Part 17

“And then,” says she, “when the staff is in our own hands, less we wimmen all put in together and try to keep men from votin’.”

“Never!” says I, “never will you get me into such a scrape as that,” says I. “Men have jest exactly as good a right to vote as wimmen have. They are condemned, and protected, and controlled by the same laws that wimmen are, and so of course are equally interested in makin’ ’em. And I won’t hear another word of such talk. You needn’t try to inviggle me into no plot to keep men from votin’, for justice is ever my theme, and also Josiah.”

Says she, bitterly, “I’d love to make these miserable sneaks try it once, and see how they would like it, to have to spend their property, and be hauled around, and hung by laws they hadn’t no hand in makin’.”

But I still says, with marble firmness, “Men have jest as good a right to vote as wimmen have. And you needn’t try to inviggle me into no such plans, for I won’t be inviggled.”

And so she stopped invigglin’, and went off.

And then again in Betsey’s poetry (though as a neighbor and a female author I never would speak a word aginst it, and what I say I say as a warrior, and would wish to be so took) I would say in kindness, and strictly as a warrior, that besides the deep under-current of foolishness that is runnin’ through it, there is another thought that I deeply condemn. Betsey sot out in married life expectin’ too much. Now, she didn’t marry in the right way, and so she ort to have expected tougher times than the usual run of married females ort to expect; more than the ordinary tribulations of matrimony. But she didn’t; she expected too much.

And it won’t do to expect too much in this world, anyway. If you can only bring your mind down to it, it is a sight better to expect nothing, and then you won’t be disappointed if you get it, as you most probable will. And if you get something it will be a joyful surprise to you. But there are few indeed who has ever sot down on this calm hite of filosify.

Folks expect too much. As many and many times as their hopes have proved to be uronious, they think, well now, if I only had that certain thing, or was in that certain place, I should be happy. But they hain’t. They find when they reach that certain gole, and have clim up and sot down on it, they’ll find that somebody has got onto the gole before ’em, and is there a settin’ on it. No matter how spry anybody may be, they’ll find that Sorrow can climb faster than they can, and can set down on goles quicker. Yes, they’ll find her there.

It hain’t no matter how easy a seat anybody sets down in in this world, they’ll find that they’ll have to hunch along, and let Disappointment set down with ’em, and Anxiety, and Weariness, and et cetery, et cetery.

Now, the scholar thinks if he can only stand up on that certain hite of scientific discovery, he will be happy, for he will know all that he cares about or wants to. But when he gets up there, he’ll see plain; for the higher he is riz above the mists of ignorance that floats around the lower lands, the clearer his vision; and he will see another peak right ahead of him, steeper and loftier and icier than the last, and so on ad infinitum, ad infinity.

Jest as it was with old Miss Peedick, our present Miss Peedick’s mother-in-law. She said (she told me with her own lips) that she knew she should be happy when she got a glass butter-dish. But she said she wasn’t; she told me with her own lips that jest as quick as she got that she wanted a sugar-bowl.

The lover thinks when he can once claim his sweetheart, call her his own, he will be blessed and content; but he hain’t. No matter how well he loves her, no matter how fond she is of him, and how blest they are in each other’s love, they must think, anyway, that the blessedness lacks one thing—permanence.

And though he calls her his own, yet he must feel, if he knows anything, that she is not his own; he must know that he has to dispute for the possession of her daily with one stronger than he is. And if he is tender-hearted and sensitive, the haunting fear must almost rack his soul; the horrible dread of seeing her slip away from him altogether; of sometime reaching out his arms, and finding that nowhere, nowhere can he find her; that in place of her warm, beating heart, whose every throb was full of love for him, is only the vacant spaces, the mysterious wave-beats of emptyness and void; in place of the tender sweetness of her voice, the everlasting silences of eternity.

And though he seek her forever and forever, he can never meet her; never, never, through all this earthly life, find her again. She, the nearest and the dearest, so lately a part of his own life, his own soul, gone from him so swiftly and so utterly, over such a trackless road, as to leave no trace of her footsteps that he may follow her. And though he throw himself upon the turf that covers her, and weary the calm heavens with his wild prayers and questionings, no answer comes; his words fall back again upon his heart, like dust upon dust.

And then, those who love him tell him that the loving hands were unclasped from his that he might forever reach upward, yearning, longing to clasp them again, that he might make his own hands purer, fitter to clasp an angel’s fingers.

That the bright tresses were hidden away under the coffin-lid, that their immortal sheen might gleam through every sunset and every dawning; heaven’s golden seal on the sunset of his joy, the morning of his hope, his faith. That the sweet eyes were darkened here that they might become to his sad heart the glowing light of the future. They say this to him, and he listens to them—maybe.

But if this does not happen to him, if his sweetheart lives on beside him, he finds that this mighty presence steals away—not love, for that is a bit of the infinite dropped down into our souls unbeknown to us, and so is immortal; but he steals the golden sheen of the hair, the eye’s bright luster, the young form’s strength and rounded beauty. Every day, every hour, he is losing something of what he proudly called his own.

You see we don’t own much of anything in this world: it’s curious, but so it is. And what we call our own don’t belong to us, not at all. That is one of the things that makes this such an extremely curious world to live in. Yes, we are situated extremely curious, as much so as the robins and swallows who build their nests on the waving tree-boughs.

We smile at the robin, with our wise, amused pity, who builds her tiny nest with such laborious care high up, out on the waving tree-top, swinging back and forth, back and forth, in every idle wind. Gathering her straws and bits of wood with such patient and tireless care to weave about the frail homes that are to be blown away by the chilly autumn winds, and they also to be driven southward before the snows.

But are not our homes, the sweet homes of our tenderest love, built upon just as insecure foundations, hanging over more mysterious depths, rocking to and fro, and swept to their ruin by a breath from the Unknown? Our dreams, our hopes, our ambitions: what are ye all but the sticks and straws that we weave about our frail nests? Throwing our whole hearts and souls into them, toiling over them, building them for an evanescent summer, to be swept away by the autumn winds. And we also, poor voyagers, blown away through a pathless waste.

But shall we not go unfearing, believing that He who made a balmy south to fulfill the little summer bird’s intuition, her blind hope and trust, has also prepared a place to fulfill our deathless longin’s, our soul’s strongest desires? And over the lonely way, the untried, desolate fields of the future, He will gently guide us thither.

But I am eppisodin’. I said I would relate in this epistol a instance of the devourin’ and insatiable vanity of man, and their invincible unwillingness to let well enough alone. And so, although it is gaulin’ to me, gaulin’ in the extreme, to speak of my companion’s weaknesses, yet, if medicine was not spread before patients, how could colic be cured, and cramps, and etcetery?

Yes, in the name of Duty, as a warnin’ to the sect, dear to me (in a meetin’-house way) for his sake of whom I write, I will proceed, and give a plain and unvarnished history of Josiah’s serenade.

Eliab Gansey, or E. Wellington Gansey, as he has rote his name for years, has been here to Jonesville on a visit. He lives to the Ohio. He is jest about Josiah’s age, and used to be a neighbor of his’n. He was born here, and lived round here till he got to be a young man. But he went to the Ohio to live when he was quite a young chap, and made money fast, and got high in station. Why, some say he got as high as clerk to town meetin’; I don’t know about that, but we do know that he got to be a real big man anyway, and come home here on a visit, forehanded and weighin’ over 300. He was slim as a lucifer match when he went away, or a darnin’-needle.

Wall, his comin’ back as he did made a real commotion and stir in the neighberhood. The neighbers all wanted to do sunthin’ to honor him, and make him happy, and we all sort o’ clubbed together and got up a party for him, got as good a dinner as ever Jonesville afforded, and held it in old Squire Gansey’s dinin’-room. He was cousin to Liab on his father’s side, and had a big house and lived alone, and urged us to have the party there.

Wall, I approved of that dinner, and did all I could to help it along. Talked encouragin’ about it to all the neighberin’ wimmen, and baked two chicken-pies, and roasted a duck, and other vittles accordin’.

And the dinner was a great success. Liab seemed to enjoy himself dretfully, and eat more than was for his good, and so did Josiah; I told Josiah so afterwards.

Wall, we had that dinner for him, all together (as it were). And then we all of us invited him to our own homes seperate, to dinner or supper, as the case might be. We used him first-rate, and he appreciated it, that man did, and he would have gone home feelin’ perfectly delighted with our treatment of him, and leavin’ us feelin’ first-rate, if it hadn’t been for Josiah Allen, if he had been willin’ to take my advice and let well enough alone. And what a happyfyin’ thing that is, if folks would only realize it, happyfyin’ to the folks that let well enough alone, and happyfyin’ to them that are let.

But some are bound to over-do and go beyond all sense and reason. And Josiah wasn’t contented with what he had done for Liab, but wanted to do more—he was bound to serenade him. I argued and argued with him, and tried to get the idee out of his head, but the more I argued aginst the idee, the more firm he was sot onto it.

He said it stood Jonesville in hand to treat that man to all the honors they could heap onto him. And then he told me sunthin’ that I hadn’t heard on before; that Liab talked some of comin’ back here to live: he was so pleased with his old neighbors, they had all used him so well, and seemed to think so much of him.

“And,” says Josiah, “it will be the makin’ of Jonesville if he comes back; and of me, too, for he talks of buyin’ my west lot for a house-lot, and he has offered me 4 times what it is worth, of his own accord,—that is, if he makes up his mind to come back.”

“Wall,” says I, “you wouldn’t take advantage of him, and take 4 times what it is worth, would you?” Says I sternly: “If you do you won’t never prosper in your undertakin’s.”

“He offered it himself,” says Josiah. “I didn’t set no price; he sot it himself. And it wouldn’t be no cheatin’, nor nothin’ out of the way, to take it, and I would take it with a easy conscience and a willin’ mind. But the stick is,” says he dreamily, “the stick is to get him to come back. He likes us now, and if we can only endear ourselves to him a little mite more he will come. And I am goin’ to work for it; I am bound to serenade him.”

Says I coldly: “If you want to endear yourself to him you are goin’ to work in the wrong way.” And says I, still more frigidly: “Was you a layin’ out to sing yourself, Josiah Allen?”

“Yes,” says he, in a animated way. “The way I thought of workin’ it was to have about 8 of us old men, who used to be boys with him, get together and sing some affectin’ piece under his winder; make up a piece a purpose for him. And I don’t know but we might let some wimmen take a hand in it. Mebby you would want to, Samantha.”

“No sir!” says I very coldly. “You needn’t make no calculations on me. I shall have no hand in it at all. And,” says I firmly, “if you know what is best for yourself, Josiah Allen, you will give up the idee. You will see trouble if you don’t.”

“Wall, I s’pose it will be some trouble to us; but I am willin’ to take trouble to please Liab, as I know it will. Why, if I can carry it out, as I think we can, it will tickle that man most to death. Why, I’ll bet after hearin’ us sing, as we shall sing, you couldn’t dog him from Jonesville. And it will be the makin’ of the place if we can only keep him here, and will put more money into my pocket than I have seen for one spell. And I know we can sing perfectly beautiful, if we only set out to. I can speak for myself, anyway; I am a crackin’ good singer, one of the best there is, if I only set out to do my best.”

Oh! what a deep streak of vanity runs through the naters of human men. As many times as it had been proved right out to his face that he couldn’t sing no more than a ginny-hen, or a fannin’-mill, that man still kep’ up a calm and perennial idee that he was a sweet singer.

Yes, it is a deep scientific fact, as I have often remarked to Josiah Allen, that the spring of vanity that gushes up in men’s naters can’t be clogged up and choked. It is a gushin’ fountain that forever bubbles over the brink with perennial and joyful freshness. No matter how many impediments you may put in its way, no matter how many hard stuns of disappointment and revilin’ and agony you may throw into that fountain, it won’t do no more than to check the foamin’ current for a moment. But presently, or sometimes even before that, the irrepressible fountain will soar up as foamin’ly as ever.

As many times, and times agin, as Josiah’s vanity had been trampled on and beat down and stunned, yet how constant and clear it was a bubblin’ up and meanderin’ right before my sight. And before I had got through allegorin’ in my own mind about the curious and scientific subject, he gave me another proof of it.

Says he: “I don’t want you to think, Samantha, because I said I didn’t know but we would let wimmen have a hand in it, I don’t want you to think that we want any help in the singin’. We don’t want any help in the singin’, and don’t need any; but I didn’t know but you would want to help compose some poetry on Liab. Not but what we could do it first-rate, but its a kind o’ busy time of year, and a little help might come good on that account.”

Says I, in a very dry tone,—very: “What a lucky thing it is for Tennyson and Longfellow that you and old Bobbet are so cramped for time. There wouldn’t probable be no call for their books at all, if you two old men only had time to write poetry; it is dretful lucky for them.”

But I didn’t keep up that dry, sarcastical tone long. No, I felt too solemn to. I felt that I must get his mind off of the idee if I possibly could. I knew it would be putting the wrong foot forward to come right out plain and tell him the truth, that he couldn’t sing no more than a steam-whistle or a gong. No, I knew that would be the wrong way to manage. But I says, in a warnin’ and a awful sort of a tone, and a look jest solemn and impressive enough to go with it:

“Remember, Josiah Allen, how many times your pardner has told you to let well enough alone. You had better not try to go into any such doin’s, Josiah Allen. You’ll sup sorrow if you do.”

But it was no use. In spite of all my entreaties and arguments they got it up amongst ’em; composed some poetry (or what they _called_ poetry), and went and sung it over (or what they _called_ singin’) night after night to the school-house; practicin’ it secret so Liab shouldn’t hear of it, for they was a lottin’ on givin’ him such a joyful surprise.

Wall, they practised it over night after night, for over a week. And Josiah would praise it up so to me, and boast over it so, that I fairly hated the word serenade.

“Why,” says he, “it is perfectly beautiful, the hull thirteen pieces we have learnt, but specially the piece we have made up about him; that is awful affectin’.” And says he: “I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Liab should shed tears when he hears it.”

And I’d tell him I persumed it was enough to bring tears from anybody.

And that would mad him agin. He would get mad as a hen at me. But I didn’t care. I knew I was a talkin’ on principle, and I wasn’t goin’ to give in an inch, and I didn’t.

Wall, at last the night come that they had sot to serenade him. I felt like cryin’ all the time he was a fixin’ to go. For next to bein’ a fool yourself, it is gaulin’ to have a pardner make a fool of himself.

But never, never, did I see Josiah Allen so highlarious in his most highlarious times. He acted almost perfectly happy. Why, you would have thought he was a young man to see him act. It was fairly sickish, and I told him so.

“Wall,” says he, as he started out, “you can make light of me all you are a mind to, Samantha, but as long as Josiah Allen has the chance to make another fellow-mortal perfectly happy, and put money in his own pocket at the same time, he hain’t the feller to let the chance slip.”

“Wall,” says I coldly, “shet the gate after you.”

I knew there wuzn’t no use in arguin’ any more with him about it. And I think it is a great thing to know when to stop arguin’ or preachin’ or anythin’. It is a great thing to know enough to stop talkin’ when you have got through sayin’ anythin’. But this is a deep subject; one I might allegore hours and hours on, and still leave ample room for allegory.

And to resoom and continue on, he started off; and I wound up the clock, and undressed and went to bed, leavin’ the back-kitchen door onlocked.

Wall, that was in the neighborhood of 10 o’clock. And I declare for’t, and I hain’t afraid to own it, that I felt afraid. There I was all alone in the house, sunthin’ that hardly ever happened to me, for Josiah Allen was always one that you couldn’t get away from home nights if he could possibly help it; and if he did go I almost always went with him. Yes, Josiah Allen is almost always near me; and though he hain’t probable so much protection as he would be if he weighed more by the steelyards, yet such is my love for him that I feel safe when he is by my side.

I had read only a day or two before about a number of houses bein’ broken open and plundered, besides several cases of rapine; and though I hain’t, I persume, so afraid of burglers as I would be if I had ever been burgled, and though I tried to put my best foot forward, and be calm, still, the solemn thought would come to me, and I couldn’t drive it away: Who knows but what this is the time that I shall be rapined and burgled?

Oh! what a fearful time I did have in my mind, as I lay there in my usually peaceful feather-bed.

Wall, I got wider and wider awake every minute, and thinkses I, I will get up and light the lamp, and read a little, and mebby that will quiet me down. So I got up and sot down by the buro, and took up the last _World_; and the very first piece I read was a account of a house bein’ broke into, between ten o’clock and midnight, and four wimmen massacreed in their beds.

I laid down the _World_, and groaned loud. And then I sithed hard several times. And right there, while I was a sithin’, sunthin’ come kerslop aginst the window, right by my side. And though I hain’t no doubt it was a June bug or a bat, still if it had been a burgler all saddled and bridled that had rode up aginst my winder, it couldn’t have skairt me no worse, and I couldn’t have jumped no higher, I was that wrought up and excited.

Wall, thinkses I, it is the light that has drawed that bat or June bug aginst the winder, and mebby it will draw sunthin’ worse, and I believe I will blow out the light and get into bed agin; I believe I will feel safer.

So I blowed the light out, and got into bed. Wall, I had lain there mebby ten minutes, a tremblin’ and a quakin’, growin’ skairter and skairter every minute, when all of a sudden I heard a rappin’ aginst my winder, and a hoarse sort of a whisper sayin’:

“Josiah Allen! Josiah Allen! Miss Allen!”

It didn’t sound like no voice that I had ever heard, and I jest covered my head up and lay there, with my heart a beatin’ so you could have heard it under the bed. I _knew_ it was a burgler. I knew my time had come to be burgled.

Wall, the whisperin’ and the rappin’ kep’ up for quite a spell, and then it kinder died off; and I got up and peeked through the winder, and then I see a long white figger a movin’ off round the corner of the house toward the back-kitchen. And then I was skairter still, for I knew it was a ghost that was a appearin’ to me. And I had always said, and say still, that I had ruther be burgled than appeared to.

And there I lay, a tremblin’ and a listenin’, and pretty soon I heard steps a comin’ into the back-kitchen, and so along through the house up to my bedroom door. And then there come a rap right onto my door. And though cold shivers was a runnin’ down my back, and goose-pimples was present with me, I knew sunthin’ had got to be done.

There I was alone in the house with a ghost. And thinkses I, I must try to use it well, so’s to get rid of it; for I thought like as not if I madded it, it would stick right by me. And so I says, in as near the words I could remember, as I had hearn tell they talked to spirits:

“Are you a good spirit?” says I. “If you are a good spirit, raise up and rap three times.”

I s’pose my voice sounded low and tremblin’ down under the bed-clothes, and my teeth chattered so loud that they probable drounded the words some. But the rappin’ kep’ up.

And says I agin: “If you are a likely spirit, raise up and rap three times, and then leave.” And then says I, for I happened to think what I had heard they done to get ’em away, for I had been that flustrated and horrer-struck that I couldn’t think of nothin’ hardly, says I:

“I will you away. I will you off out of this house, if you please,” I added, for I was so afraid of maddin’ it. Thinkses I to myself, I would ruther mad a burgler or a rapiner ten times over than to get a apperition out with me. I s’pose I had spoke up louder this time, for the ghost (or what I thought was such) answered back to me, and says:

“I am Miss Moony.”

Says I: “Not she that was Tamer Sansey?”

“Yes, I be.”

Says I, in stern tones, for truth and rectitude is my theme, even in talkin’ with a apperition, and I felt, skairt as I was, that it would be better to improve a ghost than to not be a doin’ anything in the cause of right. And so says I firmly:

“Do you stop tellin’ such stuff to me.” Says I: “You are a lyin’ spirit. Tamer Moony is alive and enjoyin’ middlin’ good health, if she wuzn’t so nervous. Eliab Gansey is a visitin’ of her now. She never was a ghost, nor nothin’ like it, and apperition or not, you shan’t stand there and lie to me.”

Says the voice: “Let me in, Miss Allen; I am Miss Moony, and I am most dead; I am skairt most to death. And,” says she, “I want Josiah Allen to go over to our house right off. Oh! I am most dead,” says she.

I begun to grow calmer. I see it wuzn’t no ghost, and says I: “Wait one minute, Miss Moony.”