Part 6

“Wall,” says he, “if I ever enjoyed anything in this world I enjoy neighberin’ with them folks. And they think the world of me. It beats all how they worship me. The childern take to me so, they don’t want me out of their sight hardly a minute. Spink and his wife says they think it is in my looks. You know I _am_ pretty lookin’, Samantha. They say the baby will cry after me so quick. It beats all what friends we have got to be, I and the Spinkses, and it is agravatin’, Samantha, to think you don’t seem to feel towards ’em that strong friendship that I feel.”

Says I, “Friendship, Josiah Allen, is a great word. True friendship is the most beautiful thing on earth; it is love without passion, tenderness without alloy. And,” says I, soarin’ up into the realm of allegory, where, on the feathery wings of pure eloquence, I fly frequent, “Intimacy hain’t friendship. Two men may sleep together, year after year, on the same feather-bed, and wake up in the mornin’, and shake hands with each other, perfect strangers, made so unbeknown to them. And feather-beds, nor pillers, nor nothin’ can’t bring ’em no nigher to each other. And they can keep it up from year to year, and lock arms and prominade together through the day, and not get a mite closer to each other. They can keep their bodies side by side, but their souls, who can tackle ’em together, unless nature tackled ’em, unbeknown to them? Nobody. And then, agin, two persons may meet, comin’ from each side of the world; and they will look right through each other’s eyes down into their souls, and see each other’s image there; born so, born friends, entirely unbeknown to them. Thousands of milds apart, and all the insperations of heaven and earth; all the influences of life, education, joy, and sorrow, has been fitting them for each other (unbeknown to them): twin souls, and they not knowin’ of it.”

“Speakin’ of twin—” says Josiah.

But I was soarin’ too high to light down that minute. So I kep’ on, though his interruption was a-lowerin’ me down gradual.

“There is a great filisofical fact right here, Josiah Allen,” says I, tryin’ to bring down and fit the idee to my pardner’s comprehension, for it is ever my way to try to convince, as well as to soar in oritory. “You may yoke up the old mare and the brindle cow together and drive ’em year after year in a buggy. But you can’t make that horse into a cow, or make that old cow whinner. It can’t be done. And two wimmen may each of ’em have half a shear, and think they will screw ’em together and save property, and cut some with ’em. But if one of them halves is 2 or 3 inches shorter than the other, and narrower, how be they goin’ to cut with ’em? All the screws and wrenches in creation can’t do no more than hold ’em together. It hain’t no use if they wuzn’t made to fit each other in the first place, unbeknown to them.” Says I, “Some folks are j’ined together for life in jest that way, drawn together by some sort of influence, worldly considerations, blind fancy, thoughtlessness, and the minister’s words fasten ’em, jest as these shears was. But good land! after the vapory, dreamy time of the honeymoon is passed through, and the heavy, solid warp and woof of life lays before ’em for them to cut a path through it, they’ll find out whether they fit each other or not. And if they don’t, it is tejus business for ’em, extremely tejus, and they’ll find it out so.”—“Speakin’ of twin—” says Josiah.

His persistent and stiddy follerin’ up of his own train of thought, and the twin, was lowerin’ me down now awful fast, and says I, sort o’ concludin’ up, “Be good and kind to everybody, and Mr. Spinks’es folks, as you have opportunity; but before you make bosom friends of ’em, wait and see if your soul speaks.” Says I, firmly, “Mine don’t, in this case.”

“Speakin’ of twin,” says Josiah agin, “Did you ever see so beautiful a twin as Mr. Spinks’es twin is? What a pity they lost the mate to it! Their ma says it is perfectly wonderful the way that babe takes to me. I held it all the while she was ironin’, this forenoon. And the two boys foller me round all day, tight to my heels, instead of their father. Spink says they think I am the prettiest man they ever see, almost perfectly beautiful.”

I give Josiah Allen a look full in his face, a curious look, very searchin’ and peculiar. But before I had time to say anything, only jest that look, the door opened, and Spinks’es wive’s sister come in unexpected, and said that Miss Spink wanted to borrow the loan of ten pounds of side pork, a fine comb, some flour, the dish-kettle, and my tooth-brush.

I let her have ’em all but the tooth-brush, for I was determined to use ’em well. And Josiah didn’t like it at all because I didn’t let that go. And he said in a fault-findin’, complainin’ axent “that I didn’t seem to want to be sociable.”

And I told him that “I thought borrowin’ a tooth-brush was a little _too_ sociable.”

And he most snapped my head off, and muttered about my not bein’ neighborly, and that I didn’t feel a mite about neighborin’ as he did. And I made a vow, then and there (inside of my mind), that I wouldn’t say a word to Josiah Allen on the subject, not if they borrowed us out of house and home. Thinkses I, I can stand it as long as he can; if they spile our things, he has got to pay for new ones; if they waste our property, he has got to lose it; if they spile our comfort, he’s got to stand it as well as I have; and, knowin’ the doggy obstinacy of his sect, I considered this great truth, and acted on it, that the stiller I kep’, and the less I said about ’em, the quicker he’d get sick of ’em; so I held firm. And never let on to Josiah but what it was solid comfort to me to have ’em there all the time a most; and not have a minute I could call my own; and have ’em borrow everything under the sun that ever was borrowed: garden-sass of all kinds, and the lookin’-glass, groceries, the old cat, vittles, cookin’ utensils, stove-pipe, a feather-bed, bolsters, bed-clothes, and the New Testament.

They even borrowed Josiah’s clothes. Why, Spink wore Josiah’s best pantaloons more than Josiah did. He got so he didn’t act as if he could stir out without Josiah’s best pantaloons. He’d keep a tellin’ that he was goin’ to get a new pair, but he didn’t get ’em, and would hang onto Josiah’s. And Josiah had to stay to home a number of times jest on that account. And then he’d borrow Josiah’s galluses. Josiah had got kinder run out of galluses, and hadn’t got but one pair of sound ones. And Josiah would have to pin his pantaloons onto his vest, and the pins would lose out, and it was all Josiah could do to keep his clothes on. It made it awful bad for him. I know one day, when I had a lot of company, I had to wink him out of the room a number of times, to fix himself so he would be decent. But all through it I kep’ still, and never said a word. I see we was loosin’ property fast, and had lost every mite of comfort we had enjoyed, for there was some of ’em there every minute of the time, a most, and some of the time two or three of ’em. Why, Miss Spink used to come over and eat breakfast with us lots of times. She’d say she felt so mauger that she couldn’t eat nothin’ to home, and she thought mebby my vittles would go to the place. And besides losin’ our property and comfort, I’ll be hanged if I didn’t think sometimes that I should lose my pardner by ’em, they worked him so. But I held firm. Thinkses I to myself, it must be that Josiah will get sick of neighborin’, after a while, and start ’em off. For the sufferin’s that man endured couldn’t never be told nor sung.

Why, before they had been there a month, as I told sister Bamber,—she was to our house a visitin’, and Josiah was in the buttery a churnin’, and I knew he wouldn’t hear,—says I: “They have borrowed everything I have got, unless it is Josiah.”

And if you’ll believe it, before I had got the words out of my mouth, Miss Spinks’es sister opened the door, and walked in, and asked me “if I could spare Mr. Allen to help stretch a carpet.”

And I whispered to sister Bamber, and says I: “If they haint borrowed the last thing now; if they haint borrowed Josiah.”

But I told the girl “to take him an’ welcome.” (I was very polite to ’em, and meant to be, but cool.)

So I took holt and done the churnin’ myself, and let him go. And he come home perfectly tuckered out. Wasn’t good for nothin’ hardly for several days. He got strained somehow a pullin’ on that carpet. But after that they would send for him real often to help do some job. They both took as much agin liberty with Josiah as they did with me; they worked him down almost to skin and bones. Besides all the rest he suffered. Why, his cow-sufferin’ alone was perfectly awful. They had a cow, a high-headed creeter; as haughty a actin’ cow as I ever see in my life. She would hold her head right up, and walk over our fence, and tramp through the garden. I didn’t know how Josiah felt about it, but I used to think myself that I could have stood it as well agin if it hadn’t been so high headed. It would look so sort o’ independent and overbearin’ at me, when it was a walkin’ through the fence, and tramplin’ through the garden. Josiah always laid out his beds in the garden with a chalk-line, as square and beautiful as the pyramids, and that cow jest leveled ’em to the ground. They tied her up nights, but she would get loose, and start right for our premises; seemed to take right to us, jest as the rest of ’em did. But I held firm, for I see that gettin’ up night after night, and goin’ out in the night air, chasin’ after that cow, was coolin’ off my companion’s affection for the Spinkses.

And then they kept the awfulest sight of hens. I know Josiah was dretful tickled with the idee at first, and said, “mebby we could swap with ’em, get into their kind of hens.”

And I told him in a cautious way “that I shouldn’t wonder a mite if we did.”

Wall, them hens seemed to feel jest as the rest of the family did; didn’t seem to want to stay to home a minute, but flocked right over onto us; stayed right by us day and night; would hang round our doors and door-steps, and come into the house every chance they could get, daytimes; and nights, would roost right along on the door-yard fence, and the front porch, and the lilack bushes, and the pump. Why, the story got out that we was keepin’ a hen-dairy, and strangers who thought of goin’ into the business would stop and holler to Josiah, and ask him if he found it profitable to keep so many hens. And I’d see that man shakin’ his fist at ’em, after they would go on, he would be that mad at ’em. Somehow the idee of keepin’ a hen-dairy was always dretful obnoxious to Josiah, though it is perfectly honorable, as far as I can see.

Finally, he had made so much of ’em, the two boys got to thinkin’ so much of Josiah that they wanted to sleep with him, and he, thinkin’ it wouldn’t be neighborly to refuse, let ’em come every little while. And they kicked awfully. They kicked Josiah Allen till he was black and blue. It come tough on Josiah, but I didn’t say a word, only I merely told him “that of course he couldn’t expect me to sleep with the hull neighborhood,” so I went off, and slept in the settin’-room bedroom. It made me a sight of work, but I held firm.

At last Spink and his wife, and his wife’s sister, got into the habit of goin’ off nights to parties, and leavin’ the twin with Josiah. And though it almost broke my heart to see his sufferin’s, still, held up by principle, and the aim I had in view, I would go off and sleep in the settin’-room bedroom, and let Josiah tussle with it. Sometimes it would have the colic most all night, and the infantum, and the snuffles. But, though I could have wept when I heerd my pardner a groanin’ and a sithein’ in the dead of night, and a callin’ on heaven to witness that no other man ever had the sufferin’s he was a sufferin’, still, held up by my aim, I would lay still, and let it go on.

It wore on Josiah Allen. His health seemed to be a runnin’ down; his morals seemed to be loose and totterin’; he would snap me up every little while as if he would take my head off; and unbeknown to him I would hear him a jawin’ to himself, and a shakin’ his fist at nothin’ when he was alone, and actin’. But I kep’ cool, for though he didn’t come out and say a word to me about the Spinkses, still I felt a feelin’ that there would be a change. But I little thought the change was so near.

But one mornin’ to the breakfast-table, as I handed Josiah his fourth cup of coffee, he says to me, says he:

“Samantha, sposen we go to Brother Bamberses to-day, and spend the day. I feel,” says he, with a deep sithe, “I feel as if I needed a change.”

Says I, lookin’ pityingly on his pale and haggard face, “you do, Josiah,” and says I, “if I was in your place I would speak to Brother Bamber about the state of your morals.” Says I, in a tender yet firm tone, “I don’t want to scare you, Josiah, nor twit you, but your morals seem to be a totterin’; I am afraid you are a back-slidin’, Josiah Allen.”

He jumped right up out of his chair, and shook his fist over towards the Spinks’es house, and hollered out in a loud, awful tone:

“My morals would be all right if it wuzn’t for them dumb Spinkses, dumb ’em.”

You could have knocked me down with a pin-feather (as it were), I was that shocked and agitated; it had all come onto me so sudden, and his tone was so loud and shameful. But before I could say a word he went on, a shakin’ his fist vehementer and wilder than I ever see a fist shook:

“I guess you be neighbored with as I have been, and slept with by two wild-cats, and be kicked till you are black and blue, and mebby you’d back-slide!”

Says I: “Josiah Allen, if you don’t go to see Brother Bamber to-day, Brother Bamber shall come and see you. Did I ever expect to live,” says I, with a gloomy face, “to see my pardner rampagin’ round worse than any pirate that ever swum the seas, and shakin’ his fist, and actin’. I told you in the first on’t, Josiah Allen, to begin as you could hold out.”

“What if you did?” he yelled out. “Who thought we’d be borrowed out of house and home, and visited to death, and trampled over by cows, and roosted on; who s’posed they’d run me over with twin, and work me down to skin and bone, and foller me ’round tight to my heels all day, and sleep with me nights, and make dumb lunaticks of themselves? Dumb em!”

Says I in firm accents, “Josiah Allen, if you swear another swear to-day, I’ll part with you before Squire Baker.” Says I, “It betters it, don’t it, for you to start up and go to swearin’.”

Before Josiah could answer me a word, the door opened and in come Miss Spink’ses sister. They never none of ’em knocked, but dropped right down on us unexpected, like sun-strokes.

Says she, with a sort of a haughty, independent mean onto her (some like their cow’s mean), and directin’ her conversation to Josiah:

“Mr. Spink is goin’ to have his likeness took, to-day, and he would be glad to borrow the loan of your pantaloons and galluses. And he said if you didn’t want your pantaloons to go without your boots went with ’em, he guessed he’d wear your boots, as his had been heel-tapped and might show. And the two boys bein’ so took up with you, Mr. Allen, their Ma thought she’d let ’em come over here and sleep with you while they was gone; they didn’t know but they might stay several days to her folks’es, as they had heard of a number of parties that was goin’ to be held in that neighborhood. And knowin’ you hadn’t no little childern of your own, she thought it might be agreeable to you to keep the twin, while they was gone—and—and—”

She hadn’t got through with her speech, and I don’t know what she would have tackled us for next. But the door opened without no warnin’, and in come Miss Spink herself, and she said that “Spink had been urgin’ her to be took, too, and they kinder wanted to be took holt of hands, and they thought if Josiah and me had some kid gloves by us, they would borrow the loan of ’em; they thought it would give ’em a more genteel, aristocratic look. And as for the childern,” says she, “we shall go off feelin’ jest as safe and happy about ’em as if they was with us, they love dear Mr. Allen so.” And says she with a sweet smile, “I have lived on more places than I can think of hardly—we never have lived but a little while in a place, somehow the climates didn’t agree with us long at a time. But never, in all the places we have lived in, have we ever had such neighbors, never, never did we take such solid comfort a-neighborin’, as we do here.”

Josiah jumped right upon his feet, and shook his fist at her, and says he, in a more skareful tone than he had used as yet:

“You have got to stop it. If you don’t stop neighberin’ with me, I’ll know the reason why.”

Miss Spink looked skairt, and agitated awful, but I laid hands on him, and says I, “Be calm, Josiah Allen, and compose yourself down.”

“I won’t be calm!” says he; “I won’t be composed down.”

Says I, firmly, still a-keepin’ between him and her, and still a-layin’ holt of him, “You must, Josiah!”

“I tell you I _won’t_, Samantha! I’ll let you know,” says he, a-shakin’ his fist at her powerful, “I’ll let you know that you have run me over with twin for the last time; I’ll let you know that I have been trampled over, and eat up by cows, and roosted on, and slept with for the last time,” says he, shakin’ both fists at at her. “You have neighbored your last neighbor with me, and I’ll let you know you have.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, I tell you to compose yourself down.”

“And I tell you again, Samantha, that I _won’t_!”

But I could see that his voice was sort ’o lowerin’ down, and I knew the worst was over. I spoke sort ’o soothin’ly to him, and told him, in tender axents, that he shouldn’t be neighbored with another mite; and finally, I got him quieted down. But he looked bad in the face, and his sithes was fearful.

My feelin’s for that man give me strength to give Miss Spink a piece of my mind. My talk was calm, but to the purpose, and very smart. It was a very little on the allegory way. I told her jest how I felt about mejum courses; how sweet and happyfyin’ it was to pursue ’em.

Says I, “Fire is first-rate, dretful comfortin’ for warmin’ and cookin’ purposes; too much fire is bad, and leads to conflagrations, martyrs, and etcetery. Water is good; too much leads to drowndin’, dropsy, and-so-forth. Neighborin’ is good, first-rate, if follered mejumly. Too much neighborin’ leads to weariness, anarky, kicks, black and blue pardners, and almost delerious Josiahs.”

As quick as I mentioned the word kick, I see a change in Josiah’s face; he begun to shake his fist, and act; I see he was a-growin’ wild agin; Miss Spink see it too, and she and her sister fled.

That very afternoon Josiah went to Jonesville and served some papers onto ’em. They hadn’t made no bargain, for any certain time, so by losin’ all his rent, he got rid of ’em before the next afternoon. And says he to me that night, as he sot by the fire rubbin’ some linement onto his legs where he had been kicked, says he to me:

“Samantha, if any human bein’ ever comes to rent that house of me, I’ll shoot ’em down, jest as I would a mushrat.”

I knew he had lost over two hundred dollars by ’em, and been kicked so lame that he couldn’t stand on his feet hardly. I knew that man had been neighbored almost into his grave, but I couldn’t set by calmly and hear him talk no such wickedness, and so says I:

“Josiah Allen, can’t you ever learn to take a mejum course? You needn’t go round huntin’ up renters, or murder ’em if they come nigh you.” Says I, “You must learn to be more moderate and mejum.”

But he kep’ right on, a-pourin’ out the linement on his hand, and rubbin’ it onto his legs, and stuck to it to the last. Says he, “I’d shoot him down, jest as I would a mushrat; and there hain’t a law in the land but what would bear me out in it.”

MORALIZIN’ AND EPISODIN’.

Anybody would have thought that this episode (Spink episode) would have sickened Josiah Allen of launchin’ out into any more headwork, and tryin’ to made money on a speck. But if you’ll believe it, Jonathan Spink’ses folks hadn’t been gone three weeks—for Kitty come back the day after Spink’ses folks left, and she only stayed with us two weeks that time, havin’ promised to stay a spell to Thomas Jefferson’s, and it was only a few days after she went—and then I knew by Josiah’s legs—the black-and-blue spots hadn’t begun to wear off; they had just begun to turn yaller—and then I knew by my head-dress, too—when that man come home from Jonesville one night, cross as a bear.

I said I knew by my new head-dress. I well remember I had wore it that afternoon for the first time, some expectin’ very genteel company, and wantin’ to look well. But the company didn’t come, and Kellup Cobb did. He come to bring home a cent he had borrowed the night before at the missionary meetin’ to send for his annual gift to the heathens. And he noticed my new cap in a minute. He looked witherin’ and overbearin’ at it, and in a sort of a back-handed, underground way, that I can’t bear, nor never could, he begun to throw hints at me about it. About married women and members of meetin’-housen spendin’ their money in such extravagance, when they might spend it in spreadin’ the Gospel in benighted lands—and about how awful wicked it was to be so dressy—and et cetery, et cetery.

My cap _wuz_ middlin’-foamin’ lookin’. I couldn’t deny it, and didn’t try to. It wuzn’t what you might call over and above dressy, but it was handsome, and _very_ nice. The ribbin on it cost me 18 pence per yard, and the cap contained two yards and a half; it was _very_ nice. But none too good for me, my Josiah said.

He is what you may call a close man at a bargain. (Tight, would perhaps be a better word to express his situation.) But he loves dearly to see me look beautiful. And he is very gay in his tastes; red is his favorite color, and the more fiery shades of yellow; he would be glad to see me dressed in these tints all the time. But I don’t encourage him in the idee. Not that I think one color is wickeder than another, but they don’t seem to be becomin’ to my style and age.

Now this new head dress, I had picked it out and selected it with my pardner by my side, and he whispered to me loud, as I was a-selectin’ of it: “If you have _got_ to have a new cap, Samantha, for mercy’s sake get a red one.”

But I whispered to him that I should look like a fool with a red cap on, and to keep still.

And then he whispered agin, in a more anxious tone: “Wall then, for pity’s sake do get yeller, or sunthin’ that has got a little color to it. Black! black! the whole of the time; you look jest like a mourner.”

I had a black one on my hand at that time, admirin’ of it, and most settled on it. But Josiah’s mean was such as I was a-settlin’, that I, as a devoted pardner, and a woman of principle, compromised the matter with Josiah and Duty, by purchasin’ one trimmed with a sort of a pinky, lilock color. It was very becomin’ to me. But I won’t deny, as a woman who is bred to tellin’ the truth, and not gin to deceit and coverin’ up,—I won’t deny that the first time I tried that head-dress on after I got home, I had my curious feelin’s. I thought mebby it was wrong for me to buy such costly ribbin, and so much of it. And then I worried about the color, too. Thinkses I, mebby it is too young for me; too young for a woman who owns a bald-headed pardner and a grandchild, and who has but few teeth left in her head.