Part 18

And I ketched up the first weepon I could get holt of to defend myself, if she should prove to be a imposter. It was Fox’es Book of Martyrs, and I calculated in case of need to jest throw them old martyrs at her in a way she would remember. But it didn’t prove to be no imposter. When I opened the door there stood Tamer Moony a tremblin’ in her night-gown, with not a sign of a shoe nor a stockin’ on her feet, nor a bonnet on, nor nothin’.

“Why, for the land’s sake, Tamer Moony” says I, “what is the matter? What are you here at this time of night for, and in this condition?” says I.

“Why,” says she, a tremblin’ like a popple-leaf, “there is the awfulest goin’s on up to our house that you ever see. There is murderin’ a goin’ on! Liab has been murdered in cold blood!” says she, a wringin’ her hands, and groanin’ and sithin’ like a wild woman.

“What makes you think so?” says I. “What have you seen? Have you been hurt? Where is Mandna?” says I.

“Oh, Mandy has gone over to Dagget’s to roust them up. Oh! Oh! them awful sounds! They are a ringin’ through my ears yet!” says she, a wringin’ her hands and a groanin’ wilder than ever.

Says I firmly, but kindly: “Tamer Moony, try to be calm, and compose yourself down. Tell me jest what you have seen and heerd, and how it begun.”

“Wall, in the first place, Mandana and I was rousted up out of sleep by hearin’ a noise down in the yard, and we got up and peeked through the winder, and we see 7 or 8 men,—wild, savage-lookin’ men,—a prowlin’ along through the yard; some of ’em walked with canes. I persume they had swords in ’em. Mandy thought she see the swords—bloody swords. And as we stood there a peekin’ through the blinds, we see ’em prowl their way along round the house towards Liab’s winder. And then, a minute or two after, we heerd the awfulest sounds we ever heerd, the most fearful and agonizin’. I s’pose it was Liab a groanin’ and screechin’ when they killed him. And then they seemed to screech out and yell the most harrowin’ and blood-curdlin’ sounds I ever heerd. Mandy said she knew they was Injuns. No other race could have made such hideous and unearthly noises. She said she had heerd that Injuns gin jest such awful and melancholy yells when they was on the war-path.

“Wall, them awful sounds took every mite of our strength away. We stood there tremblin’ like two leaves, till finally we made out to totter down the back stairs; and she run to Dagget’ses, and I started acrost the lots here, for we thought the hull neighborhood ort to be rousted up. I am most dead! Oh! poor Liab! poor Liab! And his wife and childern happy at home! Who will carry the awful news to ’em? He was probable killed before I got out of the house. I thought I suffered when I lost my husband and 4 childern within a year, but this goes ahead of anything I ever see. So harrowin’ and awful; to have Liab, my only brother, killed right under my ruff, and I couldn’t help it. Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?”

I see she was jest a tumblin’ over into a historical fit, and I laid her down on my bed, and broke it to her gradual, what the trouble was. And then she had the historicks worse than ever. She broke out into a laugh so loud that you could hear her clear to the road, and then she broke out a cryin’ so you could hear her et cetery and the same. And then she would claw right into me, and tear and rip round.

But good land! she didn’t know what she was a doin’, she was so full of the historicks. She was jest a pullin’ and a tearin’ at the bottom sheet when Josiah Allen came a meachin’ in. A meachiner-lookin’ creeter I never beheld. And from what I learned afterwards, well he might meach. And as bad as he looked, he looked worse when I says to him, says I:

“I told you, Josiah Allen, to let well enough alone, but you wouldn’t; and you can see now what you have done with your serenadin’ and foolery. You have killed Miss Moony, for what I know, and,” says I, in still sterner axents, “a hull piece of factery cloth won’t make our loss good.”

Then Josiah groaned awful, and says I:

“What worse effects have follered on after your serenadin’, I don’t know.”

Josiah kep’ on a groanin’ pitifuller and pitifuller, and I see then that his head was all bruised up. It looked as if he had been pelted with sunthin’ hard, and there was a bunch riz up over his left eye as big as a banty’s egg, and it was a swellin’ all the time stiddy and constant. And from that night, right along, I kep’ bread and milk poultices on it, changin’ from lobelia to catnip, as I see the swellin’ growed or diminished.

His sufferin’s was awful, and so was mine, for all the first 3 days and nights I thought it would mortify, do the best I could, it looked that black and angry. His agony with it was intense, and also with his mind—his mind bein’ near the swellin’, made it worse, mebby—his mortification and disapointment was that overwhelmin’ and terrible. It was the water-pitcher, as I hearn afterwards, that Liab had pelted him with.

I s’pose from what I heerd afterwards, that they had the awfulest time that was ever heard of in Jonesville, or the world. Liab jest throwed everything at ’em he could lay his hands on. Why, them old men was jest about killed. He pretended to think they was burglers and tramps, but I never believed it for a minute. I believe it madded him to be waked up out of a sound sleep, and see them 8 old creeters makin’ perfect fools of themselves.

Some think that he had been kinder sot up by some jealous-minded person, and made to think the Jonesvillians wanted to make money out of him, and cheat him; and he was always dretful quick-tempered, that everybody knows.

And some think that he thought it was a lot of young fellers dressed up in disguise, a tryin’ to make fun of him, callin’ him “Eliab.” He always hated the name Eliab, and had felt above it for years, and wrote his name E. Wellington Gansey. But as he left on the first train in the morning, I don’t s’pose we shall ever know the hull truth of the matter.

But anyway, whatever was the cause, he bruised up them old men fearful. Eliab was strong and perseverin’, and a good calculator, or he never could have laid up the property he had. Every blow hit jest where it would hurt the worst. He pelted them old men perfectly fearful. They had composed a lot of verses—over 20 they say there was of ’em—that they was a layin’ out to sing to him. They didn’t sing but 3, I believe, when the first boot hit ’em, but they say they kep’ on singin’ the next verse, bein’ determined to mollify him down, till they got so bruised and battered up that they had to flee for their very lives. The verses run like this:

Who did from the Ohio come To visit round in his old home, And make the neighbers happy, some?

Eliab.

With melody we him will cheer, And keep Eliab Gansey here. Who is this man we love so dear?

Eliab.

If music sweet as can be had Can sooth thee, make thee blest and glad, Then never more shalt thou be sad,

Eliab.

I s’pose it was jest at this very minute that the washbowl flew and struck old Bobbet in the small of the back, and crumpled him right down; he was sort o’ bent over the accordeon. They didn’t play the accordeon all the time they was singin’, as I have been told, but between the verses; jest after they would sing “Eliab,” they would play a few notes sort o’ lively.

It was Josiah’s idee, as I heard afterwards, their takin’ the accordeon. They couldn’t one of ’em play a tune, or anything that sounded like a tune, but he insisted it would look more stylish to have some instrument, and so they took that old accordeon that used to belong to Shakespeare Bobbet.

They had planned it all out, and had boasted that they had got up something in their own heads that hadn’t never been heerd of in Jonesville. And well they might say so, well they might.

Wall, there wasn’t one of them 8 old fellers that was good for anything for the next 4 weeks. Eliab’s folks try to make the best of it. They say now that Eliab always did, when he was first rousted up out of a sound sleep, act kinder lost and crazy. They tell that now to kind o’ smooth it over, but I think, and I always shall think, that he knew jest who he was a hittin’, and what he was a hittin’ ’em with. It was the glass soap-dish that struck old Dagget’s nose. And I wish you could have seen that nose for the next 3 weeks. It used to be a Roman, but after that night it didn’t look much like a Roman.

Eliab’s boots was the very best of leather, and they had a new-fashioned kind of heels, some sort o’ metal or other, and Cornelius Cook says they hit as powerful as any cannon balls would; he goes lame yet. You know the shin-bone is one of the tenderest bones in the hull body to be hit aginst.

It was the bootjack that hit the Editor of the Augur’ses head. His wife was skairt most to death about him, and she says to me—she had come over to see if she could get some wormwood—and she says:

“He never will get over that bootjack in the world, I don’t believe. His head is swelled up as big as two heads ought to be.”

And says I: “It always happens so, don’t it, that the weakest spot is the one that always gets hit?”

I was sorry for her as I could be. And I gin her the wormwood, and recommended her to use about half and half smartweed. Says I: “Smartweed is good for the outside of his head, and if it strikes in it won’t hurt him none.”

I felt to sympathize with her. Old Sansey hain’t got over the slop-jar yet. It brought on other complaints that he was subject to, and the Dr. says he may get over it, and he may not.

But as bad as it was for all the rest, it was the worst for Josiah Allen—as bad agin.

It wuzn’t so much the hurt he got that night, though I thought for quite a spell that it would have to be operated on, and I didn’t know but it would prove to be his death-blow. And it wuzn’t so much our sufferin’s with Miss Moony, though them was fearful, bein’ up with her all that night, and workin’ over her to keep the breath of life in her, and she a clawin’ at us, and a ketchin’ holt of us, and a laughin’, and a cryin’. We had to send for the neighbors, we was that skairt about her, and Josiah had to go for the doctor right in the dead of night, with his head a achin’ as if it would split open.

And it wuzn’t so much the thought of losin’ Eliab and money, though Josiah was dretfully attached to both, and he felt the loss of both on ’em more deeply than tongue can ever tell. But that wuzn’t where the deepest piece of iron entered his soul. It was to think his singin’ had got called so all to nort. He thought he was such a sweet, dulcet harmonist; he had gloated and boasted so over his lovely, melodious voice, and thought he was goin’ to be admired so for it; and then to think his singin’ had skairt two wimmen most to death, had skairt one into fits, anyway—for if ever a woman had a historical fit Tamer Moony had one that night. And instead of his serenade winnin’ Liab’s love and money, it had disgusted him so that he had pelted him most to death.

Oh! it was a fearfully humiliatin’ blow to his vanity. The blow on his forward wasn’t to be compared to the soreness of the blow onto his vanity, though the swellin’ on his forward was bigger than a butnut, and as sore as any bile I ever see.

Yes, I have seen Josiah Allen in tryin’ places, time and agin, and in places calculated to make a man meach, but never, never did I see him in a place of such deep meachin’ness and gloom as he was that night after he had come home with Doctor Bamber. There he was, at the very time, the very night, when he had lotted on bein’ covered with admiration and glory like a mantilly, there he wuz lookin’, oh, so pitiful and meek, bowed down by pain, contumily, and water-pitchers. And he happened to pass by the bed where Miss Moony lay, and she, bein’ blind with historicks, laid holt of him, and called him “Mandana.” She clutched right into his vest, and held him tight, and says she:

“Oh Mandana! Oh! them awful voices! Oh! them horrible, screechin’ yells! I can’t forget ’em,” says she. “They are ringin’ through my ears yet.”

And then Dr. Bamber and the neighbors knew all about what it wuz that had skairt her so; there they stood a laughin’ in their sleeves (as it were). And Josiah standin’ there, lookin’ as if he must sink. And there Samantha wuz, who had vainly argued with him, and entreated him to let well enough alone.

Yes, Josiah Allen was in a hard place, a very hard place. But he couldn’t get away from her, so he had to grin and bear it. For he couldn’t onclench her hands; she had a sort of a spazzum right there, a holdin’ him tight. And every time she would come to a little, she would call him “Mandana,” and yell about them “awful, blood-curdlin’ screeches.” It was a curious time—very.

Wall, she got better after a while. Dr. Bamber give her powerful doses of morpheen, and that quelled her down.

But morpheen couldn’t quiet down Josiah Allen’s feelin’s, nor ease the sore spot in his vanity. No! all the poppies that ever grew in earthly gardens couldn’t do it. He never will start out a seranadin’ agin, I don’t believe—never.

I hain’t one to be a twittin’ about things. But sunthin’ happened to bring the subject up the other mornin’ jest after breakfast, and I says this, I merely observed this to him:

“Wall, you wanted to make a excitement, Josiah Allen, and you did make one.”

“Wall, wall! who said I didn’t?”

Says I: “You have most probable done your last seranadin’.”

I said this in a mild and almost amiable axent, but you ort to heard how that man yelled up at me.

Says he: “If I was a woman, and couldn’t keep from talkin’ so dumb aggravatin’, I’d tie my tongue to my teeth. And if you are a goin’ to skim the milk for that calf, why don’t you _skim_ it?”

“Wall,” says I mildly, “I hain’t deef.”

JUDAS WART AND SUFFERIN’ WIMMIN.

One mornin’, not long after Miss Bobbet’s visit, I was a doin’ up my mornin’s work. I had been a little belated, for my companion Josiah, while fodderin’, had been took in his back sudden and violent with a stitch.

He is subject to such stitches, but they are very painful and inconvenient. All the way he could walk round the house was by leanin’ upon a broom-stick. He found the broom-handle in the barn, and come in leanin’ heavy on it, and groanin’ powerful and frequent. It skairt me awfully.

I never hinted to him that I thought more’n as likely as not that stitch was sent as a judgment; no, I held firm, and kep’ my tongue still with almost giant force. That day, when the sun had rose up clear and lofty in the heavens, was the time I had calculated to tackle him. But I was too honorable to tackle a pardner who was down with a stitch.

No, I treated him well, bathed his back in linament, and he was a lyin’ behind the stove on the lounge, as comfortable as anybody could be in his situation of back and conscience.

As I said, I was a washin’ up my dishes in the buttery, when all of a sudden in walked Elder Judas Wart. The door was open, it bein’ a pleasant mornin’, and he jest rapped at the side of the door, and walked in.

I guess he didn’t see Josiah, the lounge bein’ kinder behind the door; but he seemed dretful tickled to see me—tickleder fur than I was. Though, havin’ my mission in view, I used him well, and sot him a chair. But little did I think what was before me; little did I think what the awfulness of his first words to me would be. He hadn’t been in that house five minutes, for I know I had only jest hung up my dish-cloth (for knowin’ what a tussle of principle was ahead of me, and feelin’ as if I should need all my strength in the conflict, I left the heaviest of my dishes to wash at noon, for the first time in over fourteen months).

Wall, if you can believe it, jest as I got that dish-cloth hung up, that man, with no phraseoligies or excuses or anything, that man up and says:

“I have heard, and I see for myself, that you are a very smart woman, and you could do wonders in the true church if you was married to some leadin’ man,—to me, for instance,” says he, bold as brass, “or was sealed to me,” says he, spittin’ hard onto the floor. But that man hadn’t hardly got that seal and that tobacco-juice out of his mouth, when Josiah Allen sprung up and leveled that broom-stick at him with a deadly aim. I sprung forward and threw the end of the broom-stick up jest in time to save the Elder’s life. I forced him to desist, I and the stitch; for truly the effort was too much for him. The stitch griped him awful, and he sunk back with a agonizin’ groan.

I wanted Josiah to stay his hand and the broom-stick for two reasons. One was, I didn’t want the Elder killed quite so quick—not till after I had had a chance to convert him. And another reason was, I thought of my deep agony and a Widder Bump, and thinkses I to myself, though the medicine is fearful to administer, as gaulin’ and bitter as wormwood and sicuta biled down in tar and vinegar, still I felt it was what my companion needed to show him the nefariousness and heniousness of Mormonism, in its true light.

I wouldn’t in his present weakness of mind and back, throw the Widder Bump in his face, as I might have done. Some pardners would have jest turned round on him, as he lay there on that lounge, and throwed that woman full and square in his face. But I didn’t. I see he was a sufferin’ enough without that. He was takin’ the matter to himself like a blister, as anybody has got to, in order to feel the smart. A blister don’t draw half so powerful, nor feel half so bad, when it is on somebody else’es back, as it does when it is on our’n. He was a meditatin’ how it would seem to his heart to lose the companion of his youth and middle age. He was a eatin’ of that sass which ganders think is quite good for geese to eat. He was seein’ now how it would relish to a gander. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart, his looks was such.

But Elder Judas Wart had no such feelin’s of pity and sympathy, and bein’ excited by Josiah’s ragin’ wrath, and maddened by the broom-stick, he spoke out, in a angry, sarcastical tone:

“Your husband felt different on this subject last spring. He seemed almost inclined at one time to take to himself another helpmate. There was a certain widder, there”—

“You lie, sir!” says Josiah, springin’ up to his feet. “There wuzn’t no widder there, and I never was there.”

“Never was where?” says I, in a awful voice; for curiosity and various other emotions was a hunchin’ me, as hard as ever a woman was hunched by ’em.

“I never was anywhere! I never was to their meetin’s, nor to nowhere else.”

“Where wuz you, then?” says I, in that same strange voice.

“I told you I wuzn’t _nowhere_, didn’t I?” he yelled out in fearful axents.

But Elder Judas Wart went right on a talkin’ to me, stiddy as fate, and as hard to be turned round as she.

“He seemed then to look at the Widder”—

“I never looked at a widder! I never see none! I never see a widder in my life!”

Says I: “Josiah Allen, be calm!”

“I tell you I won’t be calm! And I tell you there hain’t no widders there—nor hain’t never been any—nor nowhere else—nor I never heard of any.”

He was delerious, and I see that he was. But Elder Judas Wart kep’ right on, with a haughty, proud axent:

“He seemed then to look favorably upon the widder I have lately espoused. The Widder Bump; don’t you remember her?”

“No! I don’t remember no such widder, and I don’t believe there was any by that name.”

“Why,” says I, “Josiah Allen, she made that coat you have got on. Don’t you remember it?”

“No! I don’t! She didn’t make it! It wuzn’t made! I never had none.”

“Why, Josiah Allen,” says I, “what will become of you if you tell such stories?”

“There won’t nothin’ become of me, nor never will; there never has nothin’ become of me.”

But jest as he said this, the stitch ketched him agin powerful and strong, and he sunk down on the lounge, a groanin’ violent.

I see he was delerious with pain of body, and fur deeper, more agonizin’ pain of mind, contrition, shame, remorse, and various other emotions.

And then, oh, the strength and power of woman’s love! As that man lay there, with all his past weakness and wickedness brought out before me, stricken with agony, remorse, and stitches, I loved him, and I pitied him. I felt that devoted, yearnin’, tender feelin’ for him to that extent that I felt in my heart that if it were possible I could take that stitch upon me, and bear it onward myself, and relieve my pardner. Women’s love is a beautiful thing, a holy thing, but curious, very.

I reviled my pardner not, but covered him tenderly up with my old woolen shawl, sot the broomstick up against the lounge, and he lay there and never said another word, only at intervals—when a pain of uncommon size would ketch him in his back or conscience, he would groan loud and agonizin’. But I see it was no use to argue with him then about the Widder Bump.

But if you’ll believe it, I can’t make him to this day say nothin’ different. I have had a great many talks with him on the subject, but, he says, “She is a woman he never see.”

And the nearest I ever made him own up to it was once when I had talked real good to him, talked to him about his past wickedness and tottlin’ morals, and told him how I knew his morals was straightened and propped up now, good and sound, and his affections stabled and firm sot where they should be sot. I talked awful good to him, and he seemed to be sort o’ melted down. And he owned up “that it did seem to him as if he had heard, when he was a child, of a woman by that name, that lived somewhere near here. It was either that name, or Bumper—he couldn’t for his life tell which.”

And I gin up then. Truly there are strange pages in a man’s nater, filled with curious language, curiouser than conundrums: who can read ’em?

As I said, havin’ the aim in my mind that I did have, havin’ a desire to let Josiah Allen get a full taste of that sass that he, as well as other ganders, find is fur different to eat themselves, and to stand haughtily on one leg (to foller out the gander simely) and see their mates eat it. Havin’ a desire to let him get a full glimpse of the awful depth and blackness and horrer of the abyss he had suspended himself over, I did not rebuke Elder Judas Wart as I should, had it not been for that. I merely told him, when he said sunthin’ agin about my bein’ sealed to him—I merely said to him, with dignity and firmness:

Says I, “If you say that word seal to me agin, I’ll seal you in a way you won’t never want to be sealed!” Says I, in still more awful tones, glancin’ at the bilin’ teakettle, “If you say that word to me agin in my house, I’ll scald you, if it is the last work I ever do in my life, and I am hung for it the next minute.”

My face was red; I was fearfully excited with my almost giant efforts to control myself. To think that he should dare to approach me! me! Josiah Allen’s wife! with his infamous offer. He see that my looks was gettin’ terrible and scareful, and he hastened to say:

“I meant it in a religious way.”

And I was that excited and mad, that I spoke right up and says, “Wall! I’ll scald you in a religious way;” and I added, in a firm, low tone, “But I’ll bet a cent you won’t never want to be scalded agin as long as you live.”

Says he, in a sort of a apologizin’, meachin’ way, “It is my religion to marry various wives.”