Part 16

“Good land!” says I, “do you s’pose I care a cent what a thing is called?” Says I: “I have seen cider that three glasses of it would fix a man out so he couldn’t tell how many childern he had, or fathers and mothers, no more than he could count the stars in the zodiact. And couldn’t walk straight and upright, no more than he could bump his old head aginst the moon. When a man is dead what difference does it make to him whether he died from a shotgun or billerous colic, or was skairt to death? And what difference does it make when a man is made a fool of, whether it is done by one spunefull or a dozen, or a quart? The important thing to him is, he is a fool.”

“Yes, ’n I’ll take a glass of cider, if you please.”

I started right straight for the back stoop and hollered to Josiah.

That skairt him. He started kinder sideways for the door, got holt of the latch, and says he:

“I come to labor with you, n’ I don’t want to leave you goin’ the broad road to destruction; but I will,” says he, with a simple sort of a smile, and as foolish a wink as I ever see wunk, “I will if you’ll give me a drink of cider, if you please.”

Says I, firmly, “You will take a broader road than you have calculated on, if you don’t clear out of this house, instantly and to once.” And as I still held my umberell in my hand, I held it up in a threatnin’ way in my left hand, some like a spear. And he started off and went staggerin’ down the road.

I was a wonderin’ awfully who he was, and what he come for, when Miss Bobbet come in to bring home a drawin’ of tea, and she was so full of news that she most fell aginst the door, as wimmen will when they are freighted too heavy with gossip. And she said it was Elder Judas Wart, a Mormon Elder, who had come back to Jonesville again.

“And,” says she, hurryin’ to relieve herself, for her mind was truly loaded heavy with news beyond its strength, “what do you think now about the Widder Bump bein’ a Mormon. I told you she was one, a year ago, and other wimmen told you so, but you would stick to it that she was a camel.”

“Yes,” says I, “in the name of principle I have upholded that woman and called her a camel.”

“Wall,” says she, “camel or not, she was sealed to Elder Judas Wart last week. You know she went home to her mother’s in the spring. And he has been out there all summer holdin’ his meetin’s, and married her.

“He told us all about it to-day. He said he hadn’t hardly a wife by him but what was disabled in some way from workin’. He said he was fairly discouraged. Eleven of ’em was took down with the tyfus, violent. A few of ’em, he didn’t hardly know jest how many, but quite a number of ’em, had the chills. Two or three of ’em was bed-rid. Four of ’em had young babes; and he said he felt it was not good for man to be alone, and he needed a wife—so he married the Widder Bump and sent her on to Utah by express to take charge of things till he come. He had meetin’s to Jonesville last spring, and Bobbet went to ’em.”

“Bobbet went to ’em,” says I, mechanically. For oh! what strange and curious feelin’s was a tacklin’ of me. Memeries of that terrible crysis in my life when I heard the mutterin’s of a earthquake, a rumblin’ and a roarin’ unbeknown to me. When everything in life seemed uncertain and wobblin’ to a Samantha, and a Josiah talked in his slumbers of a Widder Bump.

“Yes,” says she, “Bobbet owned it all up to me, jest now. He wouldn’t, if the Elder hadn’t come in and acted so glad to see him. But, if you’ll believe it, Bobbet looked as if he would sink when he said he had married the Widder Bump. And he says he hain’t goin’ to have no new overcoat made this winter. And he has been sot on havin’ one.”

“Bobbet owned it all up to you,” says I, speakin’ agin mechanically, for I felt fairly stunted by the emotions that was rushin’ onto me.

“Yes, I remember he used to go evenin’s to Jonesville a sight, last spring, when I had the quinzy and was laid up. But I s’posed he went to the Methodist Conference meetin’s. But he didn’t, he went to hear Elder Judas Wart. And Bobbet says Josiah Allen went to ’em, too.”

At them fearful words I groaned aloud. I wouldn’t say a word aginst my pardner. But to save my life I couldn’t keep that groan back. It fairly groaned itself (as it were), my feelin’s was such.

It was a fearful groan, deep and melancholy in the extreme. I was determined to not say one word about my feelin’s concernin’ my pardner, and I didn’t, only jest that groan. She is quite a case to make mischief in families, but she hain’t got a thing to carry from me, only jest that groan. And there can’t be much done, even in a court of law, with one plain groan, and nothin’ else; there can’t be much proved by it.

She is a pryin’ woman, and I see she mistrusted sunthin’. Says she:

“What is the matter, Josiah Allen’s wife? What are you groanin’ for, so heavy?”

I wouldn’t come right out and tell the awful emotions that was performin’ through my mind—and at the same time I wouldn’t lie. So I broke out sort o’ eloquent, and says I:

“When I think what female wimmen have suffered, and are sufferin’, from this terrible sin of polygamy, it is enough to make anybody groan.” Says I, “I feel guilty, awful guilty, to think I hain’t done sunthin’ before now to stop it. Here I have,” says I, growin’ fearfully excited, “here I have jest sot down here, with my hands folded (as it were), and let them doin’s go on without doin’ a single thing to break it up. And it makes me feel fairly wicked when I think of that address the sufferin’ female wimmen of Utah sent out to Miss Hays and me.”

“To Miss Hays and you?” says Miss Bobbet, in a sort of a jealous way. “I don’t know as it was sent to you special. It said Miss Hays, and the other wimmen of the United States.”

“Wall,” says I, “hain’t I a woman, and hain’t Jonesville right in the very center of the United States?”

“Why yes,” says she. Miss Bobbet will always give up when she is convinced. I’ll say that for her.

“Wall,” says I, “that address that they sent out to us was one of the most powerful and touchin’ appeals for help ever sent out by sufferin’ humanity. And here I hain’t done a thing about it, and I don’t believe Emily has.”

“Emily who?” says she.

“Why, Emily Hays,” says I. “Rutherford Hays’es wife. She that was Emily Webb. As likely a woman as ever entered that White House. A woman of gentle dignity, sweet, womanly ways, earnest christian character, and firm principles. No better or better-loved woman has ever sot up in that high chair since Lady Washington got down out of it. A good-lookin’ woman, too,” says I proudly. “She has got a fair face and a fair soul. Her christian example is as pure and clear as the water she makes them old congressmen drink to her dinner-table, and is as refreshin’, and as much of a rarity to ’em. I can tell you,” says I, “it makes me and America proud, it tickles both of us most to death, to think our representative lady is one so admirable in every way. And foreigners can gaze at her all they are a mind to. We hain’t afraid to let ’em peruse her through the biggest telescopes they can get; they won’t find nothin’ in her face nor her nature but what we are proud of, both of us.

“But in this matter I’ll bet a cent Emily hain’t made a move, no more than I have. We have been slack in it, both on us. But as for me,” says I firmly, “I am determined to be up and a doin’.”

And oh! how I sithed (to myself) as I thought it over. Emily hadn’t had the fearful lesson that I had had. Her pardner’s morals never had wobbled round and tottered under the pressure of this pernicious doctrine, and a Widder Bump. My sithes was fearful, as I thought it over, but they was inward and silent ones. For my devotion to my pardner is such that I would not give even the testimony of a sithe against my Josiah.

When necessary, and occasion demands it, I scold Josiah myself, powerful; I have to. But I will protect him from all other blame and peril, as long as I have a breath left in my lung, or a strength left in my armpit.

But oh! what feelin’s I felt, what deep, though silent, sithes I sithed, as I thought it over to myself. How the posy will not give out its perfume; will hang right onto it with its little, dainty, invisible hands till it is trod on; then it gives it up—has to. And gold won’t drop a mite of its dross; obstinate, haughty, holdin’ right onto it till it is throwed into the fire, and heat put to it.

And to foller up the simelys, Josiah Allen’s wife’s heart had to be tried in the fiery furnace of pain and mortifacture before it would give up and do its duty.

Oh! how my conscience smoted me as I thought it over. Thought how the hand of personal sufferin’ had to fairly whip me into the right. There had hundreds and thousands of my own sect been for year after year a sufferin’ and a agonizin’. Bearin’ the heaviest of crosses with bleedin’ hands, and eyes so blinded with tears they could hardly ketch a glimpse of the sweet heavens of promise above ’em. And how at last, bein’ fairly drove to it in their despair, they writ to Emily and me for help: help to escape out of the deeps of personal and moral degradation; help to rescue them and the whole land from barberism and ruin. And there we hadn’t paid no more attention to that letter than if it hadn’t been wrote to us.

Oh! how guilty I felt. I felt as if I was more to blame than Emily was, for her house was bigger than mine, and she had more to do. And she hadn’t had the warnin’ I had. I was the guilty one. In the spring of the year, and on a Friday night, right up on the ceilin’ of our kitchen had those fearful words been writ, jest as they was in Bellshazzer’ses time:

“_Mean! mean!_ tea-kettle!” and et cetery. Which bein’ interpreted in various ways, held awful meanin’s in every one of ’em. “_Mean! mean!_” showin’ there was mean doin’s a goin’ on; “tea-kettle!” showin’ there was bilin’ water a heatin’ to scald and torture me. And takin’ it all together this awful meanin’ could be read: “Josiah Allen is weighed in the ballances, and is found wantin’.”

I hadn’t heeded those fiery words of warnin’. I had covered my eyes, and turned away from interpretations (as it were). Forebodin’s had foreboded, and I hadn’t minded their ’bodin’s. Forerunners had run right in front of me, and I wouldn’t look at these forerunners, or see ’em run.

Blind trust and affection for a Josiah had blinded the eyes of a Samantha; but now, when the truth was brought to light by a Miss Bobbet, when I could see the awful danger that had hung over me on a Friday night and in the spring of the year, when I could almost hear the whizzin’ of the fatal arrow aimed at my heart, my very life—now I could realize how them hearts felt where the arrows struck, where they was a quiverin’ and a smartin’ and a ranklin’.

Now, it felt a feelin’, my heart did, that it was willin’, while a throb of life remained in it, to give that throb to them fellow-sufferers (fellow-female-sufferers). And when Miss Bobbet said, jest as she started for home, that Elder Judas Wart wanted to have a talk with me on religion and mormonism, I said, in a loud, eloquent voice:

“Fetch him on! Bring him to me instantly! and let me argue with him, and convert him.”

I s’pose my tone and my mean skairt her, she not knowin’ what powerful performances had been a performin’ in my mind. And I heard that she went right from our house and reported that I was after the Elder. So little is worldly judgment to be relied upon. But nobody believed it, and if they had, I shouldn’t have cared, no more than I should have cared for the murmurin’ of the summer breeze. When the conscience is easy, the mind is at rest. I knew there was three that knew the truth on’t: the Lord, Elder Judas Wart, and myself. I count Josiah and me as one, which is lawful, though Josiah says that I am the one the biggest heft of the time. He said “he made calculations when he married me, when we was jined together as one, that he would be that one.”

And I told him, “Man’s calculations was blindin’, and oft deceivin’.”

I said it in a jokin’ way. I let him be the “one” a good deal of the time, and he knows it.

But, as I was a sayin’, them three that knew it was all that was necessary to my comfort and peace of mind.

Josiah looked sad and depressted, and I knew, for I see old Bobbet leanin’ over the barnyard fence while he was a milkin’, and I knew they had been talkin’ over the news. And when he come in with his second pail-full of milk, lookin’ so extra depressted, my mean was some colder, probable about like ice cream, only not sweet; no, not at all sweet—quite the reverse.

After Miss Bobbet’s departure, the night that ensued and followed on was fearful and agonizin’. What to do with Josiah Allen I knew not. But I made my mind up not to tackle him on the subject then, but wait till I was more calm and composed down. I also thought I would do better to take the daylight to it. So I treated him considerable the same as my common run of treatment towards him was, only a little more cool—not cold as ice, but coolish.

But oh! what emotions goared me that night, as I lay on my goose-feather pillow, with Josiah by my side a groanin’ in his sleep frequent and mournful. He couldn’t keep awake, that man couldn’t, not if all the plagues of Egypt was a plaguin’ him, as I often remarked to him.

But while such emotions was a performin’ in my mind, there wuzn’t no sleep for me. Some of the time I was mad at Josiah Allen, and then agin I was mad at the Government. Some of the time I would feel indignant at Josiah, clear Josiah; and then agin, as he would sithe out loud and heart-breakin’ sithes, my affection for him would rise up powerful, and I would say to myself—oritorin’ eloquent right there in the dead of the night—“Why should I lay all the blame of a pernicious system onto my sufferin’ pardner? Human nater is weak and prone to evil, especially man human nater, which is proner. And when Government keeps such abysses for men to walk off of, and break their necks (morally), who should be scolded the most—them men after their necks are broke, or the ones who dug the abysses, or let ’em be dug?

“Let this band of banditty flourish on shore—furnished land for ’em to flourish on—and furnished ships to go out over the ocian and hunt round for foreign souls to ruin. Who calmly looked on and beheld its ships bear to our shores hundreds and thousands of the ignorant peasantry of the old world—fair-faced Swedish and Danish maidens, blue-eyed German girls, and bright English and Irish lassies—lookin’ with innocent, wonderin’ eyes toward a new life—innocent youth, deceived by specious falsehoods, pourin’ onto our shores like pure rills of water, to fall into that muddy gulf of corruption and become putrid also—and our Government lookin’ calmly on, happy as a king, and pretendin’ to be religious.”

I declare! as I thought it all over, I was as mad with the Government as I was with my pardner, and I don’t know but madder.

Scolded, Josiah Allen had got to be—that I knew. But I hankered, I hankered awfully, right there in the dead of the night, to tackle the Government, too, and scold it fearfully. I felt that I must be up and a doin’. I yearned to tackle Elder Judas Wart, and argue with him with a giant strength. But little did I think that in a few days I should be a doin’ of it.

A SERENADING EPISODE, &c.

These verses of Betsey’s come out in the last week’s _Gimlet_, and I call it foolish stuff. Though (on measurin’ ’em in a careless way with a yard-stick) I found the lines was pretty nigh of a equal length, and so I s’pose it would be called poetry.

A WIFE’S STORY.

Oh Gimlet! back again I float, With broken wings, a weary bard; I cannot write as once I wrote, I have to work so very hard; So hard my lot, so tossed about, My muse is fairly tuckered out.

My muse aforesaid once hath flown, But now her back is broke, and breast; And yet she fain would crumple down; On Gimlet pages she would rest, And sing plain words as there she’s sot— Haply they’ll rhyme, and haply not.

I spake plain words in former days, No guile I showed, clear was my plan; My gole it matrimony was; My earthly aim it was a man. I gained my man, I won my gole; Alas! I feel not as I fole.

Yes, ringing through my maiden thought This clear voice rose: “Oh come up higher.” To speak plain truth, with candor fraught, To married be was my desire. Now, sweeter still this lot shall seem, To be a widder is my theme.

For toil hath claimed me for her own, In wedlock I have found no ease; I’ve cleaned and washed for neighbors round, And took my pay in beans and pease; In boiling sap no rest I took, Or husking corn, in barn, and shock.

Or picking wool from house to house, White washing, painting, papering; In stretching carpets, boiling souse; E’en picking hops, it hath a sting, For spiders there assembled be, Mosquitoes, bugs, and e t c.

I have to work, oh! very hard; Old Toil, I know your breadth and length; I’m tired to death, and, in one word, I have to work beyond my strength. And mortal men are very tough To get along with,—hasty, rough.

Yes, tribulation’s doomed to her Who weds a man, without no doubt. In peace a man is singuler; His ways they are past findin’ out. And oh! the wrath of mortal males— To point their ire, earth’s language fails.

And thirteen children in our home Their buttons rend, their clothes they burst, Much bread and such do they consume; Of children they do seem the worst. And Simon and I do disagree; He’s prone to sin continuallee.

He horrors has, he oft doth kick, He prances, yells,—he will not work. Sometimes I think he is too sick; Sometimes I think he tries to shirk. But ’tis hard for her, in either case, Who B. Bobbet was in happier days.

Happier? Away! such thoughts I spurn. I count it true, from spring to fall, ’Tis better to be wed, and groan, Than never to be wed at all. I’d work my hands down to the bone Rather than rest a maiden lone.

This truth I will not, cannot shirk, I feel it when I sorrow most: I’d rather break my back with work, And haggard look as any ghost,— Rather than lonely vigils keep, I’d wed and sigh, and groan and weep.

Yes, I can say, though tears fall quick, Can say, while briny tear-drops start, I’d rather wed a crooked stick Than never wed no stick at all. Sooner than laughed at be, as of yore, I’d rather laugh myself no more.

I’d rather go half-clad and starved, And mops and dish-cloths madly wave, Than have the words “B. Bobbet” carved On headstun rising o’er my grave. Proud thought! now, when that stun is risen, ’Twill bear two names—my name and hisen.

Methinks ’twould colder make the stun If but one name, the name of she, Should linger there alone—alone. How different when the name of he Does also deck the funeral urn; Two wedded names,—his name and hurn.

And sweeter yet, oh blessed lot! Oh state most dignified and blest! To be a widder, calmly sot, And have both dignity and rest. Oh, Simon! strangely sweet ’twould be To be a widder unto thee.

The warfare past, the horrors done, With maiden’s ease and pride of wife, The dignity of wedded one, The calm and peace of single life,— Oh, strangely sweet this lot doth seem; A female widder is my theme.

I would not hurt a hair of he, Yet, did he from earth’s toils escape, I could most reconciléd be, Could sweetly mourn, e’en without crape, Could say, without a pang of pain, That Simon’s loss was Betsey’s gain.

I’ve told the plain tale of my woes, With no deceit, or language vain, Have told whereon my hopes are rose, Have sung my mournful song of pain. And now I e’en will end my tale, I’ve sung my song, and wailed my wail.

_I_ have made a practice of callin’ that Poetry, bein’ one that despises envy and jealousy amongst female authoresses. No, you never ketch me at it, bein’ one that would sooner help ’em up the ladder than upset ’em, and it is ever my practice so to do. But truth must be spoke if subjects are brung up. Uronious views must be condemned by Warriors of the Right, whether ladders be upset or stand firm on their legs—poetesses also.

I felt that this poetry attacted a tender subject, a subject dearer to me than all the world besides—the subject of Josiah. Josiah is a man.

And I say it, and I say it plain, that men hain’t no such creeters as she tries to make out they be. Men are first-rate creeters in lots of things, and are as good as wimmen be any day of the week.

Of course I agree with Betsey, that husbands are tryin’ in lots of things; they need a firm hand to the hellum to guide ’em along through the tempestuous waves of married life, and get along with ’em. They are lots of trouble, but then I think they pay after all. Why, I wouldn’t swap my Josiah for the best house and lot in Jonesville, or the crown of the Widder Albert. I love Josiah Allen. And I don’t know but the very trouble he has caused me makes me cling closer to him. You know the harder a horse’s head beats aginst burdock burs the tighter the burdocks will cling to its mane. Josiah makes me sights of trouble, but I cling to him closely.

I admit that men are curious creeters, and very vain, and they hain’t willin’ to let well enough alone. They over-do, and go beyond all sense and reason. A instance of these two strong traits of their’s has jest occurred and took place, which, as a true historian relatin’ solemn facts, I will relate in this epistol.

Yes, men are tejus creeters a good deal of the time. But then agin, so be wimmen, jest as tejus, and I don’t know but tejuser. I believe my soul, if I had got to be born agin, I had jest as lieves be born a man as a woman, and I don’t know but I drather.

No, I don’t think one sect ort to boast over the other one. They are both about equally foolish and disagreeable, and both have their goodnesses and nobilities, and both ort to have their rights.

Now I hain’t one to set up and say men hadn’t ort to vote, that they don’t know enough, and hain’t good enough, and so forth and so on. No, you don’t ketch me at it. I am one that stands up for justice and reason.

Now, the other day a wild-eyed woman, with short hair, who goes round a lecturin’ on wimmen’s rights, come to see me, a tryin’ to inviggle me into a plot to keep men from votin’. Says she, “The time is a drawin’ near when wimmen are a goin’ to vote, without no doubt.”

“Amen!” says I. “I can say amen to that with my hull heart and soul.”