Chapter 7

"Then Henrietta read her paper, and it was jest as pretty a story as ever I listened to; about him fallin' in love with that sick woman that hadn't walked a step for years, and how he married her against her father's will, and took her 'way off to Florence, the same place where Henrietta and Archibald went when they was in Europe, and where Henrietta got that quilt pattern for me. And she told how kind he was to her, and how he'd git up in the mornin' and gether roses and put 'em by her bed so they'd be the first things she'd look at when she opened her eyes. And thinks I to myself, 'Most men wants a woman that can cook for 'em and sew for 'em and clean up after 'em, and Brownin' must 'a' been a mighty good man to marry a woman that couldn't do anything for him but jest love him.' Somehow I can't git the thought o' Brownin' out o' my head. He must 'a' been mighty different from the common run o' men, and his life don't need interpretin' like his poetry does.

"Maybe you wonder, honey, how a old woman like me could enjoy bein' at a Brownin' Club, and I reckon I was as much out o' place as mother's old spinnin'-wheel that Henrietta had in one corner of her parlor along with all that fine furniture and the fine things she'd brought from Europe. But, then, I couldn't feel a bit bad, for there set Henrietta, my child's child; she had everything I hadn't had, and I jest laughed to myself, and thinks I, 'I'm livin' again in my children and my grandchildren, and I ain't missed a thing.'"

Aunt Jane paused for breath and leaned back in her chair, smiling and smoothing down her gingham apron. I waited in silence, for I knew that the near memories of her visit to her beloved grandchild were as vivid and interesting to her as the far memories of girlhood and young womanhood, and the tide of recollections would soon flow again.

"Well, the next thing we went to was a big meetin' of women from all sorts o' clubs. When Henrietta told me what it was, I says to myself, 'Now, I'll see if what Uncle Billy Bascom told me is the truth or not.' Uncle Billy'd been sent up to the legislature twice from our district, and when I heard he'd been elected the second time, I couldn't help thinkin' about what Sam Amos used to say, that when folks got tired seein' a man around and wanted to git shed of him a while, they always sent him to the legislature. That's about the way it was with Uncle Billy.

"Me and Uncle Billy has always been good friends, and after he got back home he come around to see me, and when we'd shook hands and inquired about each other's health, he looked me right in the face and says he, 'Jane, I've been to Sodom and Gomorrah.' And says I, 'Uncle Billy, that's about the hardest thing ever I heard said about a Kentucky legislature, and I've heard some pretty hard things in my day and time.' And says he: 'No, Jane; you misunderstand me. I ain't referrin' to the legislature; the legislature's all right.' Says he: 'We set sixty days and drawed our pay regular, and we passed pretty nigh a hundred bills, and might 'a' passed that many more if we'd kept on settin'; but as the constitution don't permit us to set longer, why, of course, we had to adjourn and come on home, leavin' a good deal o' business unfinished. No,' says he, 'it ain't the legislature I'm talkin' about, it's the women, the women.' Says he: 'There was a time when it was some pleasure for a man to go up to the legislature. Us men, we'd git together and resolute, and debate, and pass our bills, and everything'd go off as smooth as satin. Now and then we might git a disturbin' sort of a letter from some o' the home folks about somethin' we'd been doin' that didn't suit 'em, a dog-tax or somethin' o' that sort, but they'd be too fur to worry us much. But,' says he, 'the way the women has got to carryin' on, if it wasn't for the pay and the honor o' the thing, I'd ruther stay right here on my farm than to go up yonder to Frankfort and rastle with a lot o' women that's strayed so far from the foot-steps o' their mothers and grandmothers that nothin' but a miracle could bring 'em back.' Says he: 'We could hardly pass a bill in any peace whatsoever, for them women. If we set out to give a little money to the State College, why, here'd come a delegation o' women from Lexin'ton wantin' to know whether the gyirls would git their share of it.' Says he: 'There ain't a right or a privilege goin' that they don't want to cut it half in two, and give the littlest half to us men and keep the biggest half for the women; some of 'em even goes so far as to say that women ought to vote. And,' says he, 'they've got to clubbin' together, and what one woman can't think of, the others can; and there was hardly a man in the legislature that wasn't pestered with havin' to look after some sort o' bill that'd been hatched up in one o' these here clubs. I got so outdone with 'em,' says he, 'that whenever a bill'd' come up, I'd say to whoever was settin' by me, "Has the women got anything to do with it?" And if they had, I'd vote against it, and if they hadn't, I'd vote for it. One o' their bills,' says he, 'sounded mighty reasonable, the "forestry bill," they called it, but it never come up.' Says he, 'We had a little redistricting to do for the benefit o' the party, and made a few new offices jest to please the people, and betwixt this and that,' says he, 'we didn't git round to the forestry bill.' Says he, 'I might 'a' supported that, if it had come up, but then I don't know but what after all it'd 'a' been a dangerous sort o' thing.' Says he: 'The more you give a woman the more she wants. We give women their property rights, and now they're wantin' to vote and to manage the schools and the 'sylums and pretty near everything else. And,' says he, 'if we was to pass that there forestry bill, like as not the first thing you know, a man'd have to git a permit from some o' these women's clubs before he could chop a piece o' kindlin'-wood in his own back yard.'

"And then the old man went on to tell how he went up to Lexin'ton after the legislature was over, and that was what he meant by goin' to Sodom and Gomorrah. Says he, 'There's women up there, Jane, that don't know a water-bucket from a churn, and if you was to show 'em a potater-patch in full bloom, they'd think it was some sort of a flower-gyarden.' Says he, 'The clubs was more numerous than the children, and it looks to me like the race is dyin' out, dyin' out, Jane; and maybe it's jest as well,' says he, 'for there ain't any women nowadays like the old-time ones, for instance, my mother and grandmother,' says he."

Aunt Jane broke off with a laugh. "I knew as soon as he started out that he was comin' to his mother and grandmother. Uncle Billy couldn't talk twenty minutes with anybody without tellin' 'em how his mother had fifteen children, and cooked and sewed and washed and ironed for 'em all, and how his grandmother was one o' the women that carried water at Bryan's Station, and how she fought a wildcat one night on the Wilderness Road when her husband was away killin' some game for their supper.

"Well, I went to this club meetin', I can't ricollect jest what Henrietta called it, but it seems they had got together to tell about all the work they'd done in the past year, and plan out their next year's work.

"There was one lady I took particular notice of. I thought she was a married woman, but I heard 'em callin' her 'Miss Laura,' and I found out afterwards that she was an old maid. In my day, child, you could tell an old maid the minute you set eyes on her. But nowadays the old maids and the married women looks about alike, and one's jest as happy and good lookin' and busy and well contented as the other, and folks seem to think jest as much of the old maids as they do of the married women. I said somethin' o' this sort to Henrietta, and she laughed and says, 'Yes, grandma; the old maids nowadays have their hands so full lookin' after the rights o' the married women and the little children that they don't have time to grow old or worry about not bein' married, and of course,' says she, 'we can't help lovin' 'em and lookin' up to 'em when they're so good and so useful.'

"But, as I was sayin', this Miss Laura told how her club had worked for ten years to git married women their rights, so's a married woman could own her own property and manage it to suit herself and have the spendin' of her own wages while she lived and make a will when she come to die. And that made me think o' Sally Ann's experience and pore 'Lizabeth. And Miss Laura says, 'But there's one right still that a married woman hasn't got, and that is the right to her own children.' And she told how the law give the father a right to take a child away from its mother and carry it off whenever he pleased, and bring it up as he pleased and app'int its guardians. And she told how many times they'd been to the legislature to git the law changed, and said they'd have to keep on goin' till they got this right for mothers, jest like they'd got property rights for wives. And I thought of Uncle Billy's grandmother, and says I to myself: 'Don't you reckon a legislature's jest as terrifyin' to a woman as wildcats and Indians? Ain't these women got jest as much courage as their grandmothers?'

"One lady got up and told what they was doin to keep the fine trees from bein' all cut down, jest like Uncle Billy said, and that reminded me of Abram. A tree was like a brother to Abram. He was always plantin' trees, but I never knew him to cut one down unless it was dyin' or dead. You see that big sugar-maple out yonder by the fence, child? Well, right beside it there used to be a big silver poplar. There ain't a prettier tree in the world than the silver poplar. It's pretty in the sunshine and it's still prettier by night, if the moon's shinin'; and when the wind's blowin', why, I can sit and look at that tree by the hour. But it's got a bad way o' sproutin' from the root, and the young trees come up everywhere and crowd out everything else, jest like people that ain't content with their own land and always covetin' other folks' farms. Well, I got so tired o' choppin' down the young sprouts every spring and summer that I told Abram that tree had to go, and, besides, it was sp'ilin' the shape o' the young sugar-maple right by it. I reckon Abram had got tired, too, hearin' me quarrel about the sprouts comin' up in my flower-beds, so he went out to the wood-shed and got his ax. He stopped a minute on the front porch and looked up at the tree, and jest then a little breeze sprung up and every leaf blew wrong side out. And Abram laid down his ax and says he: 'Jane, I can't do it. I'll cut the sprouts down, but don't ask me to cut down a tree that looks that way when the wind blows.' And the old poplar stood, honey, till it was struck by lightnin' one summer, and died at the top. Then Abram was willin' to have it cut down.

"What was I talkin' about, honey? Oh, yes; them women's clubs. Well, I set there listenin' to 'em tellin' how their clubs had worked for this thing and that, and how hard it was to git men to see things the way they saw 'em, and it come over me all at once that they was contendin' with the same sort o' troubles us women down in Goshen had when we got our organ and our cyarpet for the church. I ricollect when we was talkin' about the cyarpet Silas Petty says: 'What's the use o' havin' that cyarpet? Hasn't this church got along fifteen years with jest these good pine boards underfoot?' And Sally Ann says: 'Yes; you men folks think that because things has always been thus and so, they've always got to be. But,' says she, 'I've noticed that when a thing always has been, most likely it's a thing that ought never to 'a' been.' And from what I could gether, listenin' to the ladies read their papers, there was the same old trouble betwixt the clubs and the legislatures that there used to be down in Goshen church, the women wantin' to go on, and the men pullin' back and standin' still.

"And one lady told about Emperor William over yonder in Germany sayin' that women oughtn't to do anything but cook and go to church and nurse the children, and says I, 'That's Silas Petty over again.' And then she went on to tell how some o' the men was findin' fault with women because families wasn't as large as they was in their great-grandmothers' day. And thinks I to myself, 'That's jest like old man Bob Crawford.'

"Well, one after another they'd stand up and tell about all the good works their clubs had done, sendin' books to the mountain people, tryin' to make better schools for the children, and havin' laws made to keep women and little children from bein' worked to death in factories and mills, and I declare, child, it reminded me more of an old-fashioned experience meetin' than anything I could think of, and says I to myself: 'Why, Uncle Billy's all wrong. This ain't Sodom and Gomorrah; it's the comin' of the kingdom of God on earth.' And when the meetin' was about to break, Henrietta got up and says, 'Grandma, the ladies want you to make them a speech'; and I jest laughed right out and says I: 'Why, honey, I can't make a speech. Whoever heard of a old woman like me makin' a speech?'

"And Henrietta says, 'Well, tell us, grandma, what you've been thinkin' about us and about our work while you've been sittin' here listenin' to us talk.' And I says, 'Well, if that's makin' a speech, I can make one, for I'm always thinkin' somethin', and thinkin' and talkin' is mighty near kin with me.' Says I, 'One thing I've been thinkin' is, that I'm like the old timber in the woods--long past my prime and ready to be cut down, and you all are the young trees strikin' your roots down and spreadin' your branches and askin' for room to grow in.' And says I, 'What I think about you ain't likely to be of much importance. I'm jest a plain, old-fashioned woman. The only sort o' club I ever belonged to was the Mite Society o' Goshen church, and the only service I ever did the State was raisin' a family o' sons and daughters, five sons and four daughters.' Says I, 'There's some folks that thinks women ought to do jest what their mothers and grandmothers did, but,' says I, 'every generation has its work. I've done mine and you're doin' yours. And,' says I, 'I look at you ladies sittin' here in your pretty parlors and your fine clothes, and back of every one of you I can see your grandmothers and your great-grandmothers, jest plain hard-workin' women like me. But,' says I, 'there ain't much difference between you, after all, except the difference in the clothes and the manners. Your grandmothers traveled their Wilderness Road, and you're travelin' yours, and one's as hard as the other. And,' says I, 'if I was in your place, I wouldn't pay a bit of attention to what the men folks said about me. Suppose you don't have as many children as your grandmothers had; I can tell by lookin' at your faces that you're good wives and good mothers; you love the three or four children you've got as well as your grandmothers loved their twelve or fifteen, and that's the main p'int--the way you love your children, not how many children you have. And further than that,' says I, 'there's such a thing nowadays as a woman havin' so many children that she hasn't got time to be a mother, but that's a p'int that men don't consider. And,' says I, 'when I think of all the good work you've done and all you're goin' to do, I feel like praisin' God. For I know you're helpin' this old world and this old State to go on like the apostle said we ought to go, "from glory to glory."'

"And bless your life," laughed Aunt Jane, "if they didn't clap their hands like they never would stop, and one lady come over and kissed me, and says, 'That's the best speech I ever heard at a woman's club.'

"And I reckon," concluded Aunt Jane with a gay laugh, "that if Uncle Billy happened to hear about me speakin' at a woman's club, he'd think that Sodom and Gomorrah was spreadin' clear down into the Goshen neighborhood."

"How would you like to live with Henrietta, Aunt Jane?" I asked.

"Child, child," said Aunt Jane with a reproving shake of her head, "you know better than to ask such a question. That visit to Henrietta's was like climbin' a hill that you've lived on the other side of all your life. I've been to the top o' the hill and seen what's on the other side, and I've come back to my own place. Solomon says there's a time for everything, and I don't need any Solomon to tell me that there's a place for everybody; and this old house and this old farm is the only place that could ever be home to me, and I'm here to stay till they carry me out through that gate yonder and lay my bones over in the old buryin'-ground alongside of Abram's and the children's and the rest of them that's gone before me."

V

THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM IN GOSHEN

V

THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM IN GOSHEN

Aunt Jane folded the country newspaper that she had been reading and laid it on the family Bible at her elbow. Her face was grave, and she sighed as she took up her knitting.

"I sometimes think, honey," she said, in answer to my look of inquiry, "that if I want to keep my faith in God and man I'll have to quit readin' the newspapers. I try to believe that everything's goin' on all right with the world and that whatever happens is for the best, but I can't open a paper without readin' about some husband and wife that's parted from each other, and that looks like there's somethin' mighty wrong with this day and time. Me and Uncle Billy Bascom was talkin' about it last week, and Uncle Billy says, 'If folks'd only forsake their sins as easy as they forsake their husbands and their wives nowadays, this'd be a sanctified world.'

"No, child, the partin' of husbands and wives is one new-fangled way I can't git used to. Why, as far back as I can ricollect there never was but one woman in the Goshen neighborhood that left her husband, and that was Emmeline Amos, that married Henry Sanford. Emmeline was a first cousin to Sam Amos. Sam's father was Jeremiah Amos, and Emmeline's father was Middleton Amos. Emmeline was a pretty little thing, and sweet-tempered and smart about work, but her mother used to say that Emmeline had a mind like a piece o' changeable silk. She'd want a thing, and she wouldn't rest till she got it, and the minute she got it she'd fall out with it and want somethin' else. If she went to town and bought a blue dress, before she got to the toll-gate she'd want to turn back and buy a pink one, and about the only thing she was constant in wantin' was Henry.

"They'd been sweethearts more or less all their lives, and it was a settled thing that they expected to be married as soon as Henry got his farm paid for. But before the day was set, the war broke out and Henry enlisted. It went mighty hard with him to leave Emmeline, but a man that stayed out o' the army for the sake of a gyirl didn't stand much chance with the gyirl or anybody else them days. Him and Emmeline wanted to be married before he went, but the old folks said no. Emmeline's mother says, 'This'll give Emmeline a chance to know her own mind and change it--if she's goin' to change it--before it's too late. If Henry comes back, well and good; and if he don't come back, it'll be all the better for Emmeline that she didn't marry him, for,' says she, 'a young gyirl's chances o' gittin' married are better than a widder's.'

"So Henry went, and Emmeline stayed and waited for him good and faithful. Towards the end of the war--I don't ricollect what battle it was--Henry got shot in the shoulder, and after stayin' some time in the hospittle he managed to come back home more dead than alive, and it was many a week before he was strong enough to be married. As soon as he was able to be up and walk around a little he begun to talk about marryin', and they said old lady Sanford took a lookin'-glass down from the wall and held it up before him and says she, 'Son, look at yourself. Do you think you can make a bridegroom out of a skeleton?' And says she, 'Son, there's jest two people in the world that wouldn't run from you if they saw you now, and one of 'em's your mother and the other's the undertaker.' Says she, 'Wait till you look like a human bein', and then it'll be time to set the weddin' day and bake the weddin' cake.'

"Well, finally, along in the fall, they got married, and settled down to housekeepin' as happy as you please. Emmeline was a mighty neat, orderly sort of a gyirl, and she went to work puttin' things to rights and makin' the house look homelike, and one mornin' she concluded she'd straighten out Henry's trunk. I've heard her tell about it many a time. She said Henry had his outside clothes all mixed up and his neckties and his socks scattered around all through the trunk, and she was foldin' things and stackin' 'em up together and singin' 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,' and all at once she come across a little silk shirt. She said for a minute or so she couldn't take it in, and when she did, she dropped the shirt like it had been a rattlesnake, and she got so weak and faint she had to sit down on the side o' the bed. She said she didn't know how long she set there lookin' at the shirt and thinkin' terrible things about Henry and makin' up her mind what she'd say and do, when Henry come in from the field. She said she knew she ought to be cookin' dinner, and she went down in the kitchen and tried to, but to save her life she couldn't, her hands trembled so, and she couldn't keep her mind on what she was tryin' to do. So she went back up-stairs and set down by the trunk and waited. And when Henry come in and didn't see her in the kitchen and no signs of dinner anywhere, he come runnin' up-stairs to find her and started to put his arms around her and kiss her, but she pushed him off with both hands. And says he, 'Why, Emmeline, what on earth's the matter?' And she said she tried to answer him, but her voice wouldn't come, and she jest p'inted to the shirt lyin' on the floor.

"At first Henry didn't understand; but he looked at the shirt and he looked at her face, and then he burst out laughin', and says he, 'Well, that does look pretty bad, sure enough; but I know you've got too much confidence in me to let a little thing like that worry you'; and he tried to take hold of her hand, but she jerked it away, and by that time she was so mad at him for laughin' at her that she didn't find any trouble about talkin', and the madder she got and the more she talked, the harder Henry laughed, and says he: 'Oh! come now, Emmeline. You mustn't be so hard on a man. I never loved that woman like I love you. I never was married to her, and I never wanted to marry her. Ain't that enough to satisfy you?'

"Emmeline said she didn't know she could feel so wicked; but when Henry said that, she felt as if she wanted to kill somebody--she didn't know whether it was Henry or the other woman--and she jumped up and run out o' the room, slammin' the door behind her as hard as she could, and locked herself in the spare bedroom. She said Henry went down-stairs, and she could hear him goin' around in the kitchen and pantry lookin' for cold meat and bread, and she looked out o' the window and watched till she saw him go back to the field. And the minute he was out o' sight, she packed her trunk and went to the stable and saddled the mare her father had made her a present of when she married, and then she dressed herself and wrote a note sayin' she'd gone back to her father's house and she'd send over for her trunk the next day. She pinned the note to Henry's piller, and then she got on her horse and started for home.