SWEET CICELY

OR JOSIAH ALLEN AS A POLITICIAN

By “Josiah Allen's Wife”: Marietta Holley

With Illustrations

Eighth Edition

TO

THE SAD-EYED MOTHERS,

WHO, LIKE CICELY,

ARE LOOKING ACROSS THE CRADLE OF THEIR

BOYS INTO THE GREAT WORLD OF

TEMPTATION AND DANGER,

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

Josiah and me got to talkin' it over. He said it wuzn't right to think
more of one child than you did of another.

And I says, “That is so, Josiah.”

And he says, “Then, why did you say yesterday, that you loved sweet Cicely
better than any of the rest of your thought-children? You said you loved
'em all, and was kinder sorry for the hull on 'em, but you loved her the
best: what made you say it?”

Says I, “I said it, to tell the truth.”

“Wall, what did you do it for?” he kep' on, determined to get a
reason.

“I did it,” says I, a comin' out still plainer,—“I did it to keep
from lyin'.”

“Wall, when you say it hain't right to feel so, what makes you?”

“I don't know, Josiah,” says I, lookin' at him, and beyend him, way into
the depths of emotions and feelin's we can't understand nor help,—

“I don't know why, but I know I do.”

And he drawed on his boots, and went out to the barn.

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

List of Illustrations

Sweet Cicely.

Josiah Telling the News to Samantha.

Cicely.

Paul Slide.

Samantha and the “blamers.”

Cicely in the Saloon.

Paul Shooting his Friend.

Cicely and the Boy.

Uncle Sam Enriching the Government.

The Spare Room.

Going to Meeting.

Josiah Closing the Conversation.

“it Wus on a Slay-ride “

Excellent Lime.

Elburtus Endearin' Himself to Mr. Bobbet.

Elbertus Appearin'

Elburtus Holding the Horses.

Hunting for Elburtus.

The Baby.

A Great Effort.

Samantha's Hens.

Cicely and Her Peers.

“a Charge to Keep I Have.”

Josiah's Wood-lot.

God's Comma.

Josiah Reading the Letter.

Copy of the Letter: Free Pass.

Looking Dubersome.

Josiah and his Relations on the Pass.

Josiah Being Approached.

Josiah Being Blown Away.

Josiah's Star Route.

Uncivil Service.

The Golden Calves of Christians.

Josiah Driving Tantrum.

A Woman's Place.

Our Law-makers.

Jonesville Courthouse.

Making Them Do Right.

The Mother's Bed-quilt.

Man Lifting up Eunice.

Eunice in Jail.

Dorlesky's Trials.

Patty and Husband Travelling in the Far West.

Beating his Wife.

Looking Beyend the Sunset.

Looking for the City.

Asking About the City.

Philury.

Samantha Advising the Bride.

Samantha and Paul on the Way to The White
House.

Samantha Meeting the President.

“Would You Dast?”

Samantha Meeting James G. Blaine.

Mr. Blaine Introducing the Senator.

“Fly Around, Ye Angels.”

Woman's Rights and Somebody Blundered.

The Weary Toilers of Life.

Bearing the Baby Peace.

A Case of Necessity.

Samantha Viewing the Capitol.

Samantha Refusing to Be Treated.

Buying Time.

How Woman's Prayers Are Answered.

Samantha and Sally in the Patent Office.

Samantha at the President's Reception.

Going to Mount Vernon.

Before the Tomb of Washington.

The Old Home of Washington.

Thomas Jefferson S Ghost.

Heavenly Visitors.

“say!”

Samantha's Sorrow.

Our 4 Parents.

Borrowing Coals.

The Old Schoolhouse

A May Morning.

At the Depot.

Are You a Lion?

Josiah Being Treated.

Letitia Lanfear.

Ury.

The Wedding Supper.

“yes, if You Please.”

Led Astray.

The Boy's Explanation.

She That Wus Kezier Lum.

Condelick Post.

Licensed Wretchedness.

Samantha Listening to Cicely.

Thomas Jefferson Bringing Cicely's Telegram.

“most Probable She Dremp It.”

The Boy Asking Questions.

Tirzah Ann and Maggie in the Democrat.

Death of Cicely.

Agent Trying to Sell Samantha a Feller.

Them That Sell Doves.

Josiah After Being Repaired.

“goin' to the Revival Meeting.”

“can't I Sell You a Feller?”

The Boy and Let Peedick Playing Horse.

Paul Looking at the Sunset.

“say!”

SWEET CICELY

CHAPTER I.

It was somewhere about the middle of winter, along in the forenoon, that
Josiah Allen was telegrafted to, unexpected. His niece Cicely and her
little boy was goin' to pass through Jonesville the next day on her way to
visit her aunt Mary (aunt on her mother's side), and she would stop off,
and make us a short visit if convenient.

We wuz both tickled, highly tickled; and Josiah, before he had read the
telegraf ten minutes, was out killin' a hen. The plumpest one in the flock
was the order I give; and I wus a beginnin' to make a fuss, and cook up
for her.

We loved her jest about as well as we did Tirzah Ann. Sweet Cicely was
what we used to call her when she was a girl. Sweet Cicely is a plant that
has a pretty white posy. And our niece Cicely was prettier and purer and
sweeter than any posy that ever grew: so we thought then, and so we think
still.

Her mother was my companion's sister,—one of a pair of twins, Mary
and Maria, that thought the world of each other, as twins will. Their
mother died when they wus both of 'em babies; and they wus adopted by a
rich aunt, who brought 'em up elegant, and likely too: that I will say for
her, if she wus a 'Piscopal, and I a Methodist. I am both liberal and
truthful—very.

Maria wus Cicely's ma, and she wus left a widow when she wus a young
woman; and Cicely wus her only child. And the two wus bound up in each
other as I never see a mother and daughter in my life before or sense.

The third year after Josiah and me wus married, Maria wusn't well, and the
doctor ordered her out into the country for her health; and she and little
Cicely spent the hull of that summer with us. Cicely wus about ten; and
how we did love that girl! Her mother couldn't bear to have her out of her
sight; and I declare, we all of us wus jest about as bad. And from that
time they used to spend most all of their summers in Jonesville. The air
agreed with 'em, and so did I: we never had a word of trouble. And we used
to visit them quite a good deal in the winter season: they lived in the
city.

Wall, as Cicely got to be a young girl, I used often to set and look at
her, and wonder if the Lord could have made a prettier, sweeter girl if he
had tried to. She looked to me jest perfect, and so she did to Josiah.

And she knew so much, too, and wus so womanly and quiet and deep. I s'pose
it wus bein' always with her mother that made her seem older and more
thoughtful than girls usially are. It seemed as if her great dark eyes wus
full of wisdom beyend—fur beyend—her years, and sweetness too.
Never wus there any sweeter eyes under the heavens than those of our niece
Cicely.

She wus very fair and pale, you would think at first; but, when you would
come to look closer, you would see there was nothing sickly in her
complexion, only it was very white and smooth,—a good deal like the
pure white leaves of the posy Sweet Cicely. She had a gentle, tender
mouth, rose-pink; and her cheeks wuz, when she would get rousted up and
excited about any thing; and then it would all sort o' die out again into
that pure white. And over all her face, as sweet and womanly as it was,
there was a look of power, somehow, a look of strength, as if she would
venture much, dare much, for them she loved. She had the gift, not always
a happy one, of loving,—a strength of devotion that always has for
its companion-trait a gift of endurance, of martyrdom if necessary.

She would give all, dare all, endure all, for them she loved. You could
see that in her face before you had been with her long enough to see it in
her life.

Her hair wus a soft, pretty brown, about the color of her eyes. And she
wus a little body, slender, and sort o' plump too; and her arms and hands
and neck wus soft and white as snow almost.

Yes, we loved Cicely: and no one could blame us, or wonder at us for
callin' her after the posy Sweet Cicely; for she wus prettier than any
posy that ever blew, enough sight.

Wall, she had always said she couldn't live if her mother died.

But she did, poor little creeter! she did.

Maria died when Cicely wus about eighteen. She had always been delicate,
and couldn't live no longer: so she died. And Josiah and me went right
after the poor child, and brought her home with us.

She lived, Cicely did, because she wus young, and couldn't die. And Josiah
and me wus dretful good to her; and many's the nights that I have gone
into her room when I'd hear her cryin' way along in the night; many's the
times I have gone in, and took her in my arms, and held her there, and
cried with her, and soothed her, and got her to sleep, and held her in my
arms like a baby till mornin'. Wall, she lived with us most a year that
time; and it wus about two years after, while she wus to some of her
father's folks'es (they wus very rich), that she met the young man she
married,—Paul Slide.

He wus a handsome young man, well-behaved, only he would drink a little
once in a while: he'd got into the habit at college, where his mate wus
wild, and had his turns. But he wus very pretty in his manners, Paul was,—polite,
good-natured, generous-dispositioned,—and very rich.

And as to his looks, there wuzn't no earthly fault to find with him, only
jest his chin. And I told Josiah, that how Cicely could marry a man with
such a chin wus a mystery to me.

And Josiah said, “What is the matter with his chin?”

And I says, “Why, it jest sets right back from his mouth: he hain't got no
chin at all hardly,” says I. “The place where his chin ort to be is
nothin' but a holler place all filled up with irresolution and weakness.
And I believe Cicely will see trouble with that chin.”

And then—I well remember it, for it was the very first time after
marriage, and so, of course, the very first time in our two lives—Josiah
called me a fool, a “dumb fool,” or jest the same as called me so. He
says, “I wouldn't be a dumb fool if I was in your place.”

I felt worked up. But, like warriors on a battle-field, I grew stronger
for the fray; and the fray didn't scare me none.

But I says, “You'll see if you live, Josiah Allen”; and he did.

But, as I said, I didn't see how Cicely ever fell in love with a man with
such a chin. But, as I learned afterwards, she fell in love with him under
a fur collar. It wus on a slay-ride. And he wuz very handsome from his
mouth up, very: his mouth wuz ruther weak. It wus a case of love at first
sight, which I believe in considerable; and she couldn't help lovin' him,
women are so queer.

I had always said that when Cicely did love, it would go hard with her.
Many's the offers she'd had, but didn't care for 'em. But I knew, with her
temperament and nater, that love, if it did come to her, would come to
stay, and it would come hard and voyalent. And so it did.

She worshipped him, as I said at first, under a fur collar. And then, when
a woman once gets to lovin' a man as she did, why, she can't help herself,
chin or no chin. When a woman has once throwed herself in front of her
idol, it hain't so much matter whether it is stuffed full of gold, or
holler: it hain't so much matter what they be, I think. Curius,
hain't it?

It hain't the easiest thing in the world for such a woman as Cicely to
love, but it is a good deal easier for her than to unlove, as she found
out afterwards. For twice before her marriage she saw him out of his head
with liquor; and it wus my advice to her, to give him up.

And she tried to unlove him, tried to give him up.

But, good land! she might jest as well have took a piece of her own heart
out, as to take out of it her love for him: it had become a part of her.
And he told her she could save him, her influence could redeem him, and it
wus the only thing that could save him.

And Cicely couldn't stand such talk, of course; and she believed him—believed
that she could love him so well, throw her influence so around him, as to
hold him back from any evil course.

It is a beautiful hope, the very beautifulest and divinest piece of folly
a woman can commit. Beautiful enough in the sublime martyrdom of the idee,
to make angels smile; and vain enough, and foolish enough in its utter
uselessness, to make sinners weep. It can't be done—not in 98 cases
out of a 100 at least.

Why, if a man hain't got love enough for a woman when he is tryin' to win
her affection,—when he is on probation, as you may say,—to
stop and turn round in his downward course, how can she expect he will
after he has got her, and has let down his watch, so to speak?

But she loved him. And when I warned her with tears in my eyes, warned her
that mebby it wus more than her own safety and happiness that wus
imperilled, I could see by the look in her eyes, though she didn't say
much, that it wusn't no use for me to talk; for she wus one of the
constant natures that can't wobble round. And though I don't like
wobblin', still I do honestly believe that the wobblers are happier than
them that can't wobble.

I could see jest how it wuz, and I couldn't bear to have her blamed. And I
would tell folks,—some of the relations on her mother's side,—when
they would say, “What a fool she wus to have him!”—I'd say to 'em,
“Wall, when a woman sees the man she loves goin' down to ruination, and
tries to unlove him, she'll find out jest how much harder it is to unlove
him than to love him in the first place: they'll find out it is a tough
job to tackle.”

I said this to blamers of Cicely (relatives, the best blamers you can find
anywhere). But, at the same time, it would have been my way, when he had
come a courtin' me so far gone with liquor that he could hardly stand up—why,
I should have told him plain, that I wouldn't try to set myself up as a
rival to alcohol, and he might pay to that his attentions exclusively
hereafter.

But she didn't. And he promised sacred to abstain, and could, and did, for
most a year; and she married him.

But, jest before the marriage, I got so rousted up a thinkin' about what I
had heard of him at college,—and I studied on his picture, which she
had sent me, took sideways too, and I could see plain (why, he hadn't no
chin at all, as you may say; and his lips was weak and waverin' as ever
lips was, though sort o' amiable and fascinating),—and I got to
forebodin' so about that chin, and my love for her wus a hunchin' me up so
all the time, that I went to see her on a short tower, to beset her on the
subject. But, good land! I might have saved my breath, I might have saved
my tower.

I cried, and she cried too. And I says to her before I thought,—

“He'll be the ruin of you, Cicely.”

And she says, “I would rather be beaten by his hand, than to be crowned by
another. Why, I love him, aunt Samantha.”

You see, that meant a awful sight to her. And as she looked at me so
earnest and solemn, with tears in them pretty brown eyes, there wus in her
look all that that word could possibly mean to any soul.

But I cried into my white linen handkerchief, and couldn't help it, and
couldn't help sayin', as I see that look,—

“Cicely, I am afraid he will break your heart—kill you”—

“Why, I am not afraid to die when I am with him. I am afraid of nothing—of
life, or death, or eternity.”

Well, I see my talk was no use. I see she'd have him, chin or no chin. If
I could have taken her up in my arms, and run away with her then and
there, how much misery I could have saved her from! But I couldn't: I had
the rheumatiz. And I had to give up, and go home disappointed, but
carryin' this thought home with me on my tower,—that I had done my
duty by our sweet Cicely, and could do no more.

As I said, he promised firm to give up drinking. But, good land! what
could you expect from that chin? That chin couldn't stand temptation if it
came in his way. At the same time, his love for Cicely was such, and his
good heart and his natural gentlemanly intuitions was such, that, if he
could have been kep' out of the way of temptation, he would have been all
right.

If there hadn't been drinking-saloons right in front of that chin, if it
could have walked along the road without runnin' right into 'em, it would
have got along. That chin, and them waverin'-lookin', amiable lips,
wouldn't have stirred a step out of their ways to get ruined and
disgraced: they wouldn't have took the trouble to.

And for a year or so he and the chin kep' out of the way of temptation, or
ruther temptation kep' out of their way; and Cicely was happy,—radiently
happy, as only such a nature as hern can be. Her face looked like a
mornin' in June, it wus so bright, and glowing with joy and happy love.

I visited her, stayed 3 days and 2 nights with her; and I almost forgot to
forebode about the lower part of his face, I found 'em so happy and
prosperous and likely.

Paul wus very rich. He wus the only child: and his pa left 2 thirds of his
property to him, and the other third to his ma, which wus more than she
could ever use while she wus alive; and at her death it wus to go to Paul
and his heirs.

They owned most all of the village they lived in. His pa had owned the
township the village was built on, and had built most all the village
himself, and rented the buildings. He owned a big manufactory there, and
the buildings rented high.

Wall, it wus in the second year of their marriage that that old college
chumb—(and I wish he had been chumbed by a pole, before he had ever
gone there). He had lost his property, and come down in the world, and had
to work for a livin'; moved into that village, and opened a
drinking-saloon and billiard-room.

He had been Paul's most intimate friend at college, and his evil genius,
so his mother said. But he was bright, witty, generous in a way,
unprincipled, dissipated. And he wanted Paul's company, and he wanted
Paul's money; and he had a chin himself, and knew how to manage them that
hadn't any.

Wall, Cicely and his mother tried to keep Paul from that bad influence.
But he said it would look shabby to not take any notice of a man because
he wus down in the world. He wouldn't have much to do with him, but it
wouldn't do to not notice him at all. How curius, that out of good comes
bad, and out of bad, good. That was a good-natured idee of Paul's if he
had had a chin that could have held up his principle; but he didn't.

So he gradually fell under the old influence again. He didn't mean to. He
hadn't no idee of doin' so when he begun. It was the chin.

He begun to drink hard, spent his nights in the saloon, gambled,—slipped
right down the old, smooth track worn by millions of jest such weak feet,
towards ruin. And Cicely couldn't hold him back after he had got to
slippin': her arms wuzn't strong enough.

She went to the saloon-keeper, and cried, and begged of him not to sell
her husband any more liquor. He was very polite to her, very courteous:
everybody was to Cicely. But in a polite way he told her that Paul wus his
best customer, and he shouldn't offend him by refusing to sell him liquor.
She knelt at his feet, I hearn,—her little, tender limbs on that
rough floor before that evil man,—and wept, and said,—

“For the sake of her boy, wouldn't he have mercy on the boy's father.”

But in a gentle way he gave her to understand that he shouldn't make no
change.

And he told her, speakin' in a dretful courteous way, “that he had the law
on his side: he had a license, and he should keep right on as he was
doing.”

And so what could Cicely do? And time went on, carryin' Paul further and
further down the road that has but one ending. Lower and lower he sunk,
carryin' her heart, her happiness, her life, down with him.

And they said one cold night Paul didn't come home at all, and Cicely and
his mother wus half crazy; and they wus too proud, to the last, to tell
the servants more than they could help: so, when it got to be most
mornin', them two delicate women started out through the deep snow, to try
to find him, tremblin' at every little heap of snow that wus tumbled up in
the path in front of 'em; tremblin' and sick at heart with the agony and
dread that wus rackin' their souls, as they would look over the cold
fields of snow stretching on each side of the road, and thinkin' how that
face would look if it wus lying there staring with lifeless eyes up
towards the cold moonlight,—the face they had kissed, the face they
had loved,—and thinkin', too, that the change that had come to it—was
comin' to it all the time—was more cruel and hopeless than the
change of death.

So they went on, clear to the saloon; and there they found him,—there
he lay, perfectly stupid, and dead with liquor.

And they both, the broken-hearted mother and the broken-hearted wife, with
the tears running down their white cheeks, besought the saloon-keeper to
let him alone from that night.

The mother says, “Paul is so good, that if you did not tempt him, entice
him here, he would, out of pity to us, stop his evil ways.”

And the saloon-keeper was jest as polite as any man wus ever seen to be,—took
his hat off while he told 'em, so I hearn, “that he couldn't go against
his own interests: if Paul chose to spend his money there, he should take
it.”

“Will you break our hearts?” cried the mother.

“Will you ruin my husband, the father of my boy?” sobbed out Cicely, her
big, sorrowful eyes lookin' right through his soul—if he had
a soul.

And then the man, in a pleasant tone, reminded 'em,—

“That it wuzn't him that wus a doin' this. It wus the law: if they wanted
things changed, they must look further than him. He had a license. The
great Government of the United States had sold him, for a few dollars, the
right to do just what he was doing. The law, and all the respectability
that the laws of our great and glorious Republic can give, bore him out in
all his acts. The law was responsible for all the consequenses of his
acts: the men were responsible who voted for license—it was not
him.”

“But you can do what we ask if you will, out of pity to Paul, pity
to us who love him so, and who are forced to stand by powerless, and see
him going to ruin—we who would die for him willingly if it would do
any good. You can do this.”

He was a little bit intoxicated, or he wouldn't have gid 'em the cruel
sneer he did at the last,—though he sneeren polite,—a holdin'
his hat in his hand.

“As I said, my dear madam, it is not I, it is the law; and I see no other
way for you ladies who feel so about it, only to vote, and change the
laws.”

“Would to God I could!” said the old white-haired mother, with her
solemn eyes lifted to the heavens, in which was her only hope.

“Would to God I could!” repeated my sweet Cicely, with her eyes fastened
on the face of him who had promised to cherish her, and comfort her, and
protect her, layin' there at her feet, a mark for jeers and sneers, unable
to speak a word, or lift his hand, if his wife and mother had been killed
before him.

But they couldn't do any thing. They would have lain their lives down for
him at any time, but that wouldn't do any good. The lowest, most ignorant
laborer in their employ had power in this matter, but they had none. They
had intellectual power enough, which, added to their utter helplessness,
only made their burden more unendurable; for they comprehended to the full
the knowledge of what was past, and what must come in the future unless
help came quickly. They had the strength of devotion, the strength of
unselfish love.

They had the will, but they hadn't nothin' to tackle it onto him with, to
draw him back. For their prayers, their midnight watches, their tears, did
not avail, as I said: they went jest so far; they touched him, but they
lacked the tacklin'-power that was wanted to grip holt of him, and draw
him back. What they needed was the justice of the law to tackle the
injustice; and they hadn't got it, and couldn't get holt of it: so they
had to set with hands folded, or lifted to the heavens in wild appeal,—either
way didn't help Paul any,—and see him a sinkin' and a sinkin',
slippin' further and further down; and they had to let him go.

He drunk harder and harder, neglected his business, got quarrelsome. And
one night, when the heavens was curtained with blackness, like a pall let
down to cover the accursed scene, he left Cicely with her pretty baby
asleep on her bosom, went down to the saloon, got into a quarrel with that
very friend of hisen, the saloon-keeper, over a game of billiards,—they
was both intoxicated,—and then and there Paul committed murder,
and would have been hung for it if he hadn't died in State's prison the
night before he got his sentence.

Awful deed! Dreadful fate! But no worse, as I told Josiah when he wus a
groanin' over it; no worse, I told the children when they was a cryin'
over it; no worse, I told my own heart when the tears wus a runnin' down
my face like rain-water,—no worse because Cicely happened to be our
relation, and we loved her as we did our own eyes.

And our broad land is full of jest such sufferin's, jest such
crimes, jest such disgrace, caused by the same cause;—as I told
Josiah, suffering, disgrace, and crime made legal and protected by the
law.

And Josiah squirmed as I said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in
it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed
in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law,
to keep it in a warm, healthy, flourishin' condition. Why, he had helped
do it himself; he had helped the United States lift up the mantilly; he
had voted for it.

He squirmed, but turned it off by usin' his bandana hard, and sayin', in a
voice all choked down with grief,—

“Oh, poor Cicely! poor girl!”

“Yes,” says I, “'poor girl!' and the law you uphold has made her; 'poor
girl'—has killed her; for she won't live through it, and you and the
United States will see that she won't.”

He squirmed hard; and my feelin's for him are such that I can't bear to
see him squirm voyalently, as much as I blamed him and the United States,
and as mad as I was at both on 'em.

So I went to cryin' agin silently under my linen handkerchief, and he
cried into his bandana. It wus a awful blow to both on us.

Wall, she lived, Cicely did, which was more than we any one of us thought
she could do. I went right there, and stayed six weeks with her, hangin'
right over her bed, night and day; and so did his mother,—she a
brokenhearted woman too. Her heart broke, too, by the United States; and
so I told Josiah, that little villain that got killed was only one of his
agents. Yes, her heart was broke; but she bore up for Cicely's sake and
the boy's. For it seemed as if she felt remorsful, and as if it was for
them that belonged to him who had ruined her life, to help her all they
could.

Wall, after about three weeks Cicely begun to live. And so I wrote to
Josiah that I guessed she would keep on a livin' now, for the sake of the
boy.

And so she did. And she got up from that bed a shadow,—a faint, pale
shadow of the girl that used to brighten up our home for us. She was our
sweet Cicely still. But she looked like that posy after the frost has
withered it, and with the cold moonlight layin' on it.

Good and patient she wuz, and easy to get along with; for she seemed to
hold earthly things with a dretful loose grip, easy to leggo of 'em. And
it didn't seem as if she had any interest at all in life, or care for any
thing that was a goin' on in the world, till the boy wus about four years
old; and then she begun to get all rousted up about him and his future.
“She must live,” she said: “she had got to live, to do something to
help him in the future.”

“She couldn't die,” she told me, “and leave him in a world that was so
hard for boys, where temptations and danger stood all round her boy's
pathway. Not only hidden perils, concealed from sight, so he might
possibly escape them, but open temptations, open dangers, made as alluring
as private avarice could make them, and made as respectable as dignified
legal enactments could make them,—all to draw her boy down the
pathway his poor father descended.” For one of the curius things about
Cicely wuz, she didn't seem to blame Paul hardly a mite, nor not so very
much the one that enticed him to drink. She went back further than them:
she laid the blame onto our laws; she laid the responsibility onto the
ones that made 'em, directly and indirectly, the legislators and the
voters.

Curius that Cicely should feel so, when most everybody said that he could
have stopped drinking if he had wanted to. But then, I don't know as I
could blame her for feelin' so when I thought of Paul's chin and lips.
Why, anybody that had them on 'em, and was made up inside and outside
accordin', as folks be that have them looks; why, unless they was
specially guarded by good influences, and fenced off from bad ones,—why,
they could not exert any self-denial and control and firmness.

Why, I jest followed that chin and that mouth right back through seven
generations of the Slide family. Paul's father wus a good man, had a good
face; took it from his mother: but his father, Paul's grandfather, died a
drunkard. They have got a oil-portrait of him at Paul's old home: I
stopped there on my way home from Cicely's one time. And for all the world
he looked most exactly like Paul,—the same sort of a irresolute,
handsome, weak, fascinating look to him. And all through them portraits I
could trace that chin and them lips. They would disappear in some of 'em,
but crop out agin further back. And I asked the housekeeper, who had
always lived in the family, and wus proud of it, but honest; and she knew
the story of the hull Slide race.

And she said that every one of 'em that had that face had traits
accordin'; and most every one of 'em got into trouble of some kind.

One or two of 'em, specially guarded, I s'pose, by good influences, got
along with no further trouble than the loss of the chin, and the feelin'
they must have had inside of 'em, that they wuz liable to crumple right
down any minute.

And as they wus made with jest them looks, and jest them traits, born so,
entirely unbeknown to them, I don't know as I can blame Cicely for feelin'
as she did. If temptation hadn't stood right in the road in front of him,
why, he'd have got along, and lived happy. That's Cicely's idee. And I
don't know but she's in the right ont.

But as I said, when her child wus about four years old, Cicely took a
turn, and begun to get all worked up and excited by turns a worryin' about
the boy. She'd talk about it a sight to me, and I hearn it from others.

She rousted up out of her deathly weakness and heartbroken, stunted calm,—for
such it seemed to be for the first two or three years after her husband's
death. She seemed to make an effort almost like that of a dead man
throwin' off the icy stupor of death, and risin' up with numbed limbs, and
shakin' off the death-robes, and livin' agin. She rousted up with jest
such a effort, so it seemed, for the boy's sake.

She must live for the boy; she must work for the boy; she must try to
throw some safeguards around his future. What could she do to help
him? That wus the question that was a hantin' her soul.

It wus jest like death for her to face the curius gaze of the world again;
for, like a wounded animal, she had wanted to crawl away, and hide her
cruel woe and disgrace in some sheltered spot, away from the sharp-sot
eyes of the babblin' world.

But she endured it. She came out of her quiet home, where her heart had
bled in secret; she came out into society again; and she did every thing
she could, in her gentle, quiet way. She joined temperance societies,—helped
push 'em forward with her money and her influence. With other white-souled
wimmen, gentle and refined as she was, she went into rough bar-rooms, and
knelt on their floors, and prayed what her sad heart wus full of,—for
pity and mercy for her boy, and other mothers' boys,—prayed with
that fellowship of suffering that made her sweet voice as pathetic as
tears, and patheticker, so I have been told.

But one thing hurt her influence dretfully, and almost broke her own
heart. Paul had left a very large property, but it wus all in the hands of
an executor until the boy wus of age. He wus to give Cicely a liberal, a
very liberal, sum every year, but wus to manage the property jest as he
thought best.

He wus a good business man, and one that meant to do middlin' near right,
but wus close for a bargain, and sot, awful sot. And though he wus dretful
polite, and made a stiddy practice right along of callin' wimmen “angels,”
still he would not brook a woman's interference.

Wall, he could get such big rents for drinkin'-saloons, that four of
Cicely's buildings wus rented for that purpose; and there wus one
billiard-room. And what made it worse for Cicely seemin'ly, it wus her own
property, that she brought to Paul when she wus married, that wus invested
in these buildings. At that time they wus rented for dry-goods stores, and
groceries. But the business of the manufactories had increased greatly;
and there wus three times the population now there wus when she went there
to live, and more saloons wus needed; and these buildings wus handy; and
the executer had big prices offered to him, and he would rent 'em as he
wanted to. And then, he wus something of a statesman; and he felt, as many
business men did, that they wus fairly sufferin' for more saloons to
enrich the government.

Why, out of every hundred dollars that them poor laboring-men had earned
so hardly, and paid into the saloons for that which, of course, wus
ruinous to themselves and families, and, of course, rendered them
incapable of all labor for a great deal of the time,—why, out of
that hundred dollars, as many as 2 cents would go to the government to
enrich it.

Of course, the government had to use them 2 cents right off towards buyin'
tight-jackets to confine the madmen the whiskey had made, and
poorhouse-doors for the idiots it had breeded, to lean up aginst, and
buryin' the paupers, and buyin' ropes to hang the murderers it had
created.

But still, in some strange way, too deep, fur too deep, for a woman's mind
to comprehend, it wus dretful profitable to the government.

Now, if them poor laborin'-men had paid that 2 cents of theirn to the
government themselves, in the first place, in direct taxation, why, that
wouldn't have been statesmanship. That is a deep study, and has a great
many curius performances, and it has to perform.

Cicely tried her very best to get the executor to change in this one
matter; but she couldn't move him the width of a horse-hair, and he a
smilin' all the time at her, and polite. He liked Cicely: nobody could
help likin' the gentle, saintly-souled little woman. But he wus sot: he
wus makin' money fast by it, and she had to give up.

And rough men and women would sometimes twit her of it,—of her
property bein' used to advance the liquor-traffic, and ruin men and
wimmen; and she a feelin' like death about it, and her hands tied up, and
powerless. No wonder that her face got whiter and whiter, and her eyes
bigger and mournfuller-lookin'.

Wall, she kep' on, tryin' to do all she could: she joined the Woman's
Temperance Union; she spent her money free as water, where she thought it
would do any good, and brought up the boy jest as near right as she could
possibly bring him up; and she prayed, and wept right when she wus a
bringin' of him, a thinkin' that her property wus a bein' used
every day and every hour in ruinin' other mothers' boys. And the boy's
face almost breakin' her heart every time she looked at it; for, though he
wus jest as pretty as a child could be, the pretty rosy lips had the same
good-tempered, irresolute curve to 'em that the boy inherited honestly.
And he had the same weak, waverin' chin. It was white and rosy now, with a
dimple right in the centre, sweet enough to kiss. But the chin wus there,
right under the rosy snow and the dimple; and I foreboded, too, and
couldn't blame Cicely a mite for her forebodin', and her agony of sole.

I noticed them lips and that chin the very minute Josiah brought him into
the settin'-room, and set him down; and my eyes looked dubersome at him
through my specks. Cicely see it, see that dubersome look, though I tried
to turn it off by kissin' him jest as hearty as I could after I had took
the little black-robed figure of his mother, and hugged her close to my
heart, and kissed her time and time agin.

She always dressed in the deepest of mournin', and always would. I knew
that.

Wall, we wus awful glad to see Cicely. I had had the old fireplace fixed
in the front spare room, and a crib put in there for the boy; and I went
right up to her room with her. And when we had got there, I took her right
in my arms agin, as I used to, and told her how glad I wus, and how
thankful I wus, to have her and the boy with us.

The fire sparkled up on the old brass handirons as warm as my welcome. Her
bed and the boy's bed looked white and cozy aginst the dark red of the
carpet and the cream-colored paper. And after I had lowered the pretty
ruffled muslin curtains (with red ones under 'em), and pulled a stand
forward, and lit a lamp,—it wus sundown,—the room looked
cheerful enough for anybody, and it seemed as if Cicely looked a little
less white and brokenhearted. She wus glad to be with me, and said she
wuz. But right there—before supper; and we could smell the roast
chicken and coffee, havin' left the stair-door open—right there,
before we had visited hardly any, or talked a mite about other wimmen, she
begun on what she wanted to do, and what she must do, for the boy.

I had told her how the boy had grown, and that sot her off. And from that
night, every minute of her time almost, when she could without bein'
impolite and troublesome (Cicely wus a perfect lady, inside and out), she
would talk to me about what she wanted to do for the boy, to have the laws
changed before he grew up; she didn't dare to let him go out into the
world with the laws as they was now, with temptation on every side of him.

“You know, aunt Samantha,” she says to me, “that I wanted to die when my
husband died; but I want to live now. Why, I must live; I cannot
die, I dare not die until my boy is safer. I will work, I will die if
necessary, for him.”

It wus the same old Cicely, I see, not carin' for herself, but carin' only
for them she loved. Lovin' little creeter, good little creeter, she always
wuz, and always would be. And so I told Josiah.

Wall, we had the boy set between us to the supper-table, Josiah and me
did, in Thomas Jefferson's little high-chair. I had new covered it on
purpose for him with bright copperplate calico.

And that night at supper, and after supper, I judged, and judged calmly,—we
made the estimate after we went to bed, Josiah and me did,—that the
boy asked 3 thousand and 85 questions about every thing under the sun and
moon, and things over 'em, and outside of 'em, and inside.

Why, I panted for breath, but wouldn't give in. I was determined to use
Cicely first-rate, and we loved the boy too. But, oh! it was a weary love,
and a short-winded love, and a hoarse one.

We went to bed tuckered completely out, but good-natured: our love for 'em
held us up. And when we made the estimate, it wuzn't in a cross tone, but
amiable, and almost winnin'. Josiah thought they went up into the
trillions. But I am one that never likes to set such things too high; and
I said calmly, 3,000 and 85. And finally he gin in that mebby it wuzn't no
more than that.

Cicely told me she couldn't stay with us very long now; for her aunt Mary
wuz expectin' to go away to the Michigan pretty soon, to see a daughter
who wus out of health,—had been out of it for some time,—and
she wanted a visit from her neice Cicely before she went. But she promised
to come back, and make a good visit on her way home.

And so it was planned. The next day was Sunday, and Cicely wus too tired
with her journey to go to meetin'. But the boy went. He sot up, lookin'
beautiful, by the side of me on the back seat of the Democrat; his uncle
Josiah sot in front; and Ury drove. Ury Henzy, he's our hired man, and a
tolerable good one, as hired men go. His name is Urias; but we always call
him Ury,—spelt U-r-y, Ury,—with the emphasis on the U.

Wall, that day Elder Minkly preached. It wus a powerful sermon, about the
creation of the world, and how man was made, and the fall of Adam, and
about Noah and the ark, and how the wicked wus destroyed. It wus a
middlin' powerful sermon; and the boy sot up between Josiah and me, and we
wus proud enough of him. He had on a little green velvet suit and a deep
linen collar; and he sot considerable still for him, with his eyes on
Elder Minkly's face, a thinkin', I guess, how he would put us through our
catechism on the way home. And, oh! didn't he, didn't he do it? I s'pose
things seem strange to children, and they can't help askin' about 'em.

But 4,000 wus the estimate Josiah and me calculated on our pillows that
night wus the number of questions the boy asked on our way home, about the
creation, how the world wus made, and the ark—oh, how he harressed
my poor companion about the animals! “Did they drive 2 of all the animals
in the world in that house, uncle Josiah?”

“Yes,” says Josiah.

“2 elfants, and rinosterhorses, and snakes, and snakes, and bears, and
tigers, and cows, and camels, and hens?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And flies, uncle Josiah?—did they drive in two flies? and
mud-turkles? and bumble-bees? and muskeeters? Say, uncle Josiah, did they
drive in muskeeters?”

“I s'pose so.”

“How could they drive in two muskeeters?”

“Oh! less stop talkin' for a spell—shet up your little mouth,” says
Josiah in a winnin' tone, pattin' him on his head.

“I can shut up my mouth, uncle Josiah, but I can't shut up my thinker.”

Josiah sithed; and, right while he wus a sithin', the boy commenced agin
on a new tack.

“What for a lookin' place was paradise?” And then follered 800 questions
about paradise. Josiah sweat, and offered to let the boy come back, and
set with me. He had insisted, when we started from the meetin'-house, on
havin' the boy set on the front seat between him and Ury.

But I demurred about any change, and leaned back, and eat a sweet apple. I
don't think it is wrong Sundays to eat a sweet apple. And the boy kep' on.

“What did Adam fall off of? Did he fall out of the apple-tree?”

“No, no! he fell because he sinned.”

But the boy went right on, in a tone of calm conviction,—

“No big man would be apt to fall a walking right along. He fell out of the
apple-tree.”

And then he says, after a minute's still thought,—

“I believe, if I had been there, and had a string round Adam's leg, I
could kep' him from fallin' off;—and say, where was the Lord?
Couldn't He have kept him? say, couldn't He?”

“Yes: He can do any thing.”

“Wall, then, why didn't He?”

Josiah groaned, low.

“If Adam hadn't fell, I wouldn't have fell, would I?—nor you—nor
Ury—nor anybody?”

“No: I s'pose not.”

“Wall, wouldn't it have paid to kept Adam up? Say, uncle Josiah, say!”

“Oh! less talk about sunthin' else,” says my poor Josiah. “Don't you want
a sweet apple?”

“Yes; and say! what kind of a apple was it that Adam eat? Was it a sweet
apple, or a greening, or a sick-no-further? And say, was it right
for all of us to fall down because Adam did? And how did I sin just
because a man eat an apple, and fell out of an apple-tree, when I never
saw the apple, or poked him offen the tree, or joggled him, or any thing—when
I wasn't there? Say, how was it wrong, uncle Josiah? When I wasn't there!”

My poor companion, I guess to sort o' pacify him, broke out kinder a
singin' in a tone full of fag, “'In Adam's fall, we sinned all.'” Josiah
is sound.

“And be I a sinning now, uncle Josiah? and a falling? And is everybody a
sinning and a falling jest because that one man eat one apple, and fell
out of an apple-tree? Say, is it right, uncle Josiah, for you and
me, and everybody that is on the earth, to keep a falling, and keep a
falling, and bein' blamed, and every thing, when we hadn't done any thing,
and wasn't there? And say, will folks always keep a
falling?”

“Yes, if they hain't good.”

“How can they keep a falling? If Adam fell out of the apple-tree,
wouldn't he have struck on the ground, and got up agin? And if anybody
falls, why, why, mustn't they come to the bottom sometime? If there is
something to fall off of, mustn't there be something to hit against? And
say”—

Here the boy's eyes looked dreamier than they had looked, and further off.

“Was I made out of dirt, uncle Josiah?”

“Yes: we are all made out of dust.”

“And did God breathe our souls into us? Was it His own self, His own life,
that was breathed into us?”

“Yes,” says Josiah, in a more fagged voice than he had used durin' the
intervue, and more hopelesser.

“Wall, if God is in us, how can He lose us again? Wouldn't it be a losing
His own self? And how could God lose Himself? And what did He find us for,
in the first place, if He wus going to lose us again?”

Here Josiah got right up in the Democrat, and lifted the boy, and sot him
over on the seat with me, and took the lines out of Ury's hands, and drove
the old mair at a rate that I told him wus shameful on Sunday, for a
perfessor.

CHAPTER II.

Wall, Cicely and the boy staid till Tuesday night. Tuesday afternoon the
children wus all to home on a invitation. (I had a chicken-pie, and done
well by 'em.)

And nothin' to do but what Cicely and the boy must go home with 'em: they
jest think their eyes of Cicely. And I couldn't blame 'em for wantin' her,
though I hated to give her up.

She laid out to stay a few days, and then come back to our house for a day
or two, and then go on to her aunt Mary's. But, as it turned out, the
children urged her so, she stayed most two weeks.

And the very next day but one after Cicely went to the children's—And
don't it beat all how, if visitors get to comin', they'll keep a comin'?
jest as it is if you begin to have trials, you'll have lots of 'em, or
broken dishes, or any thing.

Wall, it wus the very next mornin' but one after Cicely had gone, and my
voice had actually begun to sound natural agin (the boy had kep' me hoarse
as a frog answerin' questions). I wus whitewashin' the kitchen, havin' put
it off while Cicely wus there; and there wus a man to work a patchin' up
the wall in one of the chambers,—and right there and then, Elburtus
Smith Gansey come. And truly, we found him as clever a critter as ever
walked the earth.

It wus jest before korkuss; and he wus kinder visatin' round amongst his
relations, and makin' himself agreable. He is my 5th cousin,—5th or
6th. I can't reely tell which, and I don't know as I care much; for I
think, that, after you get by the 5th, it hain't much matter anyway. I
sort o' pile 'em all in promiscous. Jest as it is after anybody gets to be
70 years old, it hain't much matter how much older they be: they are what
you may call old, anyway.

But I think, as I said prior and beforehand, that he wus a 5th. His mother
wus a Butrick, and her mother wus a Smith. So he come to make us a visit,
and sort o' ellectioneer round. He wanted to get put in county judge; and
so, the korkuss bein' held in Jonesville, I s'pose he thought he'd come
down, and endear himself to us, as they all do.

I am one that likes company first-rate, and I always try to do well by
'em; but I tell Josiah, that somehow city folks (Elburtus wus brought up
in a city) are a sort of a bother. They require so much, and give you the
feelin', that, when you are a doin' your very best for 'em, they hain't
satisfied. You see, some folks'es best hain't nigh so good as other
folks'es 3d or 4th.

But this feller—why! I liked him from the first minute I sot my eyes
on him. I hadn't seen him before sence I wus a child, and so didn't feel
so awful well acquainted with him; or, that is, I didn't, as it were, feel
intimate. You know, when you don't see anybody from the time you are
babies till you are married, and have lost a good many teeth, and
considerable hair, you can't feel over and above intimate with 'em at
first sight.

But I liked him, he wus so unassuming and friendly, and took every thing
so peaceable and pleasant. And he deserved better things than what
happened to him.

You see, I wus a cleanin' house when he come, cleanin' the kitchen at that
out-of-the-way time of year on account of Cicely's visit, and on account
of repairin' that had promised to be done by Josiah Allen, and delayed
from week to week, and month to month, as is the way with men. But finally
he had got it done, and I wus ready to the minute with my brush and
scourin'-cloth.

I wus a whitewashin' when he come, and my pail of whitewash wus hung up
over the kitchen-door; and I stood up on a table, a whitewashin' the
ceilin, when I heard a buggy drive up to the door, and stop. And I stood
still, and listened; and then I heard a awful katouse and rumpus, and then
I heard hollerin'; and then I heard Josiah's voice, and somebody else's
voice, a talkin' back and forth, sort o' quick and excited.

Now, some wimmen would have been skairt, and acted skairt; but I didn't. I
jest stood up on that table, cool and calm as a statue of Repose sculped
out of marble, and most as white (I wus all covered with whitewash), with
my brush held easy and firm in my right hand, and my left ear a listenin'.

Pretty soon the door opened right by the side of the table, and in come
Josiah Allen and a strange man. He introduced him to me as Elburtus
Gansey, my 4th cousin; and I made a handsome curchy. I s'pose, bein' up on
the table, the curchy showed off to better advantage than it would if I
had been on the floor: it looked well. But I felt that I ort to shake
hands with him; and, as I went to step down into a chair to get down
(entirely unbeknown to me), my brush hit against that pail, and down come
that pail of whitewash right onto his back. (If it had been his head, it
would have broke it.)

I felt as if I should sink. But he took it the best that ever wus. He
said, when Josiah and me wus a sweepin' him off, and a rubbin' him off
with wet towels, that “it wusn't no matter at all.” And he spoke up so
polite and courteous, that “it seemed to be first-rate whitewash: he never
see better, whiter lime in his life, than that seemed to be.” And then he
sort o' felt of it between his thumb and finger, and asked Josiah “where
did he get that lime, and if they had any more of it. He didn't believe
they could get such lime outside of Jonesville.” He acted like a perfect
gentleman.

And he told me, in that same polite, pleasant tone, how Josiah's old sheep
had knocked him over 3 times while he wus a comin' into the house. He
said, with that calm, gentle smile, “that no sooner would he get up, than
he would stand off a little, and then rush at him with his head down, and
push him right over.”

Says I, “It is a perfect shame and a disgrace,” says I. “And I have told
you, Josiah Allen, that some stranger would get killed by that old
creeter; and I should think you would get rid of it.”

“Wall, I lay out to, the first chance I get,” says he.

Elburtus said “it would almost seem to be a pity, it was so strong and
healthy a sheep.” He said he never met a sheep under any circumstances
that seemed to have a sounder, stronger constitution. He said of course
the sheep and he hadn't met under the pleasantest of circumstances, and it
wusn't over and above pleasant to be knocked down by it three or four
times; but he had found that he couldn't have every thing as he wanted it
in this world, and the only way to enjoy ourselves wus to take things as
they come.

Says I, “I s'pose that wus the way you took the sheep;” and he said, “It
was.”

And then he went on to say in that amiable way of hisen, “that it probably
made it a little harder for him jest at that time, as he wus struck by
lightnin' that mornin'.” (There had been a awful thunder-storm.)

Says Josiah, all excitement, “Did it strike you sensible?”

Says I, “You mean senseless, Josiah Allen.”

“Wall, I said so, didn't I? Did it strike you senseless, Mr. Gansey?”

“No,” he said: it only stunted him. And then he went on a praisin' up our
Jonesville lightnin'. He said it wus about the cleanest, quickest
lightnin' he ever see. He said he believed we had the smartest lightnin'
in our county that you could find in the nation.

So good he acted about every thing. It beat all. Why, he hadn't been in
the house half an hour when he offered to help me whitewash. I told him I
wouldn't let him, for it would spile his clothes, and he hadn't ever been
there a visitin' before, and I didn't want to put him to work. But he hung
on, and nothin' to do but what he had got to take hold and whitewash. And
I had to give up and let him; for I thought it wus better manners to put a
visiter to work, than it wus to dispute and quarrel with 'em: and, of
course, he wasn't used to it, and he filled one eye most full of lime. It
wus dretful painful, dretful.

But I swabbed it out with viniger, and it got easier about the middle of
the afternoon. It bein' work that he never done before, the whitewashin'
looked like fury; but I done it all over after him, and so I got along
with it, though it belated me. But his offerin' to do it showed his good
will, anyway.

I shouldn't have done any more at all after Elburtus had come, only I had
got into the job, and had to finish it; for I always think it is better
manners, when visitors come unexpected, and ketch you in some mean job, to
go on and finish it as quick as you can, ruther than to set down in the
dirt, and let them, ditto, and the same.

And Josiah was ketched jest as I wus, for he had a piece of winter wheat
that wus spilin' to be cut; and he had got the most of it down, and had to
finish it: it wus lodged so he had to cut it by hand,—the machine
wouldn't work on it. And jest as quick as Elburtus had got so he could see
out of that eye, nothin' to do but what he had got to go out and help
Josiah cut that wheat. He hadn't touched a scythe for years and years, and
it wasn't ten minutes before his hands wus blistered on the inside. But he
would keep at it till the blisters broke, and then he had to stop anyway.

He got along quite well after that: only the lot where Josiah wus to work
run along by old Bobbet'ses, and he had carried a jug of sweetened water
and viniger and ginger out into the lot, and Elburtus had talked so polite
and cordial to him, a conversin' on politics, that he got attached to him,
and treated him to the sweetened water.

And Elburtus, not wantin' to hurt his feelin's, drinked about 3 quarts. It
made him deathly sick, for it went aginst his stomach from the first: he
never loved it. And Miss Bobbet duz fix it dretful sickish,—sweetens
it with sale mollasses for one thing.

Oh, how sick that feller wus when he come in to supper! had to lay right
down on the lounge.

Says I, “Elburtus, what made you drink it, when it went aginst your
stomach?” says I.

“Why,” says he in a faint voice, and pale round his lips as any thing, “I
didn't want to hurt his feelin's by refusin'.”

Says I, out to one side, “Did you ever, Josiah Allen, see such goodness in
your life?”

“I never see such dumb foolishness,” says he. “I'd love to have anybody
ketch me a drinkin' three or four quarts of such stuff out of politeness.”

“No,” says I coldly: “you hain't good enough.”

Wall, that night his bed got a fire. It seemed as if every thing under the
sun wus a goin' to happen to that man while he wus here. You see, the
house wus all tore up a repairing and I had to put him up-stairs: and the
bed had been moved out by carpenters, to plaster a spot behind the bed;
and, unbeknown to me, they had set it too near the stove-pipe. And the hot
pipe run right up by the side of it, right by the bed-clothes. It took
fire from the piller-case.

We smelt a dretful smudge, and Josiah run right up-stairs: it had only
jest ketched a fire, and Elburtus was sound asleep; and Josiah, the minute
he see what wus the matter, he jest ketched up the water-pitcher, and
throwed the water over him; and bein' skairt and tremblin', the pitcher
flew out of his hand, and went too, and hit Elburtus on the end of his
nose, and took a piece of skin right off.

He waked up sudden; and there he wus, all drownded out, and a piece gone
off of his nose.

Now, most any other man would have acted mad. Josiah would have acted mad
as a mad dog, and madder. But you ort to see how good Elburtus took it,
jest as quick as he got his senses back. Josiah said he could almost take
his oath that he swore out as cross a oath as he ever heard swore the
first minute before he got his eyes opened, but I believe he wus mistaken.
But anyway, the minute his senses come back, and he see where he wuz, you
ort to see how he behaved. Never, never did I hear of such manners in all
my born days! Josiah told me all about it.

There Elburtus stood, with his nose a bleedin', and his whiskers singed,
and a drippin' like a mushrat. But, instead of jawin' or complainin', the
first thing he said wuz, “What a splendid draft our stove must have, or
else the stove-pipe wouldn't be so hot!” (I had done some cookin' late in
the evenin', and left a fire in the stove.)

And he said our stove-wood must be of the very best quality; and he asked
Josiah where he got it, and if he had to pay any thing extra for that
kind. He said he'd give any thing if he could get holt of a cord of such
wood as that!

Josiah said he felt fairly stunted to see such manners; and he went to
apologisin' about how awful bad it was for him to get his whiskers singed
so, and how it wus a pure axident his lettin' the pitcher slip out of his
hand, and he wouldn't have done it for nothin' if he could have helped it,
and he wus afraid it had hurt him more than he thought for.

And such manners as that clever critter showed then! He said he was a
calculatin' to get his whiskers cut that very day, and it was all for the
best; he persumed they wus singed off in jest the shape he wanted 'em: and
as for his nose, he wus always ashamed of it; it wus always too long, and
he should be glad if there wus a piece gone off of it: Josiah had done him
a favor to help him get rid of a piece of it.

Why, when Josiah told it all over to me after he come down, I told him “I
believed sunthin' would happen to that man before long. I believed he wus
too good for earth.”

Josiah can't bear to hear me praise up any mortal man only himself, and he
muttered sunthin' about “he bet he wouldn't be so tarnel good after
'lection.”

But I wouldn't hear 110 such talk; and says I,—

“If there wus ever a saint on earth, it is Elburtus Smith Gansey;” and
says I, “If you try to vote for anybody else, I'll know the reason why.”

“Wall, wall! who said I wus a goin' to? I shall probable vote in the
family; but he hain't no more saint than I be.”

I gin him a witherin' look; but, as it wus dark as pitch in the room, he
didn't act withered any. And I spoke out agin, and says I, in a low, deep
voice,—

“If it wus one of the relations on your side, Josiah Allen, you would say
he acted dretful good.”

And he says, “There is such a thing, Samantha, as bein' too good—too
dumb good.”

I didn't multiply any more words with him, and we went to sleep.

Wall, that is jest the way that feller acted for the next five days. Why,
the neighbors all got to lovin' him so, why, they jest about worshipped
him. And Josiah said that there wuzn't no use a talkin', Elburtus would
get the nomination unanimous; for everybody that had seen him appear (and
he had been all over the town appearing to 'em, and endearin' himself to
'em, cleer out beyond Jonesville as far as Spoon Settlement and Loontown),
why, they jest thought their eyes of him, he wus so thoughtful and urbane
and helpful. Why, there hain't no tellin' how much helpfuler he wuz than
common folks, and urbaner.

Why, Josiah and me drove into Jonesville one day towards night; and
Elburtus had been there all day. Josiah had some cross-gut saws that he
wanted to get filed, and had happened to mention it before Elburtus; and
nothin' to do but he must go and carry 'em to the man in Jonesville that
wus goin' to do it, and help him file 'em. Josiah told him we wus goin'
over towards night with the team, and could carry 'em as well as not; and
he hadn't better try to help, filin' saws wus such a sort of a raspin'
undertakin'. But Elburtus said “he should probably go through more raspin'
jobs before he died, or got the nomination; and Josiah could have 'em to
bring home that night.” So he sot out with 'em walkin' a foot.

Wall, when we drove in, I see Elburtus a liftin' and a luggin', a loadin'
a big barrell into a double wagon for a farmer; and I says,—

“What under the sun is Elburtus Gansey a doin'?”

And Josiah says, in a gay tone,—

“He is a electionerin', Samantha: see him sweat,” says he. “Salt is heavy,
and political life is wearin', when anybody goes into it deep, and tackles
it in the way Elburtus tackles it.”

He seemed to think it wus a joke; but I says,—

“He is jest a killin' himself, Josiah Allen; and you would set here, and
see him.”

“I hain't a runnin',” says he in a calm tone.

“No,” says I: “you wouldn't run a step to help anybody. And see there,”
says I. “How good, how good that man is!”

Elburtus had finished loadin' the salt, and now he wus a holdin' the
horses for the man to load some spring-beds. And the horses wus skairt by
'em, and wuz jest a liftin' Elburtus right up offen his feet. Why, they
pranced, and tore, and lifted him up, and switched him round, and then
they'd set him down with a crash, and whinner.

But that man smiled all the time, and took off his hat, and bowed to me:
we went by when he wus a swingin' right up in the air. I never see the
beat of his goodness. Why, we found out afterwards, that, besides filin'
them saws, he had loaded seven barrells of salt that day, besides other
heavy truck. That night he wus perfectly beat out—but good.

Josiah said that Philander Dagget'ses wive's brother wouldn't have no
chance at all. He wanted the nomination awful, and Philander had been a
workin' for him all he could; and if Elburtus hadn't come down to
Jonesville, and showed off such a beautiful demeanor and actions, why, we
all thought that Philander's wive's brother would have got it. And I
couldn't help feelin' kind o' sorry for him, though highly tickled for
Elburtus. We both of us, Josiah and me, felt very pleased and extremely
tickled to think that Elburtus wus so sure of it; for there wus a good
deal of money in the office, besides honor, sights of honor.

Wall, when the mornin' of town-meetin' came, that critter wus so awful
clever that nothin' to do but what he must help Josiah do the chores.

And amongst other chores Josiah had to do that mornin', wus to carry home
a plow that belonged to old Dagget. And old Dagget wanted Josiah, when he
had got through with it, to carry it to his son Philander's: and Philander
had left word that he wanted it that mornin'; and he wanted it carried
down to his lower barn, that stood in a meadow a mile away from any house.
Philander'ses land run in such a way that he had to build it there to
store his fodder.

Wall, time run along, and it got time to start for town-meetin', and
Elburtus couldn't be found. I hollered to him from the back stoop, and
Josiah went out to the barn and hollered; but nothin' could be seen of
him. And Josiah got all ready, and waited, and waited; and I told him that
Elburtus had probable got in such a hurry to get there, that he had
started on a foot, and he had better drive on, and he would overtake him.
So finally he did; and he drove along clear to Jonesville, expectin' to
overtake him every minute, and didn't. And the hull day passed off, and no
Elburtus. And nobody had seen him. And everybody thought it looked so
curius in him, a disapearin' as he did, when they all knew that he had
come down to our part of the county a purpose to get the nomination. Why,
his disapearin' as he did looked so awful strange, that they didn't know
what to make of it.

And the opposition side, Philander Daggets'es wive's brother's friends,
started the story that he wus arrested for stealin' a sheep, and wus
dragged off to jail that mornin'.

Of course Josiah tried to dispute it; but, as he wus as much in the dark
as any of 'em as to where he wuz, his disputin' of it didn't amount to any
thing. And then, Josiah's feelin' so strange about Elburtus made his eyes
look kinder glassy and strange when they wus talkin' to him about it; and
they got up the story, so I hearn, that Josiah helped him off with the
sheep, and wus feelin' like death to have him found out.

And the friends of Philander Daggets'es wive's brother had it all their
own way, and he wus elected almost unanimous. Wall, Josiah come home
early, he wus so worried about Elburtus. He thought mebby he had come back
home after he had got away, and wus took sick sudden. And his first words
to me wuz,—

“Where is Elburtus? Have you seen Elburtus?”

And then wus my time to be smit and horrow-struck. And the more we got to
thinkin' about it, the more wonderful did it seem to us, that that man had
dissapeared right in broad daylight, jest as sudden and mysterious as if
the ground had opened, and swallowed him down, or as if he had spread a
pair of wings, and flown up into the sky.

Not that I really thought he had. I couldn't hardly associate the idee of
heaven and endless repose with a short frock-coat and boots, and a blue
necktie and a stiff shirt-collar. But, oh! how strange and mysterious it
did seem to be! We talked it over and over, and we could not think of any
thing that could happen to him. He knew enough to keep out of the creek;
and there wasn't no woods nigh where he could get lost, and he wus too old
to be stole. And so we thought and thought, and racked our 2 brains.

And finally I says, “Wall! it hain't happened for several thousand years,
but I don't know what to think. We read of folks bein' translated up to
heaven when they get too good for earth, and you know I have told you
several times that he wus too clever for earth. I have thought he wus not
of the earth, earthy.”

“And I have thought,” says he, sort o' snappish, “that he wus of politics,
politicky.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, I should be afraid, if I wus in your place, to talk
in that way in such a time as this,” says I. “I have felt, when I see his
actions when he wus knocked over by that sheep, and covered with lime, and
sot fire to, I have felt as if we wus entertainin' a angel unawares.”

“Yes,” says he, “it wuz unawares, entirely unawares to me.”

His axent wus dry, dry as chaff, and as full of ironry as a oven-door or
flat-iron.

“Wall,” says I, “mebby you will see the time, before the sun rises on your
bald head again, that you will be sorry for such talk.” Says I, “If it wus
one of the relation on your side, mebby you would talk different about
him.” That touched him; and he snapped out,—

“What do you s'pose I care which side he wus on? And I should think it wus
time to have a little sunthin' to eat: it must be three o'clock if it is a
minute.”

Says I, “Can you eat, Josiah Allen, in such a time as this?”

“I could if I could get any thing to eat,” says he; “but there
don't seem to be much prospect of it.”

Says I, “The best thing you can do, Josiah Allen, is to foller his tracks.
The ground is kinder soft and spongy, and you can do it,” says I. “Where
did he go to last from here?”

“Down to Philander Daggets'es, to carry home his plow.”

“That angel man!” says I.

“That angel fool!” says Josiah. “Who asked him to go?”

Says I, “When a man gets too good for earth, there is other ways to
translate him besides chariots of fire. Who knows but what he has fell
down in a fit! And do you go this minute, Josiah Allen, and foller his
tracks!”

“I sha'n't foller nobody's tracks, Samantha Allen, till I have sunthin' to
eat.”

I knew there wuzn't no use of reasonin' no further with him then; for when
he said Samantha Allen in that axent, I knew he wus as sot as a hemlock
post, and as hard to move as one. And so my common sense bein' so firm and
solid, even in such a time as this, I reasoned it right out, he wouldn't
stir till he had sunthin' to eat, and so the sooner I got his supper, the
sooner he would go and foller Elburtus'es tracks. So I didn't spend no
more strength a arguin', but kep' it to hurry up; and my reason is such,
strong and vigorous and fur-seein', that I knew the better supper he had,
the more animated would be his search. So I got a splendid supper, but
quick.

But, oh! all the time I wus a gettin' it, this solemn and awful question
wus a hantin' me,—What had become of Elburtus Smith Gansey? What had
become of the relation on my side? Oh, the feelin's I felt! Oh, the
emotions I carried round with me, from buttery to teakettle, and from
teapot to table!

But finally, after eatin' longer than it seemed to me he ever eat before
(such wus my feelin's), Josiah started off acrost the lot, towards
Daggets'es barn. And I stood in the west door, with my hand over my eyes,
a watchin' him most every minute he wus gone. And when that man come back,
he come a laughin'. And I wus that madded, to have him look in that sort
of a scorfin' way, that I wouldn't say a word to him; and he come into the
house a laughin', and sot down and crossed his legs a laughin', and says
he,—

“What do you s'pose has become of the relation on your side?” And says he,
snickerin' agin,—

“You wus in the right on it, Samantha,—he did asscend: he went up!”
And agin he snickered loud. And says I coldly, cold as ice almost,—

“If I wuzn't a perfect luny, or idiot, I'd talk as if I knew sunthin'. You
know I said that, as one who allegores. If you have found Elburtus Gansey,
I'd say so, and done with it.”

“Wall,” says he, “you wuz in the right of it, and that is what
tickles me. He got locked up in Dagget's barn. He asscended, jest as I
told you. He went up the ladder over the hay, to throw down fodder, and
got locked up axidental.” And, as he said “axidental,” he snickered
worse than ever.

And I says, “It is a mean, miserable, good for nothin', low-lived caper!
And Philander Dagget done it a purpose to keep Elburtus from the
town-meetin', so his wive's brother would get the election. And, if I wus
Elburtus Gansey, I'd sue him, and serve a summons on him, and prosicute
him.”

“Why,” says Josiah, in the same hilarious axent, and the same scorfin'
look onto him, “Philander says he never felt so worked up about any thing
in his life, as he did when he unlocked the barn-door to-night, and found
Elburtus there. He said he felt as if he should sink, for he wus so afraid
that some evil-minded person might say he done it a purpose. And he said
what made him feel the worst about it wuz to think that he should have
shut him up axidental when he wus a helpin' so good.”

Says I, “The mean, impudent creeter! As good as Elburtus wuz!”

“Wall,” says Josiah, “you know what I told you,—there is such a
thing as bein' too good.”

I wouldn't multiply no more words on the subject, I wus that wrought up
and excited and mad; and I wouldn't give in a mite to Josiah Allen, and
wouldn't want it repeated now so he could hear it, but I do s'pose that
wus the great trouble with Elburtus,—he wus a leetle too
good.

And, come to think it over, I don't s'pose Philander had laid any plot to
keep him away from 'lection; but he is a great case for fun, and he had
laughed and tickled about Elburtus bein' so polite and helpful, and had
made a good deel of fun of him. And then, he thinks a awful sight of his
wive's brother, and wanted him to get the election.

And I s'pose the idee come to him after Elburtus had got down to the barn
where he wus a fodderin' his sheep.

You see, if Elburtus had let well enough alone, and not been too
good, every thing would have gone off right then, but he wouldn't. Nothin'
to do but he must help Philander get down his fodder. And I s'pose then
the idee come to him that he would shet him up, and keep him there till
after 'lection wus over. For I don't believe a word about its bein' a
axident. And I don't believe Josiah duz, though he pretends he duz. But
every time he says that word “axident,” he will laugh out so sort o'
aggravatin'. That is what mads me to this day.

But, as Josiah says, who would have thought that Elburtus would have
offered to carry that plow home, and throw down the fodder?

But, at any rate, Philander turned the key on him while he wus up
over-head, and locked him in there for the day. A meaner, low-liveder,
miserabler caper, I never see nor heard of.

But the way Philander gets out of it (he is a natural liar, and has had
constant practice), he don't deny lockin' the door, but he says he wus to
work on the outside of the barn, and he s'posed Elburtus had gone out, and
gone home; and he locked the door, and went away.

He says (the mean, sneakin', hippocritical creeter!) that he feels like
death about it, to think it happened so, and on that day too. And he says
what makes him feel the meanest is, to think it was his wive's brother
that wus up on the other side, and got the nomination. He says it leaves
room for talk.

And there it is. You can't sue a man for lockin' his own barn-door. And
Elburtus wouldn't want it brought into court, anyway; for folks would be a
wonderin' so what under the sun he wus a prowlin' round for up overhead in
Philander Daggets'es barn.

So he wus obliged to let the subject drop, and Philander has it all his
own way. And they say his wive's brother give him ten silver dollars for
his help. And that is pretty good pay for turnin' one lock, about 2
seconts' work.

Wall, anyway, that wus the last thing that happened to Elburtus in
Jonesville; and whether he took it polite and easy, or not, I don't know.
For that night, when Philander went down to the barn to fodder, jest
before Josiah went there, and let him out (and acted perfectly suprised
and horrified at findin' him there, Philander did, so I have been told),
Elburtus started a bee-line for the depo, and never come back here at all;
and he left a good new handkerchief, and a shirt, and 3 paper collars.

And whether he has kep' on a sufferin', or not, I don't know. Mebby he had
his trials in one batch, as you may say, and is now havin' a spell of
enjoyments. I am sure, I hope so; for a cleverer, good-natureder,
polite-appearin'er creeter, I never see, nor don't expect to see
agin in my life; and so I tell Josiah.

CHAPTER III.

The next evenin' follerin' after the exodus of Elburtus Gansey, Josiah and
I, thinkin' that we needed a relaxation to relax our two minds, rode into
Jonesville. We went in the Democrat, at my request; for I wus in hopes
Cicely would come home with us.

And she did. We had a good ride. I sot in front with Josiah at his
request; and what made it pleasanter wuz, the boy stood up in the Democrat
behind me a good deal of the way, with his arms round my neck, a kissin'
me.

And when I waked up in the mornin', I wus glad to think they wus there.
Though Cicely wuzn't well: I could see she wuzn't. I felt sad at the
breakfast-table to see how her fresh young beauty wus bein' blowed away by
the sharp breath of sorrow's gale.

But she wus sweet and gentle as ever the posy wus we had named her after.
No Sweet Cicely blow wus ever sweeter and purer than she wuz. After I got
my work all done up below,—she offerin' to help me, and a not
lettin' her lift her finger,—I went up into her room, where there
wus a bright fire on the hearth, and every thing looked cozy and snug.

The boy, havin' wore himself out a harrowin' his uncle Josiah and Ury with
questions, had laid down on the crimson rug in front of the fire, and wus
fast asleep, gettin' strength for new labors.

And Cicely sot in a little low rockin'-chair by the side of him. She had
on a white flannel mornin'-dress, and a thin white zephyr worsted shawl
round her; and her silky brown hair hung down her back, for she had been a
brushin' it out; and she looked sweet and pretty enough to kiss; and I
kissed her right there, before I sot down, or any thing.

And then, thinks'es I as I sot down, we will have a good, quiet visit, and
talk some about other wimmen. (No runnin' 'em: I'd scorn it, and so would
she.)

But I thought I'd love to talk it over with her, about what good
housekeepers Tirzah Ann and Maggie wuz. And I wanted to hear what she
thought about the babe, and if she could say in cander that she ever see a
little girl equal her in graces of mind and body.

And I wanted to hear all about her aunt Mary and her aunt Melissa (on her
father's side). I knew she had had letters from 'em. And I wanted to hear
how she that was Jane Smith wuz, that lived neighbor to her aunt Mary's
oldest daughter, and how that oldest daughter wuz, who wus s'posed to be a
runnin' down. And I wanted to hear about Susan Ann Grimshaw, who had
married her aunt Melissy's youngest son. There wus lots of news that I
felt fairly sufferin' for, and lots of news that I felt like disseminatin'
to her.

But, if you'll believe it, jest as I had begun to inquire, and take
comfort, she branched right off, a lady-like branch, and a courteous one,
but still a branch, and begun to talk about “what should she do—what
could she do—for the boy.”

And she looked down on him as he lay there, with such a boundless love,
and a awful dread in her eyes, that it was pitiful in the extreme to see
her; and says she,—

“What will become of him in the future, aunt Samantha, with the laws as
they are now?”

And with such a chin and mouth as he has got, says I to myself, lookin'
down on him; but I didn't say it out loud. I am too well bread.

“It must be we can get the laws changed before he grows up. I dare not
trust him in a world that has such temptations, such snares set ready for
him. Why,” says she—And she fairly trembled as she said it. She
would always throw her whole soul into any thing she undertook; and in
this she had throwed her hull heart, too, and her hull life—or so it
seemed to me, to look at her pale face, and her big, glowin' eyes, full of
sadness, full of resolve too.

“Why, just think of it! How he will be coaxed into those drinking-saloons!
how, with his easy, generous, good-natured ways,—and I know he will
have such ways, and be popular,—a bright, handsome young man, and
with plenty of money. Just think of it! how, with those open saloons on
every side of him, when he can't walk down the street without those gilded
bars shining on every hand; and the friends he will make, gay, rich,
thoughtless young men like himself—they will laugh at him if he
refuses to do as they do; and with my boy's inherited tastes and
temperament, his easiness to be led by those he loves, what will hinder
him from going to ruin as his poor father did? What will keep him, aunt
Samantha?”

And she busted out a cryin'.

I says, “Hush, Cicely,” layin' my hand on hern. It wus little and soft,
and trembled like a leaf. Some folks would have called her nervous and
excitable; but I didn't, thinkin' what she had went through with the boy's
father.

Says I, “There is One who is able to save him. And, instead of gettin'
yourself all worked up over what may never be, I think it would be better
to ask Him to save the boy.”

“I do ask Him, every day, every hour,” says she, sobbin' quieter like.

“Wall, then, hush up, Cicely.”

And sometimes she would hush up, and sometimes she wouldn't.

But how she would talk about what she wanted to do for him! I heard her
talkin' to her uncle Josiah one day.

You see, she worried about the boy to that extent, and loved him so, that
she would have been willin' to have had her head took right off, if that
would have helped him, if it would have insured him a safe and happy
future; but it wouldn't: and so she was willin' to do any other hard job
if there wus any prospect of its helpin' the boy.

She wus willin' to vote on the temperance question.

But Josiah wus more sot than usial that mornin' aginst wimmen's votin';
and he had begun himself on the subject to Cicely; had talked powerful
aginst it, but gentle: he loved Cicely as he did his eyes.

He had been to a lecture the night before, to Toad Holler, a little place
between Jonesville and Loontown. He and uncle Nate Burpy went up to hear a
speech aginst wimmen's suffrage, in a Democrat.

Josiah said it wus a powerful speech. He said uncle Nate said, “The feller
that delivered it ort to be President of the United States:” he said,
“That mind ort to be in the chair.”

And I said I persumed, from what I had heard of it, that his mind wuz
tired, and ort to set down and rest.

I spoke light, because Josiah Allen acted so high-headed about it. But I
do s'pose it wus a powerful effort, from what I hearn.

He talked dretful smart, they say, and used big words.

The young feller that gin the lecture, and his sister, oldest, and she set
her eyes by him. She had took care of the old folks, supported 'em and
lifted 'em round herself; took all the care of 'em in every way till they
died: and then this boy didn't seem to have much faculty for gettin'
along; so she educated him, sewed for tailors' shops, and got money, and
sent him to school and college, so he could talk big.

And it was such a comfort to that sister, to sort o' rest off for an
evenin' from makin' vests and pantaloons, cheap, to furnish him money!—it
was so sort o' restful to her to set and hear him talk large aginst
wimmen's suffrage and the weakness and ineficiency of wimmen!

He said, the young chap did, and proved it right out, so they said, “that
the franchise was too tuckerin' a job for wimmen to tackle, and that
wimmen hadn't the earnestness and persistency and deep forethought to make
her valuable as a franchiser—or safe.”

You see, he had his hull strength, the young chap did; for his sister had
clothed him, as well as boarded him, and educated him: so he could talk
powerful. He could use up quantities of wind, and not miss it, havin' all
his strength.

His speech made a deep impression on men and wimmen. His sister bein' so
wore out, workin' so hard, wept for joy, it was so beautiful, and affected
her so powerful. And she said “she never realized till that minute how
weak and useless wimmen really was, and how strong and powerful men was.”

It wus a great effort. And she got a extra good supper for him that night,
I heard, wantin' to repair the waste in his system, caused by eloquence.
She wus supportin' him till he got a client: he wus a studyin' law.

Wall, Josiah wus jest full of his arguments; and he talked 'em over to
Cicely that mornin'.

But she said, after hearin' 'em all, “that she wus willin' to vote on the
temperance question. She had thought it all over,” she said. “Thought how
the nation lay under the curse of African slavery until that race of
slaves were freed. And she believed, that when women who were now in legal
bondage, were free to act as their heart and reason dictated, that they,
who suffered most from intemperance, would be the ones to strike the blow
that would free the land from the curse.”

Curius that she should feel so, but you couldn't get the idee out of her
head. She had pondered over it day and night, she said,—pondered
over it, and prayed over it.

And, come to think it over, I don't know as it wus so curius after all,
when I thought how Paul had ruined himself, and broke her heart, and how
her money wus bein' used now to keep grog-shops open, four of her
buildin's rented to liquor-dealers, and she couldn't help herself.

Cicely owned lots of other landed property in the village where she lived;
and so, of course, her property wus all taxed accordin' to its worth. And
its bein' the biggest property there, of course it helped more than any
thing else did to keep the streets smooth and even before the
saloon-doors, so drunkards could get there easy; and to get new
street-lamps in front of the saloons and billiard-rooms, so as to make a
real bright light to draw 'em in and ruin 'em.

There wus a few—the doctor, who knew how rum ruined men's bodies;
and the minister, he knew how it ruined men's souls—they two, and a
few others, worked awful hard to get the saloons shut up.

But the executor, who wanted the town to go license, so's he could make
money, and thinkin' it would be for her interest in the end, hired votes
with her money. Her money used to hire liquor-votes! So she heard, and
believed. The idee!

So her money, and his influence, and the influence of low appetites,
carried the day; and the liquor-traffic won. The men who rented her
houses, voted for license to a man. Her property used agin to spread the
evil! She labored with these men with tears in her eyes. And they liked
her. She was dretful good to 'em. (As I say, she held the things of this
world with a loose grip.)

They listened to her respectful, stood with their hats in their' hands,
answerin' her soft, and went soft out of her presence—and voted
license to a man. You see, they wus all willin' to give her love and
courtesy and kindness, but not the right to do as her heaven-learnt sense
of right and wrong wanted her to. She had a fine mind, a pure heart: she
had been through the highest schools of the land, and that higher,
heavenly school of sufferin', where God is the teacher, and had graduated
from 'em with her lofty purposes refined and made luminous with some thin'
like the light of Heaven.

But those men—many of 'em who did not know a letter of the alphabet,
whose naturally dull minds had become more stupified by habitual vice—those
men, who wus her inferiors, and her servants in every thing else, wus each
one of 'em her king here, and she his slave: and they compelled her to
obey their lower wills.

Wall, Cicely didn't think it wus right. Curius she should think so, some
folks thought, but she did.

But all this that wore on her wus as nothin' to what she felt about the
boy,—her fears for his future. “What could she do—what could
she do for the boy, to make it safer for him in the future?”

And I had jest this one answer, that I'd say over and over agin to her,—

“Cicely, you can pray! That is all that wimmen can do. And try to
influence him right now. God can take care of the boy.”

“But I can't keep him with me always; and other influences will come, and
beat mine down. And I have prayed, but God don't hear my prayer.”

And I'd say, calm and soothin', “How do you know, Cicely?”

And she says, “Why, how I prayed for help when my poor Paul went down to
ruin, through the open door of a grog-shop! If the women of the land had
it in their power to do what their hearts dictate,—what the poorest,
lowest man has the right to do,—every saloon, every low
grog-shop, would be closed.”

She said this to Josiah the mornin' after the lecture I speak of. He sot
there, seemin'ly perusin' the almanac; but he spoke up then, and says,—

“You can't shet up human nater, Cicely: that will jump out any way. As the
poet says, 'Nater will caper.'”

But Cicely went right on, with her eyes a shinin', and a red spot in her
white cheeks that I didn't like to see.

“A thousand temptations that surround my boy now, could be removed, a
thousand low influences changed into better, helpful ones. There are
drunkards who long, who pray, to have temptations removed out of their
way,—those who are trying to reform, and who dare not pass the door
of a saloon, the very smell of the liquor crazing them with the desire for
drink. They want help, they pray to be saved; and we who are praying to
help them are powerless. What if, in the future, my boy should be like one
of them,—weak, tempted, longing for help, and getting nothing but
help towards vice and ruin? Haven't mothers a right to help those they
love in every way,—by prayer, by influence, by legal right
and might?”

“It would be a dangerous experiment, Cicely,” says Josiah, crossin' his
right leg over his left, and turnin' the almanac to another month. “It
seems to me sunthin' unwomanly, sunthin' aginst nater. It is turnin' the
laws of nater right round. It is perilous to the domestic nature of
wimmen.”

“I don't think so,” says I. “Don't you remember, Josiah Allen, how you
worried about them hens that we carried to the fair? They wus so handsome,
and such good layers, that I really wanted the influence of them hens to
spread abroad. I wanted otherfolks to know about 'em, so's to have some
like 'em. But you worried awfully. You wus so afraid that carryin' the
hens into the turmoil of public life would have a tendency to keep 'em
from wantin' to make nests and hatch chickens! But it didn't. Good land!
one of 'em made a nest right there, in the coop to the fair, with the
crowd a shoutin' round 'em, and laid two eggs. You can't break up nature's
laws; they are laid too deep and strong for any hammer we can get
holt of to touch 'em; all the nations and empires of the world can't move
'em round a notch.

“A true woman's deepest love and desire are for her home and her loved
ones, and planted right in by the side of these two loves of hern is a
deathless instinct and desire to protect and save them from danger.

“Good land! I never heard a old hen called out of her spear, and unhenly,
because she would fly out at a hawk, and cackle loud, and cluck, and try
to lead her chickens off into safety. And while the rooster is a steppin'
high, and struttin' round, and lookin' surprised and injured, it is the
old hen that saves the chickens, nine times out of ten.

“It is against the evil hawks,—men-hawks,—that are ready to
settle down, and tear the young and innocent out of the home nest, that
wimmen are tryin' to defend their children from. And men may talk about
wimmen's gettin' too excited and zealous; but they don't cluck and cackle
half so loud as the old hen does, or flutter round half so earnest and
fierce.

“And the chicken-hawk hain't to be compared for danger to the men-hawks
Cicely is tryin' to save her boy from. And I say it is domestic love in
her to want to protect him, and tenderness, and nature, and grace, and—and—every
thing.”

I wus wrought up, and felt deeply, and couldn't express half what I felt,
and didn't much care if I couldn't. I wus so rousted up, I felt fairly
reckless about carin' whether Josiah or anybody understood me or not. I
knew the Lord understood me, and I knew what I felt in my own mind, and I
didn't much care for any thing else. Wimmen do have such spells. They get
fairly wore out a tryin' to express what they feel in their souls to a
gain-sayin' world, and have that world yell out at 'em, “Unwomanly!
unwomanly!” I say, Cicely wuzn't unwomanly. I say, that, from the very
depths of her lovin' little soul, she wus pure womanly, affectionate,
earnest, tender-hearted, good; and, if anybody tells me she wuzn't, I'll
know the reason why.

But, while I wus a reveryin' this, my Josiah spoke out agin', and says,—

“Influence the world through your child, Cicely! influence him, and let
him influence the world. Let him make the world better and purer by your
influencein' it through him.”

“Why not use that influence now, myself? I have it here right in my
heart, all that I could hope to teach to my boy, at the best. And why
wait, and set my hopes of influencing the world through him, when a
thousand things may happen to weaken that influence, and death and change
may destroy it? Why, my one great fear and dread is, that my boy will be
led away by other, stronger influences than mine,—the temptations
that have overthrown so many other children of prayer—how dare I
hope that my boy will withstand them? And death may claim him before he
could bear my influence to the world. Why not use it now, myself, to help
him, and other mothers' boys? If it is, as you say, an experiment, why not
let mothers try it? It could not do any harm; and it would ease our poor,
anxious hearts some, to make the effort, even if it proved useless. No one
can have a deeper interest in the children's welfare than their mothers.
Would they be apt to do any thing to harm them?”

And then I spoke up, entirely unbeknown to myself, and says,—

“Selfishness has had its way for years and years in politics, and now why
not let unselfishness have it for a change? For, Josiah Allen,” says I
firmly, “you know, and I know, that, if there is any unselfishness in this
selfish world, it is in the heart of a mother.”

“It would be apt to be dangerous,” says Josiah, crossin' his left leg over
his right one, and turnin' to a new month in the almanac. “It would most
likely be apt to be.”

“Why?” says Cicely. “Why is it dangerous? Why is it wrong for a
women to try to help them she would die for? Yes,” says she solemnly, “I
would die for Paul any time if I knew it would smooth his pathway, make it
easier for him to be a good man.”

“Wall, you see, Cicely,” says Josiah in a soft tone,—his love for
her softenin' and smoothin' out his axent till it sounded almost foolish
and meachin',—“you see, it would be dangerous for wimmen to vote,
because votin' would be apt to lower wimmen in the opinion of us men and
the public generally. In fact, it would be apt to lower wimmen down to
mingle in a lower class. And it would gaul me dretfully,” says Josiah,
turnin' to me, “to have our sweet Cicely lower herself into a lower grade
of society: it would cut me like a knife.”

And then I spoke right up, for I can't stand too much foolishness at one
time from man or woman; and I says,—

“I'd love to have you speak up, Josiah Allen, and tell me how wimmen would
go to work to get any lower in the opinion of men; how they could get into
any lower grade of society than they are minglin' with now. They are
ranked now by the laws of the United States, and the will of men, with
idiots, lunatics, and criminals. And how pretty it looks for you men to
try to scare us, and make us think there is a lower class we could get
into! There hain't any lower class that we can get into than the
ones we are in now; and you know it, Josiah Allen. And you sha'n't scare
Cicely by tryin' to make her think there is.”

He quailed. He knew there wuzn't. He knew he had said it to scare us,
Cicely and me, and he felt considerable meachin' to think he had got found
out in it. But he went on in ruther of a meek tone,—

“It would be apt to make talk, Cicely.”

“What do I care for talk?” says she. “What do I care for honor, or praise,
or blame? I only want to try to save my boy.”

And she kep' right on with her tender, earnest voice, and her eyes a
shinin' like stars,—

“Have I not a right to help him? Is he not my child? Did not God
give me a right to him, when I went down into the darkness with God
alone, and a soul was given into my hands? Did I not suffer for him? Have
I not been blessed in him? Why, his little hands held me back from the
gates of death. By all the rights of heavenliest joy and deepest agony—is
he not mine? Have I not a right to help him in his future?

“Now I hold him in my arms, my flesh, my blood, my life. I hold him on my
heart now: he is mine. I can shield him from danger: if he should
fall into the flames, I could reach in after him, and die with him, or
save him. God and man give me that right now: I do not have to ask for it.

“But in a few years he will go out from me, carrying my own life with him,
my heart will go with him, to joy or to death. He will go out into dangers
a thousand-fold worse than death,—dangers made respectable and
legal,—and I can't help him.

“I his mother, who would die for him any hour—I must stand
with my eyes open, but my hands bound, and see him rushing headlong into
flames tenfold hotter than fire; see him on the brink of earthly and
eternal ruin, and can't reach out my hand to hold him back. My boy!
My own! Is it right? Is it just?”

And she got up, and walked the room back and forth, and says,—

“How can I bear the thought of it? How can I live and endure it? And how
can I die, and leave the boy?”

And her eyes looked so big and bright, and that spot of red would look so
bright on her white cheeks, that I would get skairt. And I'd try to sooth
her down, and talk gentle to her. And I says,—

“All things are possible with God, and you must wait and hope.”

But she says, “What will hope do for me when my boy is lost? I want to
save him now.”

It did beat all, as I told Josiah, out to one side, to see such hefty
principles and emotions in such a little body. Why, she didn't weigh much
over 90, if she did any.

And Josiah whispered back, “All women hain't like Cicely.”

And I says in the same low, deep tones, “All men hain't like George
Washington! Now get me a pail of water.”

And he went out. But it did beat all, how that little thing, when she
stood ready, seemin'ly, to tackle the nation—I've seen her jump up
in a chair, afraid of a mice. The idee of anybody bein' afraid of a mice,
and ready to tackle the Constitution!

And she'd blush up red as a rosy if a stranger would speak to her. But she
would fight the hull nation for her boy.

And I'd try to sooth her (for that red spot on her cheeks skairt me, and I
foreboded about her). I said to her after Josiah went out, a holdin' her
little hot hands in mine,—for sometimes her hands would be hot and
feverish, and then, agin, like two snowflakes,—

“Cicely, women's voting on intemperance would, as your uncle Josiah says,
be a experiment. I candidly think and believe that it would be a good
thing,—a blessin' to the youth of the land, a comfort to the
females, and no harm to the males. But, after all, we don't know what it
would do”—

“I know” says she. And her eyes had such a far-off, prophetic look
in 'em, that I declare for't, if I didn't almost think she did
know. I says to myself,—

“She's so sweet and unselfish and good, that I believe she's more than
half-ways into heaven now. The Holy Scriptures, that I believe in, says,
'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' And it don't say
where they shall see Him, or when. And it don't say that the light that
fell from on high upon the blessed mother of our Lord, shall never fall
again on other heart-broken mothers, on other pure souls beloved of Him.”

And it is the honest truth, that it would not have surprised me much
sometimes, as she wus settin' in the twilight with the boy in her arms, if
I had seen a halo round her head; and so I told Josiah one night, after
she had been a settin' there a holdin' the boy, and a singin' low to him,—

“'A charge to keep I have,—
A God to glorify;
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.'”
 

It wuzn't her soul she wus a thinkin' of, I knew. She didn't think
of herself: she never did.

And after she went to bed, I mentioned the halo. And Josiah asked what
that was. And I told him it was “the inner glory that shines out from a
pure soul, and crowns a holy life.”

And he said “he s'posed it was some sort of a headdress. Wimmen was so
full of new names, he thought it was some new kind of a crowfar.”

I knew what he meant. He didn't mean crowfar, he meant crowfure.
That is French. But I wouldn't hurt his feelin's by correctin' him; for I
thought “fur” or “fure,” it didn't make much of any difference.

Wall, the very next day, when Josiah came from Jonesville,—he had
been to mill,—he brought Cicely a letter from her aunt Mary. She
wanted her to come on at once; for her daughter, who wus a runnin' down,
wus supposed to be a runnin' faster than she had run. And her aunt Mary
was goin' to start for the Michigan very soon,—as soon as she got
well enough: she wasn't feelin' well when she wrote. And she wanted Cicely
to come at once.

So she went the next day, but promised that jest as quick as she got
through visitin' her aunt and her other relations there, she would come
back here.

So she went; and I missed her dretfully, and should have missed her more
if it hadn't been for the state my companion returned in after he had
carried Cicely to the train.

He come home rampant with a new idee. All wrought up about goin' into
politics. He broached the subject to me before he onharnessed, hitchin'
the old mair for the purpose. He wanted to be United-States senator. He
said he thought the nation needed him.

“Needs you for what?” says I coldly, cold as a ice suckle.

“Why, it needs somebody it can lean on, and it needs somebody that can
lean. I am a popular man,” says he. “And if I can help the nation, I will
be glad to do it; and if the nation can help me, I am willin'. The change
from Jonesville to Washington will be agreeable and relaxin', and I lay
out to try it.”

Says I, in sarkastick tones, “It is a pity you hain't got your free pass
to go on:—you remember that incident, don't you, Josiah Allen?”

“What of it?” he snapped out. “What if I do?”

“Wall, I thought then, that, when you got high-headed and haughty on any
subject agin, mebby you would remember that pass, and be more modest and
unassuming.”

He riz right up, and hollered at me,—

“Throw that pass in my face, will you, at this time of year?”

And he started for the barn, almost on the run.

But I didn't care. I wus bound to break up this idee of hisen at once. If
I hadn't been, I shouldn't have mentioned the free pass to him. For it is
a subject so gaulin' to him, that I never allude to it only in cases of
extreme danger and peril, or uncommon high-headedness.

Now I have mentioned it, I don't know but it will be expected of me to
tell about this pass of hisen. But, if I do, it mustn't go no further; for
Josiah would be mad, mad as a hen, if he knew I told about it.

I will relate the history in another epistol.

CHAPTER IV.

This free pass of Josiah Allen's wus indeed a strange incident, and it
made sights and sights of talk.

But of course there wus considerable lyin' about it, as you know the way
is. Why, it does beat all how stories will grow.

Why, when I hear a story nowadays, I always allow a full half for
shrinkage, and sometimes three-quarters; and a good many times that hain't
enough. Such awful lyin' times! It duz beat all.

But about this strange thing that took place and happened, I will proceed
and relate the plain and unvarnished history of it. And what I set down in
this epistol, you can depend upon. It is the plain truth, entirely
unvarnished: not a mite of varnish will there be on it.

A little over two years ago Josiah Allen, my companion, had a opportunity
to buy a wood-lot cheap. It wus about a mild and a half from here, and one
side of the lot run along by the side of the railroad. A Irishman had
owned it previous and prior to this time, and had built a little shanty on
it, and a pig-pen. But times got hard, the pig died, and owing to that,
and other financikal difficulties, the Irishman had to sell the place,
“ten acres more or less, runnin' up to a stake, and back again,” as the
law directs.

Wall, he beset my companion Josiah to buy it; and as he had plenty of
money in the Jonesville bank to pay for it, and the wood on our wood-lot
wus gettin' pretty well thinned out, I didn't make no objection to the
enterprize, but, on the other hand, I encouraged him in it. And so he made
the bargain with him, the deed wus made out, the Irishman paid. And Josiah
put a lot of wood-choppers in there to work; and they cut, and drawed the
wood to Jonesville, and made money. Made more than enough the first six
months to pay for the expenditure and outlay of money for the lot.

He did well. And he calculated to do still better; for he said the place
bein' so near Jonesville, he laid out, after he had got the wood off, and
sold it, and kep' what he wanted, he calculated and laid out to sell the
place for twice what he give for it. Josiah Allen hain't nobody's fool in
a bargain, a good deal of the time he hain't. He knows how to make good
calculations a good deal of the time. He thought somebody would want the
place to build on.

Wall, I asked him one day what he laid out to do with the shanty and the
pig-pen that wus on it. The pig-pen wus right by the side of the
railroad-track.

And he said he laid out to tear 'em down, and draw the lumber home: he
said the boards would come handy to use about the premises.

Wall, I told him I thought that would be a good plan, or words to that
effect. I can't remember the exact words I used, not expectin' that I
would ever have to remember back, and lay 'em to heart. Which I should not
had it not been for the strange and singular things that occurred and took
place afterwards.

Then I asked my companion, if I remember rightly, “When he laid out to
draw the boards home?” For I mistrusted there would be some planks amongst
'em, and I wanted a couple to lay down from the back-door to the pump. The
old ones wus gettin' all cracked up and broke in spots.

And he said he should draw 'em up the first day he could spare the team.
Wall, this wus along in the first week in April that we had this talk:
warm and pleasant the weather wus, exceedingly so, for the time of year.
And I proposed to him that we should have the children come home on the
8th of April, which wus Thomas J.'s birthday, and have as nice a dinner as
we could get, and buy a handsome present for him. And Josiah was very
agreeable to the idee (for when did a man ever look scornfully on the idee
of a good dinner?).

And so the next day I went to work, and cooked up every thing I could
think of that would be good. I made cakes of all kinds, and tarts, and
jellys. And I wus goin' to have spring lamb and a chicken-pie (a layer of
chicken, and a layer of oysters. I can make a chicken-pie that will melt
in your mouth, though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to say it); and
I wus goin' to have a baked fowl, and vegetables of all kinds, and every
thing else I could think of that wus good. And I baked a large plum-cake a
purpose for Whitfield, with “Our Son” on it in big red sugar letters, and
the dates of his birth and the present date on each side of it.

I do well by the children, Josiah says I do; and they see it now, the
children do; they see it plainer every day, they say they do. They say,
that since they have gone out into the world more, and seen more of the
coldness and selfishness of the world, they appreciate more and more the
faithful affection of her whose name wus once Smith.

Yes, they like me better and better every year, they say they do. And they
treat me pretty, dretful pretty. I don't want to be treated prettier by
anybody than the children treat me.

And their affectionate devotion pays me, it pays me richly, for all the
care and anxiety they caused me. There hain't no paymaster like Love: he
pays the best wages, and the most satisfyin', of anybody I ever see. But I
am a eppisodin', and to resoom and continue on.

Wall! the dinner passed off perfectly delightful and agreeable. The
children and Josiah eat as if—Wall, suffice it to say, the way they
eat wus a great compliment to the cook, and I took it so.

Thomas J. wus highly delighted with his presents. I got him a nice white
willow rockin'-chair, with red ribbons run all round the back, and bows of
the same on top, and a red cushion,—a soft feather cushion that I
made myself for it, covered with crimson rep (wool goods, very nice). Why,
the cushion cost me above 60 cents, besides my work and the feathers.

Josiah proposed to get him a acordeun, but I talked him out of that; and
then he wanted to get him a bright blue necktie. But I perswaided him to
give him a handsome china coffee cup and saucer, with “To My Son” painted
on it; and I urged him to give him that, with ten new silver dollars in
it. Says I, “He is all the son you have got, and a good son.” And Josiah
consented after a parlay. Why, the chair I give him cost about as much as
that; and it wuzn't none too good, not at all.

Wall, he had a lovely day. And what made it pleasanter, we had a prospect
of havin' another jest as good. For in about 2 months' time it would be
Tirzah's Ann's birthday; and we both told her, Josiah and me, both did,
that she must get ready for jest another such a time. For we laid out to
treat 'em both alike (which is both Christian and common sense). And we
told 'em they must all be ready to come home that day, Providence and the
weather permittin'.

Wall, it wus so awful pleasant when the children got ready to go home,
that Josiah proposed that he and me should go along to Jonesville with
'em, and carry little Samantha Joe. And I wus very agreeable to the idee,
bein' a little tired, and thinkin' such a ride would be both restful and
refreshin'.

And, oh! how beautiful every thing looked as we rode along! The sun wus
goin' down in glory; and Jonesville layin' to the west of us, we seemed to
be a ridin' along right into that glory—right towards them golden
palaces, and towers of splendor, that riz up from the sea of gold. And
behind them shinin' towers wus shadowy mountain ranges of softest color,
that melted up into the tender blue of the April sky. And right in the
east a full moon wuz sailin', lookin' down tenderly on Josiah and me and
the babe—and Jonesville and the world. And the comet sot there up in
the sky like a silent and shinin' mystery.

The babe's eyes looked big and dreamy and thoughtful. She has got the
beautifulest eyes, little Samantha Joe has. You can look down deep into
'em, and see yourself in 'em; but, beyond yourself, what is it you can
see? I can't tell, nor nobody. The ellusive, wonderful beauty that lays in
the innocent baby eyes of little Samantha Joe. The sweet, fur-off look, as
if she wus a lookin' right through this world into a fairer and more
peaceful one.

And how smart they be, who can answer their questioning,—questionin'
about every thing. Nobody can't—Josiah can't, nor I, nor nobody.
Pretty soon she looked up at the comet; and says she, “Nama,”—she
can't say grandma,—“Nama, is that God's comma?”

Now, jest see how deep that wuz, and beautiful, very. The heavens wuz full
of the writin' of God, writin' we can't read yet, and translate into our
coarser language; and she, with her deep, beautiful eyes, a readin' it
jest as plain as print, and puttin' in all the marks of punctuation.
Readin' the marvellous poem of glory, with its tremblin' pause of flame.

Josiah says, it is because she couldn't say comet; but I know better. Says
I, “Josiah Allen, hain't it the same shape as a comma?”

And he had to gin it up that it was. And in a minute or two she says agin,—

“Nama, what is the comma up there for?”

Now hear that, how deep that wuz. Who could answer that question? I
couldn't, nor Josiah couldn't. Nor the wisest philosopher that ever walked
the earth, not one of 'em. From them that kept their night-watches on the
newly built pyramids, to the astronimers of to-day who are spending their
lives in the study of the heavens. If every one of them learned men of the
world, livin' and dead, if they all stood in rows in our door-yard in
front of little Samantha Joe, they would have to bow their haughty heads
before her, and put their finger on their lips. Them lips could say very
large words in every language under the sun; but they couldn't answer my
baby's question, not one of 'em.

But I am eppisodin' fearfully, fearfully; and to resoom.

We left the children and the babe safe in their respective housen', and
happy; and we went on placidly to Jonesville, got our usual groceries, and
stopped to the post-office. Josiah went into the office, and come out with
his “World,” and one letter, a big letter with a blue envelope. I thought
it had a sort of a queer look, but I didn't say nothin'. And it bein' sort
o' darkish, he didn't try to open it till we got home. Only I says,—

“Who do you s'pose your letter is from, Josiah Allen?”

And he says, “I don't know: the postmaster had a awful time a tryin' to
make out who it was to. I should think, by his tell, it wus the dumbdest
writin' that ever wus seen. I should think, by his tell, it went ahead of
yourn.”

“Wall,” says I, “there is no need of your swearin'.” Says I, “If I wus a
grandfather, Josiah Allen, I would choose my words with a little more
decency, not to say morality.”

“Wall, wall! your writin' is enough to make a man sweat, and you know it.”

“I hadn't disputed it,” says I with dignity. And havin' laid the blame of
the bad writin' of the letter he had got, off onto his companion, as the
way of male pardners is, he felt easy and comfortable in his mind, and
talked agreeable all the way home, and affectionate, some.

Wall, we got home; and I lit a light, and fixed the fire so it burnt
bright and clear. And I drawed up a stand in front of the fire, with a
bright crimson spread on it, for the lamp; and I put Josiah's
rockin'-chair and mine, one on each side of it; and put Josiah's slippers
in front of the hearth to warm. And then I took my knittin'-work, and went
to knittin'; and by that time Josiah had got his barn-chores all done, and
come in.

And the very first thing he did after he come in, and drawed off his
boots, and wondered “why under the gracious heavens it was, that the
bootjack never could be found where he had left it” (which was right in
the middle of the settin'-room floor). But he found it hangin' up in its
usual place in the closet, only a coat had got hung up over it so he
couldn't see it for half a minute.

And after he had his warm slippers on, and got sot down in his easy-chair
opposite to his beloved companion, he grew calmer again, and more
placider, and drawed out that letter from his pocket.

And I sot there a knittin', and a watchin' my companion's face at the same
time; and I see that as he read the letter, he looked smut, and sort o'
wonder-struck: and says I,—

“Who is your letter from, Josiah Allen?”

And he says, lookin' up on top of it,—

“It is from the headquarters of the Railroad Company;” and says he,
lookin' close at it agin, “As near as I can make out, it is a free pass
for me to ride on the railroad.”

Says I, “Why, that can't be, Josiah Allen. Why should they give you a free
pass?”

“I don't know,” says he. “But I know it is one. The more I look at it,”
says he, growin' excited over it,—“the more I look at it, the
plainer I can see it. It is a free pass.”

Says I, “I don't believe it, Josiah Allen.”

“Wall, look at it for yourself, Samantha Allen” (when he is dretful
excited, he always calls me Samantha Allen), “and see what it is, if it
hain't that;” and he throwed it into my lap.

I looked at it close and severe, but not one word could I make out, only I
thought I could partly make out the word “remove,” and along down the
sheet the word “place,” and there wus one word that did look like “free.”
And Josiah jumped at them words; and says he,—

“It means, you know, the pass reads like this, for me to remove myself
from place to place, free. Don't you see through it?” says he.

“No,” says I, holdin' the paper up to the light. “No, I don't see through
it, far from it.”

“Wall,” says he, highly excited and tickled, “I'll try it to-morrow,
anyway. I'll see whether I am in the right, or not.”

And he went on dreamily, “Lemme see—I have got to move that lumber
in the mornin' up from my wood-lot. But it won't take me more'n a couple
of hours, or so, and in the afternoon I'll take a start.”

Says I, “What under the sun, Josiah Allen, should the Railroad Company
give you a free pass for?”

“Wall,” says he, “I have my thoughts.”

He spoke in a dretful sort of a mysterious way, but proud; and I says,—

“What do you think is the reason, Josiah Allen?”

And he says, “It hain't always best to tell what you think. I hain't
obleeged to,” says he.

And I says, “No. As the poet saith, nobody hain't obleeged to use common
sense unless they have got it;” and I says, in a meanin' tone, “No, I
can't obleege you to tell me.”

Wall, sure enough, the next day, jest as quick as he got that lumber
drawed up to the house, Josiah Allen dressed up, and sot off for
Jonesville, and come home at night as tickled a man as I ever see, if not
tickleder.

And he says, “Now what do you think, Samantha Allen? Now what do you think
about my ridin' on that pass?”

And I says, “Have you rode on it, Josiah Allen?”

And he says, “Yes, mom, I have. I have rode to Loontown and back; and I
might have gone ten times as fur, and not a word been said.”

And I says, “What did the conductor say?”

And he says, “He didn't say nothin'. When he asked me for my fare, I told
him I had a free pass, and I showed it to him. And he took it, and looked
at it close, and took out his specks, and looked and looked at it for a
number of minutes; and then he handed it back to me, and I put it into my
pocket; and that wus all there was of it.”

Says I, “How did the conductor look when he was a readin' it?”

And he owned up that he looked dubersome. But, says he, “I rode on it, and
I told you that I could.”

“Wall,” says I, sithin', “there is a great mystery about it.”

Says he, “There hain't no mystery to me.”

And then I beset him agin to tell me what he thought the reason wus they
give it to him.

And he said “he thought it was because he was so smart.” Says he, “I am a
dumb smart feller, Samantha, though I never could make you see it as plain
as I wanted to.” And then says he, a goin' on prouder and prouder every
minute,—

“I am pretty-lookin'. I am what you might call a orniment to any car on
the track. I kinder set a car off, and make 'em look respectable and
dressy. And I'm what you might call a influential man, and I s'pose the
railroad-men want to keep the right side of me. And they have took the
right way to do it. I shall speak well of 'em as long as I can ride free.
And, oh! what solid comfort I shall take, Samantha, a ridin' on that pass!
I calculate to see the world now. And there is nothin' under the sun to
hender you from goin' with me. As long as you are the wife of such a
influential and popular man as I be, it don't look well for you to go a
mopein' along afoot, or with the old mare. We will ride in the future on
my free pass.”

“No,” says I. “I sha'n't ride off on a mystery. I prefer a mare.”

Says he, for he wus that proud and excited that you couldn't stop him
nohow,—

“It will be a dretful savin' of money, but that hain't what I think of the
most. It is the honor they are a heapin' onto me. To think that they think
so much of me, set such a store by me, and look up to me so, that they
send me a free pass without my makin' a move to ask for it. Why, it shows
plain, Samantha, that I am one of the first men of the age.”

And so he would go on from hour to hour, and from day to day; and I wus
that dumbfoundered and wonderin' about it, that I couldn't for my life
tell what to think of it. It worried me.

But from that day Josiah Allen rode on that pass, every chance he got.
Why, he went to the Ohio on it, on a visit to his first wive's sister; and
he went to Michigan on it, and to the South, and everywhere he could think
of. Why, he fairly hunted up relations on it, and I told him so.

And after he got 'em hunted up, he'd take them onto that pass, and ride
round with 'em on it.

And he told every one of 'em, he told everybody, that he thought as much
agin of the honor as he did of the money. It showed that he wus thought so
much of, not only in Jonesville, but the world at large.

Why, he took such solid comfort in it, that it did honestly seem as if he
grew fat, he wus so puffed up by it, and proud. And some of the neighbors
that he boasted so before, wus eat up with envy, and seemed mad to think
he had come to such honor, and they hadn't. But the madder they acted, the
tickleder he seemed, and more prouder, and high-headeder.

But I could not feel so. I felt that there wus sunthin' strange and curius
about it. And it wus very, very seldom that Josiah could get me to ride on
it. Though I did take a few short journeys on it, to please him. But I
felt sort o' uneasy while I was a ridin' on it, same as you feel when you
are goin' up-hill with a heavy load and a little horse. You kinder stand
on your feet, and lean forward, as if your bein' oncomfortable, and
standin' up, helped the horse some.

I had a good deal of that restless feelin', and oneasy. And as I told
Josiah time and time again, “that for stiddy ridin' I preferred a mare to
a mystery.”

Wall, it run along for a year; and Josiah said he s'posed he'd have to
write on, and get the pass renewed. As near as he could make out, it run
out about the 4th day of April. So he wrote down to the head one in
New-York village; and the answer came back by return mail, and wrote in
plain writin' so we could read it.

It seemed there wus a mistake. It wuzn't a free pass, it wus a order for
Josiah Allen to remove a pig-pen from his place on the railroad-track
within three days.

There it wuz, a order to remove a nuisence; and Josiah Allen had been a
ridin' on it for a year, with pride in his mean, and haughtiness in his
demeanor.

Wall, I never see a man more mortified and cut up than Josiah Allen wuz.
If he hadn't boasted so over its bein' gin to him on account of his bein'
so smart and popular and etcetery, he wouldn't have felt so cut up. But as
it was, it bowed down his bald head into the dust (allegory).

But he didn't stay bowed down for any length of time: truly, men are
constituted in such a way that mortification don't show on 'em for any
length of time.

But it made sights and sights of talk in Jonesville. The Jonesvillians
made sights and sights of fun of him, poked fun at him, and snickered. I
myself didn't say much: it hain't my way. I merely says this: says I,—

“You thought you wus so awful popular, Josiah Allen, mebby you won't go
round with so haughty a mean onto you right away.”

“Throw my mean in my face if you want to,” says he. “But I guess,” says
he, “it will learn 'em another time to take a little more pains with their
duck's tracks, dumb 'em!”

Says I, “Stop instantly.” And he knew what I meant, and stopped.

CHAPTER V.

Josiah is as kind-hearted a man as was ever made. And he loves me with a
devotion, that though hidden sometimes, like volcanic fires, and other
married men's affections for their wives, yet it bursts out occasionally
in spurts and jets of unexpected tenderness.

Now, the very next mornin' after Cicely left for her aunt Mary's, he gave
me a flaming proof of that hidden fire that burns but don't consume him.

A agent come to our dwelling, and with the bland and amiable air of their
sect, asked me,—

“If I would buy a encyclopedia?”

I was favorable to the idee, and showed it by my looks and words; but
Josiah wus awful set against it. And the more favorable I talked about it,
the more horrow-struck and skairt Josiah Allen looked. And finally he got
behind the agent, and winked at me, and made motions for me to foller him
into the buttery. He wunk several times before I paid much attention to
'em; but finally, the winks grew so violent, and the motions so imperious,
yet clever, that I got up, and follered him into the buttery. He shet the
door, and stood with his back against it; and says to me, with his voice
fairly tremblin' with his emotions,—

“It will throw you, Samantha! you don't want to buy it.”

“What will throw me? and when?” says I.

“Why,” says he, “you can't never ride it! How should I feel to see you on
one of 'em! It skairs me most to death to see a boy ride 'em; and at your
age, and with your rheumatiz, you'd get throwed, and get your neck broke,
the first day.” Says he, “If you have got to have something more stylish,
and new-fangled than the old mair, I'd ruther buy you a philosopher. They
are easier-going than a encyclopedia, anyway.”

“A philosopher?” says I dreamily.

“Yes, such a one as Tom Gowdey has got.”

Says I, “You mean a velocipede!”

“Yes, and I'll get you one ruther than have you a ridin' round the country
on a encyclopedia.”

His tender thoughtfulness touched my heart, and I explained to him all
about 'em. He thought it was some kind of a bycicle. And he brightened up,
and didn't make no objections to my gettin' one.

Wall, that very afternoon he went to Jonesville, and come home, as I said,
all rousted up about bein' a senator. I s'pose Elburtus'es bein' there,
and talkin' so much on politics, had kinder sot him to thinkin' on it.
Anyway, he come home from Jonesville perfectly rampant with the idee of
bein' United-States senator. “He said he had been approached on the
subject.”

He said it in that sort of a haughty, high-headed way, such as men will
sometimes assume when they think they have had some high honors heaped
onto 'em.

Says I, “Who has approached you, Josiah Allen?”

“Wall,” he said, “it might be a foreign minister, and it might be uncle
Nate Gowdey.” He thought it wouldn't be best to tell who it was. “But,”
says he, “I am bound to be senator. Josiah Allen, M.C., will probable be
wrote on my letters before another fall. I am bound to run.”

Says I coldly, “You know you can't run. You are as lame as you can be. You
have got the rheumatiz the worst kind.”

Says he, “I mean runnin' with political legs—and I do want to be a
senator, Samantha. I want to, like a dog, I want the money there is in it,
and I want the honor. You know they have elected me path-master, but I
hain't a goin' to accept it. I tell you, when anybody gets into political
life, ambition rousts up in 'em: path-master don't satisfy me. I want to
be senator: I want to, like a dog. And I don't lay out to tackle the job
as Elburtus did, and act too good.”

“No!” says I sternly. “There hain't no danger of your bein' too good.”

“No: I have laid my plans, and laid 'em careful. The relation on your side
was too willin', and too clever. And witnessin' his campaign has learnt me
some deep lessons. I watched the rocks he hit aginst; and I have laid my
plans, and laid 'em careful. I am going to act offish. I feel that
offishness is my strong holt—and endearin' myself to the masses.
Educatin' public sentiment up to lovin' me, and urgin' me not to be so
offish, and to obleege 'em by takin' a office—them is my 2 strong
holts. If I can only hang back, and act onwillin', and get the masses
fierce to elect me—why, I'm made. And then, I've got a plan in my
head.”

I groaned, in spite of myself.

“I have got a plan in my head, that, if every other plan fails, will elect
me in spite of the old Harry.”

Oh! how that oath grated against my nerve! And how I hung back from this
idee! I am one that looks ahead. And I says in firm tones,—

“You never would get the nomination, Josiah Allen! And if you did, you
never would be elected.”

“Oh, yes, I should!” says he. But he continued dreamily, “There would have
to be considerable wire-pullin'.”

“Where would the wires be?” says I sternly. “And who would pull 'em?”

“Oh, most anywhere!” says he, lookin' dreamily up onto the kitchen
ceilin', as if wires wus liable to be let down anywhere through the
plasterin'.

Says I, “Should you have to go to pullin' wires?”

“Of course I should,” says he.

“Wall,” says I, “you may as well make up your mind in the first ont, that
I hain't goin' to give my consent to have you go into any thing dangerous.
I hain't goin' to have you break your neck, at your age.”

Says he, “I don't know but my age is as good a age to break my neck in as
any other. I never sot any particular age to break my neck in.”

“Make fun all you are a mind to of a anxious Samantha,” says I, “but I
will never give my consent to have you plunge into such dangerous
enterprizes. And talkin' about pullin' wires sounds dangerous: it sounds
like a circus, somehow; and how would you, with your back, look and
feel performin' like a circus?”

“Oh, you don't understand, Samantha! the wires hain't pulled in that way.
You don't pull 'em with your hands, you pull 'em with your minds.”

“Oh, wall!” says I, brightenin' up. “You are all right in that case: you
won't pull hard enough to hurt you any.”

I knew the size and strength of his mind, jest as well as if I had took it
out of his head, and weighed it on the steelyards. It was not over
and above large. I knew it; and he knew that I knew it, because I have had
to sometimes, in the cause of Right, remind him of it. But he knows that
my love for him towers up like a dromedary, and moves off through life as
stately as she duz—the dromedary. Josiah was my choice out of a
world full of men. I love Josiah Allen. But to resoom and continue on.

Josiah says, “Which side had I better go on, Samantha?” Says he, kinder
puttin' his head on one side, and lookin' shrewdly up at the stove-pipe,
“Would you run as a Stalwart, or a Half-breed?”

Says I, “I guess you would run more like a lame hen than a Stalwart or a
Half-breed; or,” says I, “it would depend on what breeds they wuz. If they
wus half snails, and half Times in the primers, maybe you could get ahead
of 'em.”

“I should think, Samantha Allen, in such a time as this, you would act
like a rational bein'. I'll be hanged if I know what side to go on to get
elected!”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, hain't you got any principle? Don't you know
what side you are on?”

“Why, yes, I s'pose I know as near as men in gineral. I'm a Democrat in
times of peace. But it is human nater, to want to be on the side that
beats.”

I sithed, and murmured instinctively, “George Washington!”

“George Granny!” says he.

I sithed agin, and kep' sithin'.

Says I, “It is bad enough, Josiah Allen, to have you talk about runnin'
for senator, and pullin' wires, and etcetery. But, oh, oh! my agony to
think my partner is destitute of principle.”

“I have got as much as most political men, and you'll find it out so,
Samantha.”

My groans touched his heart—that man loves me.

“I am goin' to work as they all do. But wimmen hain't no heads for
business, and I always said so. They don't look out for the profits of
things, as men do.”

I didn't say nothin' only my sithes, but they spoke volumes to any one who
understood their language. But anon, or mebby before,—I hadn't kep'
any particular account of time, but I think it wus about anon,—when
another thought struck me so, right in my breast, that it most knocked me
over. It hanted me all the rest of that day: and all that night I lay
awake and worried, and I'd sithe, and sposen the case; and then I'd turn
over, and sposen the case, and sithe.

Sposen he would be elected—I didn't really think he would, but I
couldn't for my life help sposen. Sposen he would have to go to
Washington. I knew strange things took place in politics. Strange men run,
and run fur: some on 'em run clear to Washington. Mebby he would. Oh! how
I groaned at the idee!

I thought of the awfulness of that place as I had heard it described upon
to me; and then I thought of the weakness of men, and their liability to
be led astray. I thought of the powerful blasts of temptation that blowed
through them broad streets, and the small size of my pardner, and the
light weight of his bones and principles.

And I felt, if things wuz as they had been depictered to me, he would (in
a moral sense) be lifted right up, and blowed away—bones,
principles, and all. And I trembled.

At last the idee knocked so firm aginst the door of my heart, that I had
to let it in. That I must, I must go to Washington, as a
forerunner of Josiah. I must go ahead of him, and look round, and see if
my Josiah could pass through with no smell of fire on his overcoat—if
there wuz any possibility of it. If there wuz, why, I should stand still,
and let things take their course. But if my worst apprehensions wuz
realized, if I see that it was a place where my pardner would lose all the
modest worth and winnin' qualities that first endeared him to me—why,
I would come home, and throw all my powerful influence and weight into the
scales, and turn 'em round.

Of course, I felt that I should have to make some pretext about goin': for
though I wus as innocent as a babe of wantin' to do so, I felt that he
would think he wus bein' domineered over by me. Men are so sort o'
high-headed and haughty about some things! But I felt I could make a
pretext of George Washington. That dear old martyr! I felt truly I would
love to weep upon his tomb.

And so I told Josiah the next mornin', for I thought I would tackle the
subject at once. And he says,—

“What do you want to weep on his tomb for, Samantha, at this late day?”

Says I, “The day of love and gratitude never fades into night, Josiah
Allen: the sun of gratitude never goes down; it shines on that tomb to-day
jest as bright as it did in 1800.”

“Wall, wall! go and weep on it if you want to. But I'll bet half a cent
that you'll cry onto the ice-house, as I've heard of other wimmen's doin'.
Wimmen don't see into things as men do.”

“You needn't worry, Josiah Allen. I shall cry at the right time, and in
the right place. And I think I had better start soon on my tower.”

I always was one to tackle hard jobs immejutly and to once, so's to get
'em offen' my mind.

“Wall, I'd like to know,” says he, in an injured tone, “what you calculate
to do with me while you are gone?”

“Why,” says I, “I'll have the girl Ury is engaged to, come here and do the
chores, and work for herself; they are goin' to be married before long:
and I'll give her some rolls, and let her spin some yarn for herself.
She'll be glad to come.”

“How long do you s'pose you'll be gone? She hain't no cook. I'd as lives
eat rolls, as to eat her fried cakes.”

“Your pardner will fry up 2 pans full before she goes, Josiah; and I don't
s'pose I'll be gone over four days.”

“Oh, well! then I guess I can stand it. But you had better make some
mince-pies ahead, and other kinds of pies, and some fruit-cake, and
cookies, and tarts, and things: it is always best to be on the safe side,
in vittles.”

So it wus agreed on,—that I should fill two cubbard shelves full of
provisions, to help him endure my absence.

I wus some in hopes that he might give up the idee of bein' United-States
senator, and I might have rest from my tower; for I dreaded, oh, how I
dreaded, the job! But as day by day passed, he grew more and more rampant
with the idee. He talked about it all the time daytimes; and in the night
I could hear him murmur to himself,—

“Hon. Josiah Allen!”

And once I see it in his account-book, “Old Peedick debtor to two
sap-buckets to Hon. Josiah Allen.”

And he talked sights, and sights, about what he wus goin' to do when he
got to Washington, D.C.—what great things he wus goin' to do. And I
would get wore out, and say to him,—

“Wall! you will have to get there first.”

“Oh! you needn't worry. I can get there easy enough. I s'pose I shall have
to work hard jest as they all do. But as I told you before, if every thing
else fails, I have got a grand plan to fall back on—sunthin' new and
uneek. Josiah Allen is nobody's fool, and the nation will find it out so.”

Then, oh, how I urged him to tell his plan to his lovin' pardner! but he
wouldn't tell.

But hours and hours would he spend, a tellin' me what great things he wus
goin' to do when he got to Washington.

Says he, “There is one thing about it. When I get to be United-States
senator, uncle Nate Gowdey shall be promoted to some high and responsible
place.”

“Without thinkin' whether he is fit for it or not?” says I.

“Yes, mom, without thinkin' a thing about it. I am bound to help the ones
that help me.”

“You wouldn't have him examined,” says I,—“wouldn't have him asked
no questions?”

“Oh, yes! I'd have him pass a examination jest as the New-York aldermen
do, or the civil-service men. I'd say to him, 'Be you uncle Nate Gowdey?'

“'Yes.'

“'How long have you been uncle Nate Gowdey?'

“And he'd answer; and I'd say,—

“'How long do you calculate to be uncle Nate?'

“And he'll tell; and then I'll say,—

“'Enough: I see you have all the qualifications for office. You are
admitted.' That is what I would do.”

I groaned. But he kep' on complacently, “I am goin' to help the ones that
elect me, sink or swim; and I calculate to make money out of the project,—money
and honor. And I shall do a big work there,—there hain't no doubt of
it.

“Now, there is political economy. I shall go in strong for that. I shall
say right to Congress, the first speech I make to it, I shall say, that
there is too much money spent now to hire votes with; and I shall prove it
right out, that we can get votes cheaper if we senators all join in
together, and put our feet right down that we won't pay only jest so much
for a vote. But as long as one man is willin' to pay high, why, everybody
else has got to foller suit. And there hain't no economy in it, not a
mite.

“Then, there is the canal question. I'll make a thorough end of that.
There is one reform that will be pushed right through.”

“How will you do it?” says I.

“I will have the hull canal cleaned out from one end to the other.”

“I was readin' only yesterday,” says I, “about the corruption of the canal
question. But I didn't s'pose it meant that.”

“That is because you hain't a man. You hain't got the mind to grasp these
big questions. The corruption of the canal means that the bottom of the
canal is all covered with dead cats and things; and it ort to be seen to,
by men that is capable of seein' to such things. It ort to be cleaned out.
And I am the man that has got the mind for it,” says he proudly.

“Then, there is the Star Route. Nothin' but foolishness from beginnin' to
end. They might have known they couldn't make any road through the stars.
Why, the very Bible is agin it. The ground is good enough for me, and for
any other solid man. It is some visionary chap that begun it in the first
place. Nothin' but dumb foolishness; and so uncle Nate Gowdey said it was.
We got to talkin' about it yesterday, and he said it was a pity wimmin
couldn't vote on it. He said that would be jest about what they would be
likely to vote for.

“He is a smart old feller, uncle Nate is, for a man of his age. He talked
awful smart about wimmin's votin'. He said any man was a fool to think
that a woman would ever have the requisit grasp of intellect, and the
knowledge of public affairs, that would render her a competent voter.

“I tell you, you have got to understand things in order to tackle
politicks. Politicks takes deep study.

“Now, there is the tariff question, and the revenue. I shall most probable
favor 'em, and push 'em right through.”

“How?” says I.

“Oh, wall! a woman most probable couldn't understand it. But I shall push
'em forward all I can, and lift 'em up.”

“Where to?” says I.

“Oh, keep a askin', and a naggin'! That is what wears out us public men,—wimmin's
questionin'. It hain't so much the public duties we have to perform that
ages us, and wears us out before our time,—it is woman's weak
curiosity on public topics, that her mind is too feeble to grasp holt of.
It is wearin',” says he haughtily.

Says I, “Specially when they don't know what to answer.” Says I, “Josiah
Allen, you don't know this minute what tariff means, or revenue.”

“Wall, I know what starvation means, and I know what vittles means, and I
know I am as hungry as a bear.”

Instinctively I hung on the teakettle. And as Josiah see me pare the
potatoes, and grind the coffee, and pound the steak, he grew very pleasant
again in his demeanor; and says he,—

“There will be some abuses reformed when I get to Washington, D.C.; and
you and the nation will see that there will. Now, there is the
civil-service law: Uncle Nate and I wus a talkin' about it yesterday. It
is jest what we need. Why, as uncle Nate said, hired men hain't civil at
all, nor hired girls either. You hire 'em to serve you, and to serve you
civil; and they are jest as dumb uppish and impudent as they can be. And
hotel-clerks—now, they don't know what civil-service means.”

“Why, uncle Nate said when he went to the Ohio, last fall, he stayed over
night to Cleveland, and the hotel-clerk sassed him, jest because he wanted
to blow out his light: he wanted uncle Nate to turn it off.

“And uncle Nate jest spoke right up, smart as a whip, and said,
'Old-fashioned ways was good enough for him: blows wus made before
turners, and he should blow it out.' And the hotel-clerk sassed him, and
swore, and threatened to make him leave.

“And ruther than have a fuss, uncle Nate said he turned it out. But it
rankled, uncle Nate says it did, it rankled deep. And he says he wants to
vote for that special. He says he'd love to make that clerk eat
humble-pie.

“Uncle Nate is a sound man: his head is level.

“And good, sound platforms, that is another reform, uncle Nate said we
needed the worst kind, and he hoped I would insist on it when I got to be
senator. He said there was too much talk about 'em in the papers, and too
little done about 'em. Why, Elam Gowdey, uncle Nate's youngest boy, broke
down the platform to his barn, and went right down through it, with a load
of hay. And nothin' but that hay saved his neck from bein' broke. It
spilte one of his horses.

“Uncle Nate had been urgin' him to fix the platform, or build a new one;
but he was slack. But, as uncle Nate says, if such things are run by law,
they will have to be done.

“And then, there is another thing uncle Nate and I was talkin' about,”
says he, lookin' very amiable at me as I rolled out my cream biscuit—almost
spooney.

“I shall jest run every poor Irishman and Chinaman out of the country that
I can.”

“What has the Irishmen done, Josiah Allen?” says I.

“Oh! they are poor. There hain't no use in our associatin' with the poor.”

Says I dreamily, “Did I not read once, of One who renounced the throne of
the universe to dwell amongst the poor?”

“Oh, wall! most probable they wuzn't Irish.”

“And what has the Chinaman done?” says I.

“Why, they are heathens, Samantha. What does the United States want with
heathens anyway? What the country needs is Methodists.”

“Somewhere did I not once hear these words,” says I musin'ly, as I set the
coffee-cups on the table,—“'You shall have the heathen for an
inheritance'—and 'preach the gospel to the heathen'—and 'we
who were sometime heathens, but have received light'? Did not the echo of
some such words once reach my mind?”

“Oh, wall! if you are goin' to quote readin', why can't you quote from
'The World'? you can't combine Bible and politics worth a cent. And the
Chinaman works too cheap—are too industrious, and reasonable in
their charges, they hain't extravagant—and they are too dumb
peacible, dumb 'em!”

“Josiah Allen!” says I firmly, “is that all the fault you find with 'em?”

“No, it hain't. They don't want to vote! They don't care a cent about
bein' path-master or President. And I say, that after givin' a man a fair
trial and a long one, if he won't try to buy or sell a vote, it is a sure
sign that he can't asimulate with Americans, and be one with 'em; that he
can't never be mingled in with 'em peacible. And I'll bet that I'll start
the Catholics out—and the Jews. What under the sun is the use of
havin' anybody here in America only jest Methodists? That is the only
right way. And if I have my way, I'll get rid of 'em,—Chinamen,
Irishmen, Catholics,—the hull caboodle of 'em. I'll jest light 'em
out of the country. We can do it too. That big statute in New-York Harbor
of Liberty Enlightenin' the World, will jest lift her torch up high, and
light 'em out of the country:—that is what we had her for.”

I sithed low, and says, “I never knew that wus what she wus there for. I
s'posed it wus a gift from a land that helped us to liberty and prosperity
when we needed 'em as bad as the Irishmen and Chinamen do to-day; and I
s'posed that torch that wus lit for us by others' help, we should be
willin' and glad to have it shine on the dark cross-roads of others.”

“Wall, it hain't meant for no such purpose: it is to light up our
land and our waters. That's what she's there for.”

I sithed agin, a sort of a cold sithe, and says,—

“I don't think it looks very well for us New-Englanders a sittin' round
Plymouth Rock, to be a condemnin' anybody for their religeous beliefs.”

“Wall, there hain't no need of whittlin' out a stick, and worshipin' it,
as the Chinamen do.”

“How are you goin' to help 'em to worship the true God if you send 'em out
of the country? Is it for the sake of humanity you drive 'em out? or be
you, like the Isrealites of old, a worshipin' the golden calf of
selfishness, Josiah Allen?”

“I hain't never worshiped no calf, Samantha Allen. That would be
the last thing I would worship, and you know it.”

(Josiah wus very lame on his left leg where he had been kicked by a
yearlin'. The spot wus black and blue, but healin'.)

“You have blanketed that calf with thick patriotic excuses; but I fear,
Josiah Allen, that the calf is there.

“Oh!” says I dreamily, “how the tread of them calves has moved down
through the centuries! If every calf should amble right out, marked with
its own name and the name of its owner, what a sight, what a sight it
would be! On one calf, right after its owner's name, would be branded,
'Worldly Honor and Fame.'”

Josiah squirmed, for I see him, but tried to turn the squirm in' into a
sickly smile; and he murmured in a meachin' voice, and with a sheepish
smile,—

“'Hon. Josiah Allen. Fame.' That wouldn't look so bad on a likely yearlin'
or two-year old.”

But I kep' right on. “On another would be marked, 'Wealth.' Very yeller
those calves would be, and a long, long drove of 'em.

“On another would be, 'Earthly Love.' Middlin' good-lookin' calves, these,
and sights of 'em. But the mantillys that covered 'em would be all wet and
wore with tears.

“'Culture,' 'Intellect,' 'Refinement.' These calves would march right
along by the side of 'Pride,' 'Vanity,' 'Old Creeds,' 'Bigotry,'
'Selfishness.' The last-named would be too numerous to count with the
naked eye, and go pushin' aginst each other, rushin' right through
meetin'-housen, tearin' and actin'. Why,” says I, “the ground trembles
under the tread of them calves. I can hear 'em whinner,” says I, fillin'
up the coffee-pot.

“Calves don't whinner!” says Josiah.

Says I, “I speak parabolickly;” and says I, in a very blind way, “Parables
are used to fit the truth to weak comprehensions.”

“Wall!” says he, kinder cross, “your potatoes are a burnin' down.”

I turned the water off, and mashed 'em up, with plenty of cream and
butter; and them, applied to his stomach internally, seemed to sooth him,—them,
and the nice tender steak, and light biscuit, and lemon puddin' and
coffee, rich and yellow and fragrant.

He never said a word more about politics till after dinner. But on risin'
up from the table he told me he had got to go to Jonesville to get the old
mare shod. And I see sadly, as he stood to the lookin'-glass combin' out
his few hairs, how every by-path his mind sot out on led up gradually to
Washington, D.C. For as he stood there, and spoke of the mare's feet, he
says,—

“The mare is good enough for Jonesville, Samantha. But when we get to
Washington, we want sunthin' gayer, more stylish, to ride on. I
calculate,” says he, pullin' up his collar, and pullin' down his vest,—“I
lay out to dress gay, and act gay. I calculate to make a show for once in
my life, and put on style. One thing I am bound on,—I shall drive
tantrum.”

“How?” says I sternly.

“Why, I shall buy another mare, most probable some gay-colored one, and
hitch it before the old white mare, and drive tantrum. You know, it is all
the style. Mebby,” says he dreamily, “I shall ride the drag. I s'pose that
is fashionable. But I'll be hanged if I should think it would be easy
ridin' unless you had the teeth down. Dog-carts are stylish, I hear; but
our dog is so dumb lazy, you couldn't get him to go out of a walk. But
tantrum I will drive.”

I groaned, and says, “Yes, I hain't no doubt that anybody that sees you at
Washington, will see tantrums, strange tantrums. But you hain't there
yet.”

“No, but I most probable shall be ere long.”

He had actually begun to talk in high-flown, blank verse sort of a way.
“Ere long!” that wus somethin' new for Josiah Allen.

Alas! every thought of his heart wus tuned to that one political key. I
mentioned to him that “the bobbin to my sewin'-machine was broke, and
asked him to get a new one of the agent at Jonesville.”

“Yes,” says he benignantly, “I will tend to your machine; and speakin' of
machines, that makes me think of another thing uncle Nate and I wus
talkin' about.”

“Machine politics, I sha'n't favor 'em. What under the sun do they want
machines to make politics with, when there is plenty of men willin', and
more than willin', to make 'em? And it is as expensive agin. Machines cost
so much. I tell you, they cost tarnation high.”

“I can understand you without swearin', Josiah Allen.”

“I hain't a swearin': 'tarnation' hain't swearin', nor never wuz. I shall
use that word most likely in Washington, D.C.”

“Wall,” says I coldly, “there will have to be some tea and sugar got.”

He did not demur. But, oh! how I see that immovible setness of his mind!

“Yes, I will get some. But won't it be handy, Samantha, to have free
trade? I shall go for that strong. Why, I can tell you, it will come handy
along in the winter when the hens don't lay, and we don't make butter to
turn off—it will come dretful handy to jest hitch up the mare, and
go to the store, and come home with a lot of groceries of all kinds, and
some fresh meat mebby. And mebby some neckties of different colors.”

“Who would pay for 'em?” says I in a stern tone; for I didn't somehow like
the idee.

“Why, the Government, of course.”

I shook my head 2 or 3 times back and forth. I couldn't seem to get the
right sense of it. “I can't understand it, Josiah. We heard a good deal
about free trade, but I can't believe that is it.”

“Wall, it is, jest that. Free trade is one of the prerequisits of a
senator. Why, what would a man want to be a senator for, if they couldn't
make by it?”

“Don't you love your country, Josiah Allen?”

“Yes, I do: but I don't love her so well as I do myself; it hain't nateral
I should.”

“Surely I read long ago,—was it in the English Reader?” says I
dreamily, “or where was it? But surely I have heard of such things as
patriotism and honor, love of country, and love of the right.”

“Wall, I calculate I love my country jest as well as the next man; and,”
says he firmly, “I calculate I can make jest as much out of her, give me a
chance. Why, I calculate to do jest as they all do. What is the use of
startin' up, and bein' one by yourself?”

Says I, “That is what Pilate thought, Josiah Allen.” Says I, “The majority
hain't always right.” Says I firmly, “They hardly ever are.”

“Now, that is a regular woman's idee,” says he, goin' into the bedroom for
a clean shirt. And as he opened the bureau-draw, he says,—

“Another thing I shall go for, is abolishin' lots of the bureaus. Why,
what is the use of any man havin' more than one bureau? It is nothin' but
nonsense clutterin' up the house with so many bureaus.

“When wimmen get to votin',” says he sarcastickly, “I'll bet their first
move will be to get 'em back agin. I'll bet there hain't a women in the
land, but what would love to have 20 bureaus that they could run to.”

“Then, you think wimmen will vote, do you, Josiah Allen?”

“I think,” says he firmly, “that it will be a wretched day for the nation
if she does. Wimmen is good in their places,” says he, as he come to me to
button up his shirtsleeves, and tie his cravat.

“They are good in their places. But they can't have, it hain't in 'em to
have, the calm grasp of mind, the deep outlook into the future, that men
have. They can't weigh things in the firm, careful balences of right and
wrong, and have that deep, masterly knowledge of national affairs that we
men have. They hain't got the hard horse sense that anybody has got to
have in order to make money out of the nation. They would have some
sentimental subjects up of right or wrong to spend their energies and
their hearts on. Look at Cicely, now. She means well. But what would she
do? What would she make out of votin'? Not a cent. And she never would
think of passin' laws for her own personal comfort, either. Now, there is
the subsidy bill. I'll see that through if I sweat for it.

“Why, it would be worth more than a dollar-bill to me lots of times to
make folks subside. Preachers, now, when they get to goin' beyond the
20ethly. No preacher has any right to go to wanderin' round up beyond them
figures in dog-days. And if they could be made to subside when they had
gone fur enough, why, it would be a perfect boon to Jonesville and the
nation.

“And sewin'-machine agents—and—and wimmen, when they get all
excited a scoldin', or talkin' about bonnets, and things. Why! if a man
could jest lift up his hand, and say 'Subside!' and then see 'em subside—why,
I had ruther see it than a circus any day.”

I looked at him keenly, and says I,—

“I wish such a bill had even now passed; that is, if wimmen could receive
any benefit from it.”

“Wall, you'll see it after I get to Washington, D.C., most probable. I
calculate to jest straighten out things there, and get public affairs in a
good runnin' order. The nation needs me.”

“Wall,” says I, wore out, “it can have you, as fur as I am
concerned.”

And I wus so completely fagged out, that I turned the subject completely
round (as I s'posed) by askin' him if he laid out to sell our apples this
year where he did last. The man's wife had wrote to me ahead, and wanted
to know, for they had bought a new dryin'-machine, and wanted to make sure
of apples ahead.

“Wall,” says Josiah, drawin' on his overshoes, “I shall probable have to
use the apples this fall to buy votes with.”

“To buy votes?” says I, in accents of horrow.

“Yes. I wouldn't tell it out of the family. But you are all in the family,
you know, and so I'll tell you. I sha'n't have to buy near so many votes
on account of my plan; but I shall have to buy some, of course. You know,
they all do; and I sha'n't stand no chance at all if I don't.”

My groans was fearful that I groaned at this; but truly, worse was to
come. He looked kinder pitiful at me (he loves me). But yet his love did
not soften the firm resolve that wus spread thick over his linement as he
went on,—

“I lay out to get lots of votes with my green apples,” says he dreamily.
“It seems as if I ought to get a vote for a bushel of apples; but there is
so much iniquity and cheatin' a goin' on now in politics, that I may have
to give a bushel and a half, or two bushels: and then, I shall make up a
lot of the smaller ones into hard cider, and use 'em to—to advance
the interests of myself and the nation in that way.

“There is hull loads of folks uncle Nate says he can bring to vote for me,
by the judicious use of—wall, it hain't likely you will approve of
it; but I say, stimulants are necessary in medicine, and any doctor will
tell you so—hard cider and beer and whiskey, and so 4th.”

I riz right up, and grasped holt of his arm, and says in stern, avengin'
tones,—

“Josiah Allen, will you go right against God's commands, and put the cup
to your neighbor's lips, for your own gain? Do you expect, if you do, that
you can escape Heaven's avengin' wrath?”

“They hain't my neighbors: I never neighbored with 'em.”

Says I sternly, “If you commit this sin, you will be held accountable; and
it seems to me as if you can never be forgiven.”

“Dumb it all, Samantha, if everybody else does so, where will I get my
votes?”

“Go without 'em, Josiah Allen; go down to poverty, or the tomb, but never
commit this sin. 'Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's
lips.'”

“They hain't my neighbors, and it probable hain't no cup that they will
drink out of: they will drink out of gobblers” (sometimes when Josiah gets
excited, he calls goblets, gobblers). But I wus too wrought up and by the
side of myself to notice it.

Says I, “To think a human bein', to say nothin' of a perfessor, would go
to work deliberate to get a man into a state that is jest as likely as not
to end in a murder, or any crime, for gain to himself.” Says I, “Think of
the different crimes you commit by that one act, Josiah Allen. You make a
man a fool, and in that way put yourself down on a level with disease,
deformity, and hereditary sin. You steal his reason away. You are a thief
of the deepest dye; for you steal then, from the man you have stole from—steal
the first rights of his manhood, his honor, his patriotism, his duty to
God and man. You are a thief of the Government—thief of God, and
right.

“Then, you make this man liable to commit any crime: so, if he
murders, you are a murderer; if he commits suicide, your
guilty soul shall cower in the presence of Him who said, 'No self-murderer
shall inherit eternal life.' It is your own doom you shall read in them
dreadful words.”

“Good landy, Samantha! do you want to scare me to death?” and Josiah
quailed and shook, and shook and quailed.

“I am only tellin' you the truth, Josiah Allen; and I should think it would
scare anybody to death.”

“If I don't do it, I shall appear like a fool: I shall be one by myself.”

Oh, how Josiah duz want to be fashionable!

“No, you won't, Josiah Allen—no, you won't. If you try to do right,
try to do God's will, you have His armies to surround you with a unseen
wall of Strength.”

“Why, I hain't seen you look so sort o' skairful and riz up, for years,
Samantha.”

“I hain't felt so. To think of the brink you wuz a standin' on, and jest a
fallin' off of.”

Josiah looked quite bad. And he put his hand on his side, and says, “My
heart beats as if it wuz a tryin' to get out and walk round the room. I do
believe I have got population of the heart.”

Says I, in a sarcasticker tone than I had used,—

“That is a disease that is very common amongst men, very common, though
they hain't over and above willin' to own up to it. Too much population of
the heart has ailed many a man before now, and woman too,” says I in
reasonable axents. “But you mean palpitation.”

“Wall, I said so, didn't I? And it is jest your skairful talk that has
done it.”

“Wall, if I thought I could convince men as I have you, I would foller the
business stiddy, of skairin' folks, and think I wuz doin' my duty.” Says
I, my emotions a roustin' up agin,—

“I should call it a good deal more honorable in you to get drunk yourself;
and I should think more of you, if I see you a reelin' round yourself,
than to see you make other folks reel. I should think it was your own
reel, and you had more right to it than to anybody else's.

“Oh! to think I should have lived to see the hour, to have my companion in
danger of goin' aginst the Scripter—ready to steal, or be stole, or
knock down, or any thing, to buy votes, or sell 'em!”

“Wall, dumb it all, do you want me to appear as awkward as a fool? I have
told you more than a dozen times I have got to do as the rest do,
if I want to make any show at all in politics.”

I said no more: but I riz right up, and walked out of the room, with my
head right up in the air, and the strings of my head-dress a floatin' out
behind me; and I'll bet there wus indignation in the float of them
strings, and heart-ache, and agony, and—and every thing.

I thought I had convinced him, and hadn't. I felt as if I must sink. You
know, that is all a woman can do—to sink. She can't do any thing
else in a helpful way when her beloved companion hangs over political
abysses. She can't reach out her lovin' hand, and help stiddy him; she
can't do nothin' only jest sink. And what made it more curious, these
despairin' thoughts come to me as I stood by the sink, washin' my
dinner-dishes. But anon (I know it wus jest anon, for the water wus
bilein' hot when I turned it out of the kettle, and it scalded my hands,
onbeknown to me, as I washed out my sass-plates) this thought gripped holt
of me, right in front of the sink,—

“Josiah Allen's wife, you must not sink. You must keep up.
If you have no power to help your pardner to patriotism and honor, you
can, if your worst fears are realized, try to keep him to home. For if his
acts and words are like these in Jonesville, what will they be in
Washington, D.C., if that place is all it has been depictered to you? Hold
up, Samantha! Be firm, Josiah Allen's wife! John Rogers! The nine! One at
the breast!”

So at last, by these almost convulsive efforts at calmness, I grew more
calmer and composeder. Josiah had hitched up and gone.

And he come home clever, and all excited with a new thing.

They are buildin' a new court-house at Jonesville. It is most done, and it
seemed they got into a dispute that day about the cupelow. They wanted to
have the figger of Liberty sculped out on it; and they had got the man
there all ready, and he had begun to sculp her as a woman,—the
goddess of Liberty, he called her. But at the last minute a dispute had
rosen: some of the leadin' minds of Jonesville, uncle Nate Gowdey amongst
'em, insisted on it that Liberty wuzn't a woman, he wuz a man. And they
wanted him depictered as a man, with whiskers and pantaloons and a
standin' collar, and boots and spurs—Josiah Allen wus the one that
wanted the spurs.

He said the dispute waxed furious; and he says to 'em,—

“Leave it to Samantha: she'll know all about it.”

And so it was agreed on that they'd leave it to me. And he drove the old
mare home, almost beyond her strength, he wus so anxious to have it
settled.

I wus jest makin' some cream biscuit for supper as he come in, and asked
me about it; and a minute is a minute in makin' warm biscuit. You want to
make 'em quick, and bake 'em quick. My mind wus fairly held onto that
dough—and needed on it; but instinctively I told him he wus in the
right ont. Liberty here in the United States wuz a man, and, in order to
be consistent, ort to be depictered with whiskers and overcoat and a
standin' collar.

“And spurs!” says Josiah.

“Wall,” I told him, “I wouldn't be particular about the spurs.” I said,
“Instead of the spurs on his boots, he might be depictered as settin' his
boot-heel onto the respectful petition of fifty thousand wimmen, who had
ventured to ask him for a little mite of what he wus s'posed to have
quantities of—Freedom.

“Or,” says I, “he might be depictered as settin' on a judgment-seat, and
wavin' off into prison an intelligent Christian woman, who had spent her
whole noble, useful life in studyin' the laws of our nation, for darin' to
think she had as much right under our Constitution, as a low, totally
ignorant coot who would most likely think the franchise wus some sort of a
meat-stew.”

Says I, “That will give Liberty jest as imperious and showy a look as
spurs would, and be fur more historick and symbolical.”

Wall, he said he would mention it to 'em; and says he, with a contented
look,—

“I told uncle Nate I knew I wus right. I knew Liberty wus a man.”

Wall, I didn't say no more: and I got him as good a supper as the house
afforded, and kep' still as death on politics; fur I could not help havin'
some hopes that he might get sick of the idee of public life. And I kep'
him down close all that evenin' to religion and the weather.

But, alas! my hopes wus doomed to fade away. And, as days passed by, I see
the thought of bein' a senator wus ever before him. The cares and burdens
of political life seemed to be a loomin' up in front of him, and in a
quiet way he seemed to be fittin' himself for the duties of his position.

He come in one day with Solomon Cypher'ses shovel, and I asked him “what
it wuz?”

And he said “it wus the spoils of office.”

And I says, “It is no such thing: it is Solomon Cypher'ses shovel.”

“Wall,” says he, “I found it out by the fence. Solomon has gone over to
the other party. I am a Democrat, and this is party spoils. I am goin' to
keep this as one of the spoils of office.”

Says I firmly, “You won't keep it!”

“Why,” says he, “if I am goin' to enter political life, I must begin to
practise sometime. I must begin to do as they all do. And it is a crackin'
good shovel too,” says he pensively.

Says I, “You are goin' to carry that shovel right straight home, Josiah
Allen!”

And I made him.

The idee.

But I see in this and in many kindred things, that he wuz a dwellin' on
this thought of political life—its honors and emollients. And often,
and in dark hints, he would speak of his Plan. If every other means
failed, if he couldn't spare the money to buy enough votes, how his plan
wus goin' to be the makin' of him.

And I overheard him tellin' the babe once, as he wus rockin' her to sleep
in the kitchen, “how her grandpa had got up somethin' that no other babe's
grandpa had ever thought of, and how she would probable see him in the
White House ere long.”

I wus makin' nut-cakes in the buttery; and I shuddered so at these words,
that I got in most as much agin lemon as I wanted in 'em. I wus a droppin'
it into a spoon, and it run over, I wus that shook at the thought of his
plan.

I had known his plans in the past, and had hefted 'em. And I truly felt
that his plans wus liable any time to be the death of him, and the
ruination.

But he wouldn't tell!

But kep' his mind immovibly sot, as I could see. And the very day of the
shovel episode, along towards night he rousted out of a brown study,—a
sort of a dark-brown study,—and says he,—

“Yes, I shall make out enough votes if we have a judicious committee.”

“A lyin' one, do you mean?” says I coldly. But not surprized. For truly,
my mind had been so strained and racked that I don't know as it would have
surprized me if Josiah Allen had riz up, and knocked me down.

“Wall, in politics, you have to add a few orts sometimes.”

I sithed, not a wonderin' sithe, but a despairin' one; and he went on,—

“I know where I shall get a hull lot of votes, anyway.”

“Where?” says I.

“Why, out to that nigger settlement jest the other side of Jonesville.”

“How do you know they'll vote for you?” says I.

“I'd like to see 'em vote aginst me!” says he, in a skairful way.

“Would you use intimidation, Josiah Allen?”

“Why, uncle Nate Gowdey and I, and a few others who love quiet, and love
to see folks do as they ort to, lay out to take some shot-guns and make
them niggers vote right; make 'em vote for me; shoot 'em right down if
they don't. We have got the campaign all planned out.”

“Josiah Allen,” says I, “if you have no fear of Heaven, have you no fear
of the Government? Do you want to be hung, and see your widow a breakin'
her heart over your gallowses?”

“Oh! I shouldn't get hung. The Government wouldn't do nothin'. The
Government feels jest as I do,—that it would be wrong to stir up old
bitternesses, and race differences. The bloody shirt has been washed, and
ironed out; and it wouldn't be right to dirty it up agin. The colored race
is now at peace; and if they will only do right, do jest as the white men
wants 'em to, Government won't never interfere with 'em.”

I groaned, and couldn't help it; and he says,—

“Why, hang it all, Samantha, if I make any show at all in public life, I
have got to begin to practise sometime.”

“Wall,” says I, “bring me in a pail of water.” But as he went out after
it, I murmured sternly to myself,—

“Oh! wus there ever a forerunner more needed run?” and my soul answered,
“Never! never!”

So with sithes that could hardly be sithed, so big and hefty wuz they, I
commenced to make preparations for embarkin' on my tower. And no martyr
that ever sot down on a hot gridiron wus animated by a more warm and
martyrous feelin' of self-sacrifice. Yes, I truly felt, that if there wus
dangers to be faced, and daggers run through pardners, I felt I would
ruther they would pierce my own spare-ribs than Josiah's. (I say
spare-ribs for oritory—my ribs are not spare, fur from it.)

I didn't really believe, if he run, he would run clear to Washington. And
yet, when my mind roamed on some public men, and how fur they run, I would
groan, and hurry up my preparations.

I knew my tower must be but a short one, for sugarin'-time wus approachin'
with rapid strides, and Samantha must be at the hellum. But I also knew,
that with a determined mind, and a willin' heart, great things could be
accomplished speedily; so I commenced makin' preparations, and layin' on
plans.

As become a woman of my cast-iron principles, I fixed up mostly on the
inside of my head instead of the outside. I studied the map of the United
States. I done several sums on the slate, to harden my mind, and help me
grasp great facts, and meet difficulties bravely. I read Gass'es
“Journal,”—how he rode up our great rivers on a perioger, and shot
bears. Expectin', as I did, to see trouble, I read over agin that book
that has been my stay in so many hard-fit battle-fields of principle,—Fox'es
“Book of Martyrs.”

I studied G. Washington's picture on the parlor-wall, to get kinder
stirred up in my mind about him, so's to realize to the full my privileges
as I wept onto his tomb, and stood in the capital he had foundered.

Thomas J. come one day while I wus musin' on George; and he says,—

“What are you lookin' so close at that dear old humbug for?”

Says I firmly, and keepin' the same posture, “I am studyin' the face of
the revered and noble G. Washington. I am going shortly to weep on his
tomb and the capital he foundered. I am studyin' his face, and Gass'es
'Journal,' and other works,” says I.

“If you are going to the capital, you had better study Dante.”

Says I, “Danty who?”

And he says, “Just plain Dante.” Says he, “You had better study his
inscription on the door of the infern”—

Says I, “Cease instantly. You are on the very pint of swearin';” and I
don't know now what he meant, and don't much care. Thomas J. is full of
queer remarks, anyway. But deep. He had a sick spell a few weeks ago; and
I went to see him the first thing in the mornin', after I heard of it. He
had overworked, the doctor said, and his heart wuz a little weak. He
looked real white; and I took holt of his hand, and says I,—

“Thomas J., I am worried about you: your pulse don't beat hardly any.”

“No,” says he. And he laughed with his eyes and his lips too. “I am glad I
am not a newspaper this morning, mother.”

And I says, “Why?”

And he says, “If I were a morning paper, mother, I shouldn't be a success,
my circulation is so weak.”

A jokin' right there, when he couldn't lift his head. But he got over it:
he always did have them sort of sick spells, from a little child.

But a manlier, good-hearteder, level-headeder boy never lived than Thomas
Jefferson Allen. He is just right, and always wuz. And though I
wouldn't have it get out for the world, I can't help seein' it, that he
goes fur ahead of Tirzah Ann in intellect, and nobleness of nater; and
though I love 'em both devotedly, I do, and I can't help it, like
him jest a little mite the best. But this I wouldn't have get out
for a thousand dollars. I tell it in strict confidence, and s'pose it will
be kep' as such. Mebby I hadn't ort to tell it at all. Mebby it hain't
quite orthodox in me to feel so. But it is truthful, anyway. And sometimes
I get to kinder wobblin' round inside of my mind, and a wonderin' which is
the best,—to be orthodox, or truthful,—and I sort o' settle
down to thinkin' I will tell the truth anyway.

Josiah, I think, likes Tirzah Ann the best.

But I studied deep, and mused. Mused on our 4 fathers, and our 4 mothers,
and on Liberty, and Independence, and Truth, and the Eagle. And thinkin' I
might jest as well be to work while I was a musin', I had a dress made for
the occasion. It wus bran new, and the color wus Bismark Brown.

Josiah wanted me to have Ashes of Moses color.

But I said no. With my mind in the heroic state it was then, I couldn't
curb it down onto Ashes of Moses, or roses, or any thing else peacible. I
felt that this color, remindin' me of two grand heroes,—Bismark,
John Brown,—suited me to a T. There wus two wimmen who stood ready
to make it,—Jane Bently and Martha Snyder. I chose Martha because
Martha wus the name of the wife of Washington.

It wus made with a bask.

When the news got out that I wus goin' to Washington on a tower, the
neighbors all wanted to send errents by me.

Betsey Bobbet wanted me to go to the Patent Office, and get her two
Patent-office books, for scrap-books for poetry.

Uncle Jarvis Bently wanted me to go to the Agricultural Bureau, and get
him a paper of lettis seed. And Solomon Cypher wanted me to get him a new
kind of string-beans, if I could, and some cowcumber seeds.

Uncle Nate Gowdey, who talked of paintin' his house over, wanted me to ask
the President what kind of paint he used on the White House, and if he put
in any sperits of turpentime. And Ardelia Rumsey, who wuz goin' to be
married soon, wanted me, if I see any new kinds of bed-quilt patterns to
the White House, or to the senators' housen, to get the patterns for her.
She said she wus sick of sunflowers, and blazin' stars, and such. She
thought mebby they'd have suthin' new, spread-eagle style, or suthin' of
that kind. She said “her feller was goin' to be connected with the
Government, and she thought it would be appropriate.”

And I asked her “how?” And she said, “he was goin' to get a patent on a
new kind of a jack-knife.”

I told her “if she wanted a Government quilt, and wanted it appropriate,
she ort to have it a crazy-quilt.”

And she said she had jest finished a crazy-quilt, with seven thousand
pieces of silk in it, and each piece trimmed with seven hundred stitches
of feather stitchin': she counted 'em. And then I remembered seein' it.
There wus some talk then about wimmen's rights, and a petition wus got up
in Jonesville for wimmen to sign; and I remember well that Ardelia
couldn't sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she hadn't got the
quilt more'n half done then. It took the biggest heft of two years to do
it. And so, of course, less important things had to be put aside till she
got it finished.

And I remember, too, that Ardelia's mother wanted to sign it; but she
couldn't, owin' to a bed-spread she wus a makin'. She wuz a quiltin' in
Noah's ark, and all the animals, at that time, on a Turkey-red quilt. I
remember she wuz a quiltin' the camel that day, and couldn't be disturbed.
So we didn't get the names. It took the old lady three years to quilt that
quilt. And when it wuz done, it wuz a sight to behold. Though, as I said
then, and say now, I wouldn't give much to sleep under so many animals.
But folks went from fur and near to see it, and I enjoyed lookin' at it
that day. And I see jest how it wuz. I see that she couldn't sign. It
wuzn't to be expected that a woman could stop to tend to Justice or
Freedom, or any thing else of that kind, right in the midst of a camel.

Zebulin Coon wanted me to carry a new hen-coop of hisen to get it
patented. And I thought to myself, I wonder if they'll ask me to carry a
cow.

And sure enough, Josiah wanted me to dicker, if I could, for a calf from
Mount Vernon,—swop one of our yearlin's for it if I couldn't do no
better.

But I told him right out and out, that I couldn't go into a calf-trade
with my mind wrought up as I knew it would be.

Wall, it wuzn't more'n 2 or 3 days after I begun my preparations, that
Dorlesky Burpy, a vegetable widow, come to see me; and the errents she
sent by me wuz fur more hefty and momentous than all the rest put
together, calves, hen-coop, and all.

And when she told 'em over to me, and I meditated on her reasons for
sendin' 'em, and her need of havin' 'em done, I felt that I would do the
errents for her if a breath was left in my body. I felt that I would bear
them 2 errents of hern on my tower side by side with my own private, hefty
mission for Josiah.

She come for a all day's visit; and though she is a vegetable widow, and
very humbly, I wuz middlin' glad to see her. But thinks'es I to myself as
I carried away her things into the bedroom, “She'll want to send some
errent by me;” and I wondered what it wouldn't be.

And so it didn't surprise me any when she asked me the first thing when I
got back “if I would lobby a little for her in Washington.”

And I looked agreeable to the idee; for I s'posed it wuz some new kind of
tattin', mebby, or fancy work. And I told her “I shouldn't have much time,
but I would try to buy her some if I could.”

And she said “she wanted me to lobby, myself.”

And then I thought mebby it wus some new kind of waltz; and I told her “I
was too old to lobby, I hadn't lobbied a step since I was married.”

And then she said “she wanted me to canvass some of the senators.”

And I hung back, and asked her in a cautius tone “how many she wanted
canvassed, and how much canvass it would take?”

I knew I had a good many things to buy for my tower; and, though I wanted
to obleege Dorlesky, I didn't feel like runnin' into any great expense for
canvass.

And then she broke off from that subject, and said “she wanted her rights,
and wanted the Whiskey Ring broke up.”

And then she says, going back to the old subject agin, “I hear that Josiah
Allen has political hopes: can I canvass him?”

And I says, “Yes, you can for all me.” But I mentioned cautiously, for I
believe in bein' straightforward, and not holdin' out no false hopes,—I
said “she must furnish her own canvass, for I hadn't a mite in the house.”

But Josiah didn't get home till after her folks come after her. So he
wuzn't canvassed.

But she talked a sight about her children, and how bad she felt to be
parted from 'em, and how much she used to think of her husband, and how
her hull life wus ruined, and how the Whiskey Ring had done it,—that,
and wimmen's helpless condition under the law. And she cried, and wept,
and cried about her children, and her sufferin's she had suffered; and I
did. I cried onto my apron, and couldn't help it. A new apron too. And
right while I wus cryin' onto that gingham apron, she made me promise to
carry them two errents of hern to the President, and to get 'em done for
her if I possibly could.

“She wanted the Whiskey Ring destroyed, and she wanted her rights; and she
wanted 'em both in less than 2 weeks.”

I wiped my eyes off, and told her I didn't believe she could get 'em done
in that length of time, but I would tell the President about it, and “I
thought more'n as likely as not he would want to do right by her.” And
says I, “If he sets out to, he can haul them babys of yourn out of that
Ring pretty sudden.”

And then, to kinder get her mind off of her sufferin's, I asked her how
her sister Susan wus a gettin' along. I hadn't heard from her for years—she
married Philemon Clapsaddle; and Dorlesky spoke out as bitter as a bitter
walnut—a green one. And says she,—

“She is in the poorhouse.”

“Why, Dorlesky Burpy!” says I. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I say. My sister, Susan Clapsaddle, is in the poorhouse.”

“Why, where is their property all gone?” says I. “They was well off—Susan
had five thousand dollars of her own when she married him.”

“I know it,” says she. “And I can tell you, Josiah Allen's wife, where
their property is gone. It has gone down Philemon Clapsaddle's throat.
Look down that man's throat, and you will see 150 acres of land, a good
house and barns, 20 sheep, and 40 head of cattle.”

“Why-ee!” says I.

“Yes, you will see 'em all down that man's throat.” And says she, in still
more bitter axents, “You will see four mules, and a span of horses, two
buggies, a double sleigh, and three buffalo-robes. He has drinked 'em all
up—and 2 horse-rakes, a cultivator, and a thrashin'-machine.

“Why! Why-ee!” says I agin. “And where are the children?”

“The boys have inherited their father's evil habits, and drink as bad as
he duz; and the oldest girl has gone to the bad.”

“Oh, dear! oh, dear me!” says I. And we both sot silent for a spell. And
then, thinkin' I must say sunthin', and wantin' to strike a safe subject,
and a good-lookin' one, I says,—

“Where is your aunt Eunice'es girl? that pretty girl I see to your house
once.”

“That girl is in the lunatick asylum.”

“Dorlesky Burpy!” says I. “Be you a tellin' the truth?”

“Yes, I be, the livin' truth. She went to New York to buy millinary goods
for her mother's store. It wus quite cool when she left home, and she
hadn't took off her winter clothes: and it come on brilin' hot in the
city; and in goin' about from store to store, the heat and the hard work
overcome her, and she fell down in the street in a sort of a faintin'-fit,
and was called drunk, and dragged off to a police court by a man who wus a
animal in human shape. And he misused her in such a way, that she never
got over the horror of what befell her—when she come to, to find
herself at the mercy of a brute in a man's shape. She went into a
melancholy madness, and wus sent to the asylum. Of course they couldn't
have wimmen in such places to take care of wimmen,” says she bitterly.

I sithed a long and mournful sithe, and sot silent agin for quite a spell.
But thinkin' I must be sociable, I says,—

“Your aunt Eunice is well, I s'pose?”

“She is a moulderin' in jail,” says she.

“In jail? Eunice Keeler in jail?”

“Yes, in jail.” And Dorlesky's tone wus now like wormwood, wormwood and
gall.

“You know, she owns a big property in tenement-houses, and other
buildings, where she lives. Of course her taxes wus awful high; and she
didn't expect to have any voice in tellin' how that money, a part of her
own property, that she earned herself in a store, should be used.

“But she had jest been taxed high for new sidewalks in front of some of
her buildin's.

“And then another man come into power in that ward, and he natrully wanted
to make some money out of her; and he had a spite aginst her, too, so he
ordered her to build new sidewalks. And she wouldn't tear up a good
sidewalk to please him or anybody else, so she was put to jail for
refusin' to comply with the law.”

Thinks'es I to myself, I don't believe the law would have been so hard on
her if she hadn't been so humbly. The Burpys are a humbly lot. But I
didn't think it out loud. And I didn't uphold the law for feelin' so, if
it did. No: I says in pityin' tones,—for I wus truly sorry for
Eunice Keeler,—

“How did it end?”

“It hain't ended,” says she. “It only took place a month ago; and she has
got her grit up, and won't pay: and no knowin' how it will end. She lays
there a moulderin'.”

I myself don't believe Eunice wus “mouldy;” but that is Dorlesky's way of
talkin',—very flowery.

“Wall,” says I, “do you think the weather is goin' to moderate?”

I truly felt that I dassent speak to her about any human bein' under the
sun, not knowin' what turn she would give to the conversation, bein' so
embittered. But I felt the weather wus safe, and cotton stockin's, and
factory-cloth; and I kep' her down onto them subjects for more'n two
hours.

But, good land! I can't blame her for bein' embittered aginst men and the
laws they have made; for, if ever a woman has been tormented, she has.

It honestly seems to me as if I never see a human creeter so afflicted as
Dorlesky Burpy has been, all her life.

Why, her sufferin's date back before she wus born; and that is goin'
pretty fur back. You see, her father and mother had had some difficulty:
and he wus took down with billious colic voyolent four weeks before
Dorlesky wus born; and some think it wus the hardness between 'em, and
some think it wus the gripin' of the colic at the time he made his will;
anyway, he willed Dorlesky away, boy or girl, whichever it wuz, to his
brother up on the Canada line.

So, when Dorlesky wus born (and born a girl, entirely onbeknown to her),
she wus took right away from her mother, and gin to this brother. Her
mother couldn't help herself: he had the law on his side. But it jest
killed her. She drooped right away and died, before the baby wus a year
old. She was a affectionate, tenderhearted woman; and her husband wus
kinder overbearin', and stern always.

But it wus this last move of hisen that killed her; for I tell you, it is
pretty tough on a mother to have her baby, a part of her own life, took
right out of her arms, and gin to a stranger.

For this uncle of hern wus a entire stranger to Dorlesky when the will wus
made. And almost like a stranger to her father, for he hadn't seen him
sence he wus a boy; but he knew he hadn't any children, and s'posed he wus
rich and respectable. But the truth wuz, he had been a runnin' down every
way,—had lost his property and his character, wus dissipated and
mean (onbeknown, it wus s'posed, to Dorlesky's father). But the will was
made, and the law stood. Men are ashamed now, to think the law wus ever in
voge; but it wuz, and is now in some of the States. The law wus in voge,
and the poor young mother couldn't help herself. It has always been the
boast of our American law, that it takes care of wimmen. It took care of
her. It held her in its strong, protectin' grasp, and held her so tight,
that the only way she could slip out of it wus to drop into the grave,
which she did in a few months. Then it leggo.

But it kep' holt of Dorlesky: it bound her tight to her uncle, while he
run through with what little property she had; while he sunk lower and
lower, until at last he needed the very necessaries of life; and then he
bound her out to work, to a woman who kep' a drinkin'-den, and the lowest,
most degraded hant of vice.

Twice Dorlesky run away, bein' virtuous but humbly; but them strong,
protectin' arms of the law that had held her mother so tight, jest reached
out, and dragged her back agin. Upheld by them, her uncle could compel her
to give her service wherever he wanted her to work; and he wus owin' this
woman, and she wanted Dorlesky's work, so she had to submit.

But the 3d time, she made a effort so voyalent that she got away. A good
woman, who, bein' nothin' but a woman, couldn't do any thing towards
onclinchin' them powerful arms that wuz protectin' her, helped her to slip
through 'em. And Dorlesky come to Jonesville to live with a sister of that
good woman; changed her name, so's it wouldn't be so easy to find her;
grew up to be a nice, industrious girl. And when the woman she was took
by, died, she left Dorlesky quite a handsome property.

And finally she married Lank Rumsey, and did considerable well, it was
s'posed. Her property, put with what little he had, made 'em a comfortable
home; and they had two pretty little children,—a boy and a girl. But
when the little girl was a baby, he took to drinkin', neglected his
business, got mixed up with a whisky-ring, whipped Dorlesky—not so
very hard. He went accordin' to law; and the law of the United States
don't approve of a man whippin' his wife enough to endanger her life—it
says it don't. He made every move of hisen lawful, and felt that Dorlesky
hadn't ort to complain and feel hurt. But a good whippin' will make
anybody feel hurt, law or no law. And then he parted with her, and got her
property and her two little children. Why, it seemed as if every thing
under the sun and moon, that could happen to a woman, had happened
to Dorlesky, painful things, and gaulin'.

Jest before Lank parted with her, she fell on a broken sidewalk: some
think he tripped her up, but it never was proved. But, anyway, Dorlesky
fell, and broke her hip bone; and her husband sued the corporation, and
got ten thousand dollars for it. Of course, the law give the money to him,
and she never got a cent of it. But she wouldn't never have made any fuss
over that, knowin' that the law of the United States was such. But what
made it gaulin' to her wuz, that, while she was layin' there achin' in
splints, he took that very money and used it to court up another woman
with. Gin her presents, jewellry, bunnets, head-dresses, artificial
flowers, and etcetery, out of Dorlesky's own hip-money.

And I don't know as any thing could be much more gaulin' to a woman than
that wuz,—while she lay there, groanin' in splints, to have her
husband take the money for her own broken bones, and dress up another
woman like a doll with it.

But the law gin it to him; and he was only availin' himself of the
glorious liberty of our free republic, and doin' as he was a mind to.

And it was s'posed that that very hip-money was what made the match. For,
before she wus fairly out of splints, he got a divorce from her. And by
the help of that money, and the Whisky Ring, he got her two little
children away from her.

And I wonder if there is a mother in the land, that can blame Dorlesky for
gettin' mad, and wantin' her rights, and wantin' the Whisky Ring broke up,
when they think it over,—how she has been fooled round with by men,
willed away, and whipped and parted with and stole from. Why, they can't
blame her for feelin' fairly savage about 'em—and she duz. For as
she says to me once when we wus a talkin' it over, how every thing had
happened to her that could happen to a woman, and how curious it wuz,—

“Yes,” says she, with a axent like boneset and vinegar,—“and what
few things there are that hain't happened to me, has happened to my
folks.”

And, sure enough, I couldn't dispute her. Trouble and wrongs and
sufferin's seemed to be epidemic in the race of Burpy wimmen. Why, one of
her aunts on her father's side, Patty Burpy, married for her first husband
Eliphalet Perkins. He was a minister, rode on a circuit. And he took Patty
on it too; and she rode round with him on it, a good deal of the time. But
she never loved to: she wus a woman who loved to be still, and be kinder
settled down at home.

But she loved Eliphalet so well, she would do any thing to please him: so
she rode round with him on that circuit, till she was perfectly fagged
out.

He was a dretful good man to her; but he wus kinder poor, and they had
hard times to get along. But what property they had wuzn't taxed, so that
helped some; and Patty would make one doller go a good ways.

No, their property wasn't taxed till Eliphalet died. Then the supervisor
taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his horse, so it
was said, so's to be sure to get it onto the tax-list, and comply with the
law.

You see, Eliphalet's salary stopped when his breath did. And I s'pose
mebby the law thought, seem' she was a havin' trouble, she might jest as
well have a little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a
cent for before.

But she had this to console her anyway,—that the law didn't forget
her in her widowhood. No: the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen, by
spells. It says, the law duz, that it protects wimmen. And I s'pose in
some mysterious way, too deep for wimmen to understand, it was protectin'
her now.

Wall, she suffered along, and finally married agin. I wondered why she
did. But she was such a quiet, home-lovin' woman, that it was s'posed she
wanted to settle down, and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad
luck she had! She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a
perfect wanderer. Why, he couldn't keep still. It was s'posed to be a
mark.

He moved Patty thirteen times in two years; and at last he took her into a
cart,—a sort of a covered wagon,—and travelled right through
the Eastern States with her. He wanted to see the country, and loved to
live in the wagon: it was his make. And, of course, the law give him the
control of her body; and she had to go where he moved it, or else part
with him. And I s'pose the law thought it was guardin' and nourishin' her
when it was a joltin' her over them praries and mountains and abysses. But
it jest kep' her shook up the hull of the time.

It wus the regular Burpy luck.

And then, another one of her aunts, Drusilla Burpy, she married a
industrius, hard-workin' man,—one that never drinked a drop, and was
sound on the doctrines, and give good measure to his customers: he was a
grocer-man. And a master hand for wantin' to foller the laws of his
country, as tight as laws could be follered. And so, knowin' that the law
approved of “moderate correction” for wimmen, and that “a man might whip
his wife, but not enough to endanger her life,” he bein' such a master
hand for wantin' to do every thing faithful, and do his very best for his
customers, it was s'posed that he wanted to do his best for the law; and
so, when he got to whippin' Drusilla, he would whip her too severe—he
would be too faithful to it.

You see, the way ont was, what made him whip her at all wuz, she was cross
to him. They had nine little children. She always thought that two or
three children would be about all one woman could bring up well “by hand,”
when that one hand wuz so awful full of work, as will be told more
ensuin'ly. But he felt that big families wuz a protection to the
Government; and “he wanted fourteen boys,” he said, so they could all
foller their father's footsteps, and be noble, law-making, law-abiding
citizens, jest as he was.

But she had to do every mite of the housework, and milk cows, and make
butter and cheese, and cook and wash and scour, and take all the care of
the children, day and night, in sickness and in health, and spin and weave
the cloth for their clothes (as wimmen did in them days), and then make
'em, and keep 'em clean. And when there wuz so many of 'em, and only about
a year's difference in their ages, some of 'em—why, I s'pose she
sometimes thought more of her own achin' back than she did of the good of
the Government; and she would get kinder discouraged sometimes, and be
cross to him.

And knowin' his own motives was so high and loyal, he felt that he ought
to whip her. So he did.

And what shows that Drusilla wuzn't so bad as he s'posed she wuz, what
shows that she did have her good streaks, and a deep reverence for the
law, is, that she stood his whippin's first-rate, and never whipped him.

Now, she wuz fur bigger than he wuz, weighed 80 pounds the most, and might
have whipped him if the law had been such.

But they was both law-abidin', and wanted to keep every preamble; so she
stood it to be whipped, and never once whipped him in all the seventeen
years they lived together.

She died when her twelfth child was born: there wus jest 13 months
difference in the age of that and the one next older. And they said she
often spoke out in her last sickness, and said,—

“Thank fortune, I have always kept the law.”

And they said the same thought wus a great comfort to him in his last
moments.

He died about a year after she did, leaving his 2nd wife with twins and a
good property.

Then, there was Abagail Burpy. She married a sort of a high-headed man,
though one that paid his debts, and was truthful, and considerable
good-lookin', and played well on the fiddle. Why, it seemed as if he had
almost every qualification for makin' a woman happy, only he had jest this
one little excentricity,—that man would lock up Abagail Burpy's
clothes every time he got mad at her.

Of course the law give her clothes to him; and knowin' it was one of the
laws of the United States, she wouldn't have complained only when she had
company. But it was mortifyin', and nobody could dispute it, to have
company come, and nothin' to put on.

Several times she had to withdraw into the wood-house, and stay most of
the day, shiverin', and under the cellar-stairs, and round in
clothes-presses.

But he boasted in prayer-meetin's, and on boxes before grocery-stores,
that he wus a law-abidin' citizen; and he wuz. Eben Flanders wouldn't lie
for anybody.

But I'll bet that Abagail Flanders beat our old Revolutionary 4 mothers in
thinkin' out new laws, when she lay round under stairs, and behind
barrells, in her nightdress.

You see, when a man hides his wive's corset and petticoat, it is governin'
without the “consent of the governed.” And if you don't believe it, you
ort to have peeked round them barrells, and seen Abagail's eyes. Why, they
had hull reams of by-laws in 'em, and preambles, and “declarations of
independence.” So I have been told.

Why, it beat every thing I ever heard on, the lawful sufferin's of them
wimmen. For there wuzn't nothin' illegal about one single trouble of
theirn. They suffered accordin' to law, every one of 'em. But it wus tuff
for 'em—very tuff.

And their all bein' so dretful humbly wuz and is another drawback to 'em;
though that, too, is perfectly lawful, as everybody knows.

And Dorlesky looks as bad agin as she would otherways, on account of her
teeth.

It wus after Lank had begun to kinder get after this other woman, and wus
indifferent to his wive's looks, that Dorlesky had a new set of teeth on
her upper jaw. And they sort o' sot out, and made her look so bad that it
fairly made her ache to look at herself in the glass. And they hurt her
gooms too. And she carried 'em back to the dentist, and wanted him to make
her another set.

But the dentist acted mean, and wouldn't take 'em back, and sued Lank for
the pay. And they had a lawsuit. And the law bein' such that a woman can't
testify in court in any matter that is of mutual interest to husband and
wife—and Lank wantin' to act mean, too, testified that “they wus
good sound teeth.”

And there Dorlesky sot right in front of 'em with her gooms achin', and
her face all pokin' out, and lookin' like furyation, and couldn't say a
word. But she had to give in to the law.

And ruther than go toothless, she wears 'em to this day. And I do believe
it is the raspin' of them teeth aginst her gooms, and her discouraged and
mad feelin's every time she looks in a glass, that helps to embitter her
towards men, and the laws men have made, so's a woman can't have the
control over her own teeth and her own bones.

Wall, Dorlesky went home about 4 P.M., I a promisin' at the last minute as
sacred as I could, without usin' a book, to do her errents for her.

I urged her to stay to supper, but she couldn't; for she said the man
where she worked was usin' his horses, and couldn't come after her agin.
And she said that—

“Mercy on her! how could anybody eat any more supper after such a dinner
as I had got?”

And it wuzn't nothin' extra, I didn't think. No better than my common run
of dinners.

Wall, she hadn't been gone over an hour (she a hollerin' from the wagon, a
chargin' on me solemn, about the errents,—the man she works for is
deef, deef as a post,—and I a noddin' to her firm, honorable nods,
that I would do 'em), and I wus a slickin' up the settin'-room, and
Martha, who had jest come in, wus measurin' off my skirt-breadths, when
Josiah Allen drove up, and Cicely and the boy with him.

And there I had been a layin' out to write to her that very night to tell
her I wus goin' away, and to be sure and come jest as quick as I got back!

Wall, I never see the time I wuzn't glad to see Cicely, and I felt that
she could visit to Tirzah Ann's and Thomas J.'s while I wus gone. She
looked dretful pale and sad, I thought; but she seemed glad to see me, and
glad to get back. And the boy asked Josiah and Ury and me 47 questions
between the wagon and the front doorstep, for I counted 'em. He wus well.

I broached the subject of my tower to Cicely when she and I wus all alone
in her room. And, if you'll believe it, she all rousted up with the idee
of wantin' to go too.

She says, “You know, aunt Samantha, just how I have prayed and labored for
my boy's future; how I have made all the efforts that it is possible for a
woman to make; how I have thrown my heart and life into the work,—but
I have done no good. That letter,” says she, takin' one out of her pocket,
and throwin' it into my lap,—“that letter tells me just what I knew
so well before,—just how weak a woman is; that they have no power,
only the power to suffer.”

It wus from that old executor, refusin' to comply with some request she
had made about her own property,—a request of right and truth.

Oh, how glad I would have been to had him execkuted that very minute! Why,
I'd done it myself if wimmen could execkit—but they can't.

Says she, “I'll go with you to Washington,—I and the boy. Perhaps I
can do something for him there.” But when she mentioned the boy, I
demurred in my own mind, and kep' a demurrin'. Thinks'es I, how can I
stand it, as tired as I expect to be, to have him a askin' questions all
the hull time? She see I was a demurrin'; and her pretty face grew sadder
than it had, and overcasteder.

And as I see that, I gin in at once, and says with a cheerful face, but a
forebodin' mind,—

“Wall, Cicely, we three will embark together on our tower.”

Wall, after supper Cicely and I sot down under the front stoop,—it
was a warm evenin',—and we talked some about other wimmen. Not
runnin' talk, or gossipin' talk, but jest plain talk, about her aunt Mary,
and her aunt Melissa, and her aunt Mary's daughter, who wus a runnin'
down, runnin' faster than ever, so I judged from what she said. And how
Susan Ann Grimshaw that was, had a young babe. She said her aunt Mary was
better now, so she had started for the Michigan; but she had had a dretful
sick spell while she was there.

While she wuz a tellin' me this, Cicely sot on one of the steps of the
stoop: I sot up under it in my rockin'-chair. And she looked dretful good
to me. She had on a white dress. She most always wears white in the house,
when we hain't got company; and always wears black when she is dressed up,
and when she goes out.

This dress was made of white mull. The yoke wus made all of thin
embroidery, and her white neck and shoulders shone through it like snow.
Her sleeves was all trimmed with lace, and fell back from her pretty white
arms. Her hands wus clasped over her knees; and her hair, which the boy
had got loose a playin' with her, wus fallin' round her face and neck. And
her great, earnest eyes wus lookin' into the West, and the light from the
sunset fallin' through the mornin'-glorys wus a fallin' over her, till I
declare, I never see any thing look so pretty in my hull life. And there
was some thin' more, fur more than prettiness in her face, in her big
eyes.

It wuzn't unhappiness, and it wuzn't happiness, and I don't know as I can
tell what it wuz. It seemed as if she wuz a lookin' fur, fur away, further
than Jonesville, further than the lake that lay beyend Jonesville, and
which was pure gold now,—a sea of glass mingled with fire,—further
than the cloudy masses in the western heavens, which looked like a city of
shinin' mansions, fur off; but her eyes was lookin' away off, beyend them.

And I kep' still, and didn't feel like talkin' about other wimmen.

Finally she spoke out. “Aunt Samantha, what do you suppose I thought when
dear aunt Mary was so ill when I was there?”

And I says, “I don't know, dear: what did you?”

“Well, I thought, that, though I loved her so dearly, I almost wished she
would die while I was there.”

“Why, Cicely!” says I. “Why-ee! what did you wish that for? and thinkin'
so much of your aunt as you do.”

“Well, you know how mother and aunt Mary loved each other, how near they
were to each other. Why, mother could always tell when aunt Mary was ill
or in trouble, and she was just the same in regard to mother. And I can't
think that when death has freed the soul from the flesh, that they will
have less spiritual knowledge of each other than when they were here; and
I felt, that with such a love as theirs, death would only make their souls
nearer: and you know what the Bible says,—that 'God shall make of
his angels ministering spirits;' and I know He would send no other
angel but my mother, to dear aunt Mary's bedside, to take her spirit home.
And I thought, that, if I were there, my mother would be there right in
the room with me; and I didn't know but I might feel her presence
if I could not see her. And I do want my mother so sometimes, aunt
Samantha,” says she with the tears comin' into them soft brown eyes. “It
seems as if she would tell me what to do for the boy—she always knew
what was right and best to do.”

Says I to myself, “For the land's sake, what won't Cicely think on next?”
But I didn't say a word, mind you, not a single word would I say to hurt
that child's feelin's—not for a silver dollar, I wouldn't.

I only says, in calm accents,—

“Don't for mercy's sake, child, talk of seein' your mother now.”

She looked far off into the shinin' western heavens with that deep,
searchin', but soft gaze,—seemin' to look clear through them cloudy
mansions of rose and pearl,—and says she,—

“If I were good enough, I think I could.”

And I says, “Cicely, you are goin' to take cold, with nothin' round your
shoulders.” Says I, “The weather is very ketchin', and it looks to me as
if we wus goin' to have quite a spell of it.”

And the boy overheard me, and asked me 75 questions about ketchin' the
weather.

“If the weather set a trap? If it ketched with bait, or with a hook, and
what it ketched? and how? and who?”

Oh my stars! what a time I did have!

The next mornin' after this Cicely wuzn't well enough to get up. I carried
up her breakfast with my own hands,—a good one, though I am fur from
bein' the one that ort to say it.

And after breakfast, along in the forenoon, Martha, who was makin' my
dress, felt troubled in mind as to whether she had better cut the polenay
kitrin' ways of the cloth, or not: and Miss Gowdey had jest had one made
in the height of the fashion, to Jonesville; and so to ease Martha's mind
(she is one that gets deprested easy, when weighty subjects are pressin'
her down), I said I would run over cross-lots, and carry home a drawin' of
tea I had borrowed, and look at the polenay, and bring back tidin's from
it. And I wus goin' there acrost the orchard, when I see the boy a layin'
on his back under a apple-tree, lookin' up into the sky; and says I,—

“What be you doin' here, Paul?”

He never got up, nor moved a mite. That is one of the peculiarities of the
boy, you can't surprise him: nothin' seems to startle him.

He lay still, and spoke out for all the world as if I had been there with
him all day.

“I am lookin' to see if I can see it. I thought I got a glimpse of it a
minute ago, but it wus only a white cloud.”

“Lookin' for what?” says I.

“The gate of that City that comes down out of the heavens. You know, uncle
Josiah read about it this morning, out of that big book he prays out of
after breakfast. He said the gate was one pearl.

“And I asked mamma what a pearl was, and she said it was just like that
ring she wears that papa gave her. And I asked her where the City was, and
she said it was up in the heavens. And I asked her if I should ever see
it; and she said, if I was good, it would swing down out of the sky,
sometime, and that shining gate would open, and I should walk through it
into the City.

“And I went right to being good, that minute; and I have been good for as
many as three hours, I should think. And say, how long have you got
to be good before you can go through? And say, can you see it
before you go through? And SAY”—

But I had got most out of hearin' then.

“And say”—

I heard his last “say” just as I got out of hearin' of him.

He acted kinder disappointed at dinner-time, and said “he wus tired of
watchin', and tired out of bein' good;” and he wus considerable cross all
that afternoon. But he got clever agin before bedtime. And he come and
leaned up aginst my lap at sundown, and asked me, I guess, about 200
questions about the City.

And his eyes looked big and dreamy and soft, and his cheeks looked rosy,
and his mouth awful good and sweet. And his curls wus kinder moist, and
hung down over his white forehead. I did love him, and couldn't
help it, chin or no chin.

He had been still for quite a spell, a thinkin'; and at last he broke out,—

“Say, auntie, shall I see my father there in the City?”

And I didn't know what to tell him; for you know what it says,—

“Without are murderers.”

But then, agin, I thought, what will become of the respectable church
members who sell the fire that flames up in a man's soul, and ruins his
life? What will become of them who lend their votes and their influence to
make it right? They vote on Saturdays, to make the sale of this poison
legal, and on Sundays go to church with their respectable families. And
they expect to go right to heaven, of course; for they have improved all
the means of grace. Hired costly pews, and give big charities—in
money obtained by sellin' robberies, murders, broken hearts, ruined lives.

But the boy wanted an answer; and his eyes looked questioning but soft.

“Say, auntie, do you think we'll find him there, mamma and I? You know,
that is what mamma cries so for,—she wants him so bad. And do you
think he will stand just inside the gate, waiting for us? Say!”

But agin I thought of what it said,—

“No drunkard shall inherit eternal life.”

And agin I didn't know what to say, and I hurried him off to bed.

But, after he had gone, I spoke out entirely unbeknown to myself, and
says,—

“I can't see through it.”

“You can't see through what?” says Josiah, who wus jest a comin' in.

“I can't see through it, why drunkards and murderers are punished, and
them that make 'em drink and murder go free. I can't see through it.”

“Wall, I don't see how you can see through any thing here—dark as
pitch.” Here he fell over a stool, which made him madder.

“Folks make fools of themselves, a follerin' up that subject.” Here he
stubbed his foot aginst the rockin'-chair, and most fell, and snapped out
enough to take my head off,—

“The dumb fools will get so before long, that a man can't drink milk
porridge without their prayin' over him.”

Says I, “Be calm! stand right still in the middle of the floor, Josiah
Allen, and I'll light a lamp,” which I did; and he sot down cleverer,
though he says,—

“You want to take away all the rights of a man. Liquor is good for
sickness, and you know it. You go onto extremes, you go too fur.”

Says I calmly, “Do you s'pose, at this late hour, I am goin' to stop bein'
mejum? No! mejum have I lived, and mejum will I die. I believe liquor is
good for medicine: if I should say I didn't, I should be a lyin', which I
am fur from wantin' to do at my age. I think it kep' mother Allen alive
for years, jest as I believe arsenic broke up Bildad Smith's chills. And I
s'pose folks have jest as good a right to use it for the benefit of their
health, as to use any other pizen, or fire, or any thing.

“And it should be used jest like pizen and fire and etcetery. You don't
want to eat pizen for a treat, or pass it round amongst your friends. You
don't want to play with fire for fun, or burn yourself up with it. You
don't want to use it to confligrate yourself or anybody else.

“So with liquor. You don't want to drink liquor to kill yourself with, or
to kill other folks. You don't want to inebriate with it. If I had my way,
Josiah Allen,” says I firmly, “the hull liquor-trade should be in the
hands of doctors, who wouldn't sell a drop without knowin' positive
that it wus needed for sickness, or the aged and infirm. Good,
honest doctors who couldn't be bought nor sold.”

“Where would you find 'em?” says Josiah in a gruff tone (I mistrust his
toe pained him).

Says I thoughtfully, “Surely there is one good, reliable man left in every
town—that could be found.”

“I don't know about it,” says he, sort o' musin'ly. “I am gettin' pretty
old to begin it, but I don't know but I might get to be a doctor now.”

Says he, brightenin' up, “It can't take much study to deal out a dose of
salts now and then, or count anybody's pult.”

But says I firmly, “Give up that idee at once, Josiah Allen. I have come
out alive, out of all your other plans and progects, and I hain't a goin'
to be killed now at my age, by you as a doctor.”

My tone wus so powerful, and even skairful, that he gin up the idee, and
wound up the clock, and went to bed.

CHAPTER VI.

Cicely wus some better the next day. And two days before we sot sail for
Washington, Philury Mesick, the girl Ury was payin' attention to, and who
was goin' to keep my house durin' my absence on my tower, come with a
small, a very small trunk, ornimented with brass nails.

Poor little thing! I wus always sorry for her, she is so little, and so
freckled, and so awful willin' to do jest as anybody wants her to. She is
a girl that Miss Solomon Gowdey kinder took. And I think, if there is any
condition that is hard, it is to be “kinder took.” Why, if I was took at
all, I should want to be “took.”