a minute that when anybody held their neck craned up in that way in order to act genteel and aristocratic—good land! I knew burdock couldn’t help ’em any. I knew it was common sense they wanted, and a true dignity, and the sweet courtesy of gentle breeding,—burdock couldn’t help ’em. Why, some said she felt above old Skidmore himself, and thought she was kinder stoopin’ to associate with him, and talk with him. I don’t know how true that was, but I know she tried to be dretful genteel, and put on sights of airs. And Tirzah Ann bein’ ambitious, and knowin’ she looked a good deal better than she did, and knew as much agin’, and knowin’ that Whitfield was as good agin a lawyer as her husband was, and 3 times as well off, wasn’t goin’ to stand none of her airs. She did seem to sort o’ look down on Tirzah Ann, and feel above her, and it madded Tirzah Ann awfully, for she never felt as I did on that subject.

Now if anybody wanted to put on airs, and feel above me, I shouldn’t do a thing to break it up—not a thing. I should filosofize on it in this way: because they felt as if they was better than I was, that wouldn’t make ’em so; if it would, why I should probable get up more interest on the subject. But it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t make ’em a mite better, nor me a mite worse, so what hurt would it do, anyway? It wouldn’t hender me from feelin’ as cool and contented and happy as a cluster cowcumber at sunrise, and it would probable make them feel sort o’ comfortable and good, so I should be glad they felt.

But not bein’ jealous dispositioned by nater, and and havin’ so many other things to think of—soarin’ and divin’ so high and deep into curious and solemn subjects as I have soared and doven, I s’pose folks might feel milds and milds above me, and I not mistrust what they was a doin’; never find it out in the world unless I was told of it.

Now when Tirzah Ann was about 14 or 15, she that was Keturah Allen, a haughty, high-headed sort of a woman, come to our house a visitin’; stayed most all winter. She was a woman who had seen better days; had been quite fore-handed; and she kep’ her fore-handed ways when her four hands (as you may say in a figirative way) was gone and used up. She was real poor now, hadn’t nothin’ to live on hardly, and I told Josiah that we would invite her to stay quite a spell, thinkin’ it would be a help to her. She was a distant cousin of Josiah; probable as fur off as 7th or 8th.

She had a very disagreeable, high-headed, patronizin’ way with her; very proud and domineerin’ and haughty in her demeanier. But I never had it pass my mind that she was a feelin’ above Josiah and me. But I s’pose she wuz. I s’pose, from what I found out afterwards, that she did feel above us, right there in our own house, for as much as 11 weeks, and I never mistrusted what was goin’ on. And I don’t s’pose I should have found it out to this day if Tirzah Ann hadn’t see it, and up and told me of it.

I see she was awful disagreeable, dretful hard on the nerves and the temper. But I took her as a dispensation, and done, if anything, better by her than I would if she had been more agreeabler. I felt a feelin’ of pity and kindness towards her, a kind of a Biblical feelin’ that should be felt towards the froward—my principles was a performing round her in a martyr way, and a performin’ first rate.

When Tirzah Ann come here (she had been off on a visit), and before she had been home a day, she found out what she was up to. She always had a sort of a jealous, mistrustin’ turn, Tirzah Ann had. And says she that night, as we was a washin’ the dishes to the sink, I a washin’ and she a wipin’:

“Cousin Keturah feels above you, mother.”

“Why, how you talk,” says I. “I never mistrusted what she was a doin’.”

And she had kept watch of little things that I hadn’t noticed or thought of, and says she:

“She did that, mother, because she felt above you.”

“Why, is that so?” says I. “I thought she done it because she thought so much of me.”

And I kep’ on, serene and calm, a washin’ my tea-plates. And Tirzah Ann looked keen at me, and says she:

“Don’t you believe I am tellin’ you the truth, mother? Don’t you believe she does feel above us?”

“Oh, yes,” says I, “I persume you are in the right on’t, though I never should have mistrusted such a thing in the world.”

“Wall, what makes you look so serene and happy over it?”

“Why, I am thinkin’, Tirzah Ann, whether she gets enough comfort out of it to pay her for her trouble. I hope she does, poor thing, for she hain’t got much else to make her happy.”

“You do beat all, mother,” says Tirzah Ann; “you don’t seem to care a mite whether anybody puts on airs and feels above you or not.”

And says I, “That is jest how it is, Tirzah Ann; I don’t.”

“Wall, it makes me mad!” says she, a rubbin’ the teapot hard.

Says I, “What earthly hurt does it do to us, Tirzah Ann? Can you tell?”

“Why, no!” She couldn’t really tell what particular hurt it done, and she rubbed the teapot a little slower and more reasonable.

“Wall,” says I, coolly, “then let her feel. It probable does her some good, or else she wouldn’t tackle the job.”

And jest as I had argued with Tirzah Ann about she that was Keturah Allen, jest so I had argued, and did argue about Miss Skidmore. But I couldn’t convince her—she stuck to it.

“It does look so poor, mother, so fairly sickish, to see anybody that hain’t got nothin’ under the sun to make ’em feel proud, put on such airs, and try to be so exclusive and haughty.”

And says I, “Such folks _have_ to, Tirzah Ann.” Says I, “You’ll find, as a general thing, that they are the very ones who do it. They are the very ones who put on the most airs, and they do it because they _have_ to. Why,” says I, “divin’ so deep into filosify as I have doven, it is jest as plain to me as anything can be, that if anybody has got uncommon goodness, or intellect, or beauty, or wealth, and an assured position, they don’t have to put on the haughtiness and airs that them do that hain’t got nothin’. They don’t _have_ to; they have got sunthin’ to hold ’em up, they can stand without airs.”

I had talked it all over with Tirzah Ann lots of times, but it hadn’t done her a mite of good, as I could see, for I hadn’t got through reveryin’ on the subject, nor begun to, when she up and says agin:

“Miss Skidmore says that all the high aristocracy of Jonesville, if they are aris_to_krits,” says Tirzah Ann—“that is the way she pronounces it, they say she can’t read hardly,—if they are aris_to_krits, and not imposters, they will go away during the summer for a change. And I say, if a change is necessary for her and old Skidmore, why Whitfield and I have got to have a change, if we die in the attempt.”

“A change!” says I, in low axents, a lookin’ round the charmin’, lovely prospect;—the clean, bright cottage, with its open doors and windows, and white ruffled curtains wavin’ on the cool breeze; the green velvet grass, the bright flower beds, the climbing, blossoming vines, the birds singin’ in the shady branches overhead, and in the orchard; the blue lake lyin’ so calm and peaceful in the distance, shining over the green hills and forests; and the wide, cloudless sky bending over all like a benediction.

“A change!” says I, in low, tremblin’ tones of emotion. “Eve wanted a change in Paradise, and she got it, too.”

“But,” says Tirzah Ann, for my tone impressed her fearfully, “don’t you believe in a change for the summer? Don’t you think they are healthy?”

I thought I wouldn’t go into the heights and depths of felosophy in which I had flew and doven—she had heard me time and agin, and eloquence is very tuckerin’ especially after you have been doin’ a hard day’s work—so I merely said:

“When anybody is bakin’ up alive in crowded cities; when the hot sun is shinin’ back on him from brick walls and stony roads; when all the air that comes to them comes hot and suffocatin’, like a simon blowin’ over a desert; to such, a change of body is sweet, and is truly healthy. But,” says I, lookin’ round again on the cool and entrancin’ beauty and freshness of the land and other scape, “to you whom Providence has placed in a Eden of beauty and bloom, to you I again repeat for the 3d time that line of eloquent and beautiful poetry,—‘Better let well enough alone.’”

I could see by the looks of her face that I hadn’t convinced her. But at that very minute Josiah came back, and hollered to me that “he guessed we had better be goin’ back, for he was afraid the hens would get out, and get into the turnips.”

He had jest set out a new bed, and the hens was bewitched to eat the tops off. He had shut ’em up, but felt it was resky to not watch ’em. So we started off. But not before I had told Whitfield my mind about the plan. He looked more convinced than Tirzah Ann did, a good deal more. But I no need to have builded up any hopes on that, onto his mean, for I might have known that when a man loves a woman devotedly, and they haint been married—wall, anywheres from 1 to 4 or 5 years, her influence over him is powerful, and never can be told. She moulds him to her will as easy as clay is moulded in the hands of Mr. Potter. Sometimes she moulds honer into him, and then again dishoner; sometimes she moulds him comfortable, and then again she moulds him hard, and powerful oncomfortable. These things are curious, but useful and entertainin’ to study on, and very deep.

TIRZAH ANN TO A WATERIN’ PLACE.

Wall, if you’ll believe it, after all my eloquent talk, and reasonin’, and everything, the very next week they set off on their journey after a change, on that exertion after rest and pleasure. They come to see us the day before they went, but their plans was all laid, and tickets bought, (they was goin’ to the same place and the same hotel and tavern Skidmore’s folks was), so I didn’t say nothin more—what was the use? Thinkses I, bought wit is the best if you don’t pay too much for it; they’ll find out for themselves whether I was in the right on’t or not.

But bad as I thought it was goin’ to be, little did I think it was goin’ to be so bad as it wuz. Little did I think that Tirzah Ann would be brought home on a bed. But she was. And Whitfield walked with two canes, and had his right arm in a sling. But as I told Josiah, when anybody chased up pleasure so uncommon tight, it wasn’t no wonder they got lamed by it. For pleasure is one of the curiousest things in the world to ketch,—speakin’ in a coltish and parable way. Almost impossible to ketch by chasin’ her. And if anybody don’t believe me, let ’em get up some mornin’ before sunrise, and take a halter, and start off a purpose, and see if they can overtake her;—see if they can ketch her, and put a bit and martingill onto her. See if they don’t find she is skittish and balky, and shies off when they go to put the bits in her mouth. And see, when they think they have got the upper hands of her, whether she don’t throw ’em head over heels, and caper off agin in front of ’em.

I have spoke in a parable way, and would not wish to be understood a thinkin’ pleasure is a horse. Far from it. But this is a very deep subject, and would be apt to carry any one beyond their depth if not simplified and brought down to human comprehension.

The first time I went to see ’em after they got back, Tirzah Ann told me all about it. She could set up some then. But if it wasn’t a pitiful sight to see them three—Whitfield, Tirzah Ann, and the babe. To see how their means looked now, and then to look back and think how they had looked the last time I had seen ’em in that very place. Why, as I looked at ’em, and see how feeble, and mauger, and used up they all looked, there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. Tirzah Ann told me it was a lesson that would last her through her hull life. Why, she said right out plain, that if she should live to be 3 or 400 years old, she shouldn’t never forget it, and I don’t believe myself that she would.

There they was, she and Whitfield, poor as 2 snails. I never see either of ’em in half so poor order before. They hadn’t no ambition nor strength to work. Their morals had all got run down. Their best clothes was all wore out. And that babe! I could have cried, and wept, to see how that pretty little thing was lookin’. Poor as a feeble young snail, and pale as a little white cotton piller-case. Her appetite was all gone, too. She had always been used to sweet, fresh milk—the milk from her own heifer, white as snow, with a brindle back, that her grandpa give her for the name of Samantha. It gives dretful sweet, rich milk. And the babe almost lived on it. And all the milk they could get for her there was sale milk, sour half the time, and at the best full of adultery, so Whitfield said. And I don’t think anything that happened to them on their hull tower made Josiah and me so mad as that did. To think of that sweet little babe’s sufferin’ from adulted and sour milk. It made us so awful indignant that we can’t hardly speak peacible now, a talkin’ about it.

And then they was all cooped up together in a little mite of a room, and she was used to bein’ out-doors half the time, and had a great, cool, airy room to sleep in nights; and bein’ shet up so much, in such close, bad air, it all wore on her, and almost used her up. Oh! how pale she was, and mauger, and cross! Oh! how fearfully cross! She would almost take our heads off, Josiah’s and mine, (as it were,) every time we would speak to her. It was dretful affectin’ to me to see her so snappish; it reminded me so of her grandpa in his most fractious hours, and I told him it did. Josiah felt bad to see her so; it cut him down jest as bad as it did me.

And then to see Whitfield’s and Tirzah Ann’s demeaniers and means! Why jest as sure as I live and breathe they didn’t seem no more like their old means and demeaniers than if they belonged to perfect strangers, and I told Tirzah Ann so.

And she bust right out a-cryin’, and says she, “Mother, one week’s more rest would have tuckered me completely out. I could not have stood it, I should have died off.”

I wiped my own eyes, I was so affected, and says I, in choked-up axents, “You know I told you how it would be, I told you that you was happy enough to home, and you hadn’t better go off in search of pleasure.”

Says she, bustin’ right out agin, “One week more of pleasure and recreation would have been my death-blow.”

Says I, “I believe it. But,” says I, knowin’ it was my duty to be calm, “It is all over now, Tirzah Ann. You hain’t got to go through the pleasure agin. You hain’t got to rest any more. You must try to overcome your feelin’s. Tell your ma all about it,” says I, thinkin’ it would mebby do her good, and get her mind offen it quicker.

So she up and told me the hull story. And I see plain that Miss Skidmore was to the bottom of it all. She and Tirzah Ann’s determination to not let her get ahead of her, and be more genteel than she was. Tirzah Ann said she was jest about sick when they started, for she found out most the last minute that Miss Skidmore had one dress more than she had, and a polenay, and so she sent at once for materials and ingregients, and sot up day and night and worked till she had got hers made, full as good and a little ahead of Miss Skidmore’s.

Wall, they started the same day, and went to the same place, a fashionable summer resort, and put up to the same tavern, a genteel summer tavern, to rest and recreate. And Miss Skidmore bein’ a great, healthy, strong, raw-boned woman, could stand as much agin rest and recreation as Tirzah Ann could.

Why, Tirzah Ann said the rest was enough to wear out a leather woman, and how she ever stood it for two weeks was more than she could tell.

You see she wasn’t used to hard work. I had always favored her, and gone ahead with the work myself, when she lived to home; and Whitfield had been as careful of her as he could be, and jest as good as a woman to help her, and so the rest come tough on her; it was dretful hard on her. But as hard as the rest was for her, I s’pose the recreation was as bad agin; I s’pose it was twice as tough on her.

You see she had to dress up 3 or 4 times a day, and keep the babe dressed up slick. And she had to prominade down to the waterin’ place and drink at jest such a time. And go a-ridin’ out on the water in boats and yots; and had to play crokay, and be up till midnight every night to parties. You see she had to do all this, ruther than let Miss Skidmore get on ahead of her, and do more than she did, be more genteel than she was, and rest more.

Their room was a little mite of a room up four flights of stairs, and Tirzah Ann never could climb stairs worth a cent; and it leaked awful—the rain come down round the chimbley. But they had to take that room or none, the house bein’ so full and runnin’ over. And Whitfield thinkin’ they could rest better in it than they could on the fence or door-step, took it. But if there happened to come up a storm in the night, a thunder-storm or anything, they would have to histe their umberells and lay under ’em. They must have looked as curious as 2 dogs, and I told ’em so.

The room bein’ so high up, it wore on Tirzah Ann—she never could climb stairs worth a cent. And then it was so small, the air was close, nearly tight, and hot as a oven. And the babe bein’ used to large, cool rooms, full of fresh, pure air, couldn’t stand the hotness and the tightness, and it begun to enjoy poor health, and it cried most all the time. And to home it could play round out in the yard all day a’most, and here it hung right onto its ma. And before long she begun to enjoy poor health.