Samantha at Saratoga

A SORT OF PREFACE.

WHICH IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ.

When Josiah read my dedication he said “it wuz a shame to dedicate a book
that it had took most a hull bottle of ink to write, to a lot of creeters that
he wouldn’t have in the back door yard.”

But I explained it to him, that I didn’t mean tramps with broken hats,
variegated pantaloons, ventilated shirt-sleeves, and barefooted. But I meant
tramps with diamond ear-rings, and cuff-buttons, and Saratoga trunks, and big
accounts at their bankers.

And he said, “Oh, shaw!”

But I went on nobly, onmindful of that shaw, as female pardners have to be, if
they accomplish all the talkin’ they want to.

And sez I, “It duz seem sort o’ pitiful, don’t it, to think
how sort o’ homeless the Americans are a gettin’? How the posys
that blow under the winders of Home are left to waste their sweet breaths
amongst the weeds, while them that used to love ’em are a climbin’
mountain tops after strange nosegays.”

The smoke that curled up from the chimbleys, a wreathin’ its way up to
the heavens—all dead and gone. The bright light that shone out of the
winder through the dark a tellin’ everybody that there wuz a Home, and
some one a waitin’ for somebody—all dark and lonesome.

Yes, the waiter and the waited for are all a rushin’ round somewhere, on
the cars, mebby, or a yot, a chasin’ Pleasure, that like as not settled
right down on the eves of the old house they left, and stayed there.

I wonder if they will find her there when they go back again. Mebby they will,
and then agin, mebby they won’t. For Happiness haint one to set round and
lame herself a waitin’ for folks to make up their minds.

Sometimes she looks folks full in the face, sort o’ solemn like and
heart-searchin’, and gives ’em a fair chance what they will chuse.
And then if they chuse wrong, shee’ll turn her back to ’em, for
always. I’ve hearn of jest such cases.

But it duz seem sort o’ solemn to think—how the sweet restful
felin’s that clings like ivy round the old familier door
steps—where old 4 fathers feet stopped, and stayed there, and baby feet
touched and then went away—I declare for’t, it almost brings tears,
to think how that sweet clingin’ vine of affection, and domestic repose,
and content—how soon that vine gets tore up nowadays.

It is a sort of a runnin’ vine anyway, and folks use it as sech, they run
with it. Jest as it puts its tendrils out to cling round some fence post, or
lilock bush, they pull it up, and start off with it. And then its roots get
dry, and it is some time before it will begin to put out little shoots and
clingin’ leaves agin round some petickular mountain top, or bureau or
human bein’. And then it is yanked up agin, poor little runnin’
vine, and run with—and so on—and so on—and so on.

Why sometimes it makes me fairly heart-sick to think on’t. And I fairly
envy our old 4 fathers, who used to set down for several hundred years in one
spot. They used to get real rested, it must be they did.

Jacob now, settin’ right by that well of his’n for pretty nigh two
hundred years. How much store he must have set by it during the last hundred
years of ’em! How attached he must have been to it!

Good land! Where is there a well that one of our rich old American patriarks
will set down by for two years, leavin’ off the orts. There haint none,
there haint no such a well. Our patriarks haint fond of well water, anyway.

And old Miss Abraham now, and Miss Isaac—what stay to home wimmen they
wuz, and equinomical!

What a good contented creeter Sarah Abraham wuz. How settled down, and stiddy,
stayin’ right to home for hundreds of years. Not gettin’ rampent
for a wider spear, not a coaxin’ old Mr. Abraham nights to take her to
summer resorts, and winter hants of fashion.

No, old Mr. Abraham went to bed, and went to sleep for all of her.

And when they did once in a hundred years, or so, make up their minds to move
on a mile or so, how easy they traveled. Mr. Abraham didn’t have to lug
off ten or twelve wagon loads of furniture to the Safe Deposit Company, and
spend weeks and weeks a settlin’ his bisness, in Western lands, and
Northern mines, Southern railroads, and Eastern wildcat stocks, to get ready to
go. And Miss Abraham didn’t have to have a dozen dress-makers in the
house for a month or two, and messenger boys, and dry goods clerks, and have to
stand and be fitted for basks and polenays, and back drapery, and front
drapery, and tea gowns, and dinner gowns, and drivin’ gowns, and
mornin’ gowns, and evenin’ gowns, and etectery, etcetery, etcetery.

No, all the preperations she had to make wuz to wrop her mantilly a little
closter round her, and all Mr. Abraham had to do wuz to gird up his lions. That
is what it sez. And I don’t believe it would take much time to gird up a
few lions, it don’t seem to me as if it would.

And when these few simple preperations had been made, they jest histed up their
tent and laid it acrost a camel, and moved on a mild or two, walkin’
afoot.

Why jest imagine if Miss Abraham had to travel with eight or ten big Saratoga
trunks, how could they have been got up onto that camel? It couldn’t lave
been done. The camel would have died, and old Mr. Abraham would also have
expired a tryin’ to lift ’em up. No, it was all for the best.

And jest think on’t, for all of these simple, stay to home ways, they
called themselves Pilgrims and Sojourners. Good land! What would they have
thought nowadays to see folks make nothin’ of settin’ off for
China, or Japan or Jerusalem before breakfast.

And what did they know of the hardships of civilization? Now to sposen the
case, sposen Miss Abraham had to live in New York winters, and go to two or
three big receptions every day, and to dinner parties, and theatre parties, and
operas and such like, evenin’s, and receive and return about three
thousand calls, and be on more ’n a dozen charitable boards (hard boards
they be too, some on ’em) and lots of other projects and
enterprizes—be on the go the hull winter, with a dress so tight she
couldn’t breathe instead of her good loose robes, and instead of her good
comfortable sandals have her feet upon high-heeled shoes pinchin’ her
corns almost unto distraction. And then to Washington to go all through it
agin, and more too, and Florida, and Cuba; and then to the sea-shore and have
it all over agin with sea bathin’ added.

And then to the mountains, and all over agin with climbin’ round added.
Then to Europe, with seas sickness, picture galleries, etc., added. And so on
home agin in the fall to begin it all over agin.

Why Miss Abraham would be so tuckered out before she went half through with one
season, that she would be a dead 4 mother.

And Mr. Abraham—why one half hour down at the stock exchange would have
been too much for that good old creeter. The yells and cries, and distracted
movements of the crowd of Luker Gatherers there, would have skairt him to
death. He never would have lived to follow Miss Abraham round from pillow to
post through summer and winter seasons—he wouldn’t have lived to
waltz, or toboggen, or suffer other civilized agonies. No, he would have been a
dead patriark. And better off so, I almost think.

Not but what I realize that civilization has its advantages. Not but what I
know that if Mr. Abraham wanted Miss Abraham to part his hair straight, or
clean off his phylackrity when she happened to be out a pickin’ up manny,
he couldn’t stand on one side of his tent and telephone to bring her
back, but had to yell at her.

And I realize fully that if one of his herd got strayed off into another
county, they hadn’t no telegraf to head it off, but the old man had to
poke off through rain or sun, and hunt it up himself. And he couldn’t set
down cross-legged in front of his tent in the mornin’, and read what
happened on the other side of the world, the evenin’ before.

And I know that if he wanted to set down some news, they had to kill a sheep,
and spend several years a dressin’ off the hide into parchment—and
kill a goose, or chase it up till they wuz beat out, for a goose-quill.

And then after about 20 years or so, they could put it down that Miss Isaac had
got a boy—the boy, probably bein’ a married man himself and a
father when the news of his birth wuz set down.

I realize this, and also the great fundimental fact that underlies all
philosophies, that you can’t set down and stand up at the same
time—and that no man, however pure and lofty his motives may be,
can’t lean up against a barn door, and walk off simultanious. And if he
don’t walk off, then the great question comes in, How will he get there?
And he feels lots of times that he must stand up so’s to bring his head
up above the mullien and burdock stalks, amongst which he is a settin’,
and get a wider view-a broader horizeon. And he feels lots of time, that he
must get there.

This is a sort of a curius world, and it makes me feel curius a good deal of
the time as we go through it. But we have to make allowances for it, for the
old world is on a tramp, too. It can’t seem to stop a minute to oil up
its old axeltrys—it moves on, and takes us with it. It seems to be in a
hurry.

Everything seems to be in a hurry here below. And some say Heaven is a place of
continual sailin’ round and goin’ up and up all the time. But while
risin’ up and soarin’ is a sweet thought to me, still sometimes I
love to think that Heaven is a place where I can set down, and set for some
time.

I told Josiah so (waked him up, for he wuz asleep), and he said he sot more
store on the golden streets, and the wavin’ palms, and the procession of
angels. (And then he went to sleep agin.)

But I don’t feel so. I’d love, as I say, to jest set down for quite
a spell, and set there, to be kinder settled down and to home with them whose
presence makes a home anywhere. I wouldn’t give a cent to sail round
unless I wuz made to know it wuz my duty to sail. Josiah wants to.

But, as I say, everybody is in a hurry. Husbands can’t hardly find time
to keep up a acquaintance with their wives. Fathers don’t have no time to
get up a intimate acquaintance with their children. Mothers are in such a
hurry—babys are in such a hurry—that they can’t scarcely find
time to be born. And I declare for’t, it seems sometimes as if folks
don’t want to take time to die.

The old folks at home wait with faithful, tired old eyes for the letter that
don’t come, for the busy son or daughter hasn’t time to write
it—no, they are too busy a tearin’ up the running vine of affection
and home love, and a runnin’ with it.

Yes, the hull nation is in a hurry to get somewhere else, to go on, it
can’t wait. It is a trampin’ on over the Western slopes, a
trampin’ over red men, and black men, and some white men a hurryin’
on to the West—hurryin’ on to the sea. And what then?

Is there a tide of restfulness a layin’ before it? Some cool waters of
repose where it will bathe its tired forward, and its stun-bruised feet, and
set there for some time?

I don’t s’pose so. I don’t s’pose it is in its nater
to. I s’pose it will look off longingly onto the far off somewhere that
lays over the waters—beyend the sunset.

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE.

NEW YORK, June, 1887.

Chapter I.

SAMANTHA AT SARATOGA.

The idee on’t come to me one day about sundown, or a little before
sundown. I wuz a settin’ in calm peace, and a big rockin’ chair
covered with a handsome copperplate, a readin’ what the Sammist sez about
“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” The words struck deep, and as I
said, it was jest that very minute that the idee struck me about goin’ to
Saratoga. Why I should have had the idee at jest that minute, I can’t
tell, nor Josiah can’t. We have talked about it sense.

But good land! such creeters as thoughts be never wuz, nor never will be. They
will creep in, and round, and over anything, and get inside of your mind
(entirely unbeknown to you) at any time. Curious, haint it?—How you may
try to hedge ’em out, and shet the doors and everything. But they will
creep up into your mind, climb up and draw up their ladders, and there they
will be, and stalk round independent as if they owned your hull head; curious!

Well, there the idee wuz—I never knew nothin’ about it, nor how it
got there. But there it wuz, lookin’ me right in the face of my soul,
kinder pert and saucy, sayin’, “You’d better go to Saratoga
next summer; you and Josiah.”

But I argued with it. Sez I, “What should we go to Saratoga for? None
of the relations live there on my side, or on hison; why should we go?”

But still that idee kep’ a hantin me; “You’d better go to
Saratoga next summer, you and Josiah.” And it whispered, “Mebby it
will help Josiah’s corns.” (He is dretful troubled with corns.)
And so the idee kep’ a naggin’ me, it nagged me for three days and
three nights before I mentioned it to my Josiah. And when I did, he scorfed at
the idee. He said, “The idee of water curing them dumb
corns—“

Sez I, “Josiah Allen, stranger things have been done;” sez I,
“that water is very strong. It does wonders.”

And he scorfed agin and sez, “Don’t you believe faith could cure
em?”

Sez I, “If it wuz strong enough it could.”

But the thought kep a naggin’ me stiddy, and then—here is the
curious part of it—the thought nagged me, and I nagged Josiah, or not
exactly nagged; not a clear nag; I despise them, and always did. But I kinder
kep’ it before his mind from day to day, and from hour to hour. And the
idee would keep a tellin’ me things and I would keep a tellin’
’em to my companion. The idee would keep a sayin’ to me, “It
is one of the most beautiful places in our native land. The waters will help
you, the inspirin’ music, and elegance and gay enjoyment you will find
there, will sort a uplift you. You had better go there on a tower;” and
agin it sez, “Mebby it will help Josiah’s corns.”

And old Dr. Gale a happenin’ in at about that time, I asked him about it
(he doctored me when I wuz a baby, and I have helped ’em for years. Good
old creetur, he don’t get along as well as he ort to. Loontown is a
healthy place.) I told him about my strong desire to go to Saratoga, and I
asked him plain if he thought the water would help my pardner’s corns.
And he looked dreadful wise and he riz up and walked across the floor 2 and fro
several times, probably 3 times to, and the same number of times fro, with his
arms crossed back under the skirt of his coat and his eyebrows knit in deep
thought, before he answered me. Finely he said, that modern science had not
fully demonstrated yet the direct bearing of water on corn. In some cases it
might and probably did stimulate ’em to greater luxuriance, and then
again a great flow of water might retard their growth.

Sez I, anxiously, “Then you’d advise me to go there with
him?”

“Yes,” sez he, “on the hull, I advise you to go.”

Them words I reported to Josiah, and sez I in anxious axents, “Dr. Gale
advises us to go.”

And Josiah sez, “I guess I shan’t mind what that old fool
sez.”

Them wuz my pardner’s words, much as I hate to tell on ’em. But
from day to day I kep’ it stiddy before him, how dang’r’us it
wuz to go ag’inst a doctor’s advice. And from day to day he would
scorf at the plan. And I, ev’ry now and then, and mebby oftener, would
get him a extra good meal, and attack him on the subject immegatly afterwards.
But all in vain. And I see that when he had that immovible sotness onto him,
one extra meal wouldn’t soften or molify him. No, I see plain I must
make a more voyalent effort. And I made it. For three stiddy days I put
before that man the best vittles that these hands could make, or this brain
could plan.

And at the end of the 3d day I gently tackled him agin on the subject, and his
state wuz such, bland, serene, happified, that he consented without a parlay.
And so it wuz settled that the next summer we wuz to go to Saratoga. And he
began to count on it and make preparation in a way that I hated to see.

Yes, from the very minute that our two minds wuz made up to go to Saratoga
Josiah Allen wuz set on havin’ sunthin new and uneek in the way of dress
and whiskers. I looked coldly on the idee of puttin’ a gay stripe down
the legs of the new pantaloons I made for him, and broke it up, also a figured
vest. I went through them two crisises and came out triumphent.

Then he went and bought a new bright pink necktie with broad long ends which he
intended to have float out, down the front of his vest. And I immegatly took
it for the light-colored blocks in my silk log-cabin bedquilt. Yes, I settled
the matter of that pink neck-gear with a high hand and a pair of shears. And
Josiah sez now that he bought it for that purpose, for the bedquilt, because he
loves to see a dressy quilt,—sez he always enjoys seein’ a cabin
look sort o’ gay. But good land! he didn’t. He intended and
calculated to wear that neck-tie into Saratoga,—a sight for men and
angels, if I hadn’t broke it up.

But in the matter of whiskers, there I was powerless. He trimmed ’em
(unbeknow to me) all off the side of his face, them good honerable side
whiskers of hisen, that had stood by him for years in solemnity and decency,
and begun to cultivate a little patch on the end of his chin. I argued with
him, and talked well on the subject, eloquent, but it wuz of no use, I might as
well have argued with the wind in March.

He said, he wuz bound on goin’ into Saratoga with a fashionable whisker,
come what would.

And then I sithed, and he sez,—“ You have broke up my pantaloons,
my vest, and my neck-tie, you have ground me down onto plain broadcloth, but in
the matter of whiskers I am firm! Yes!” sez he “on these whiskers I
take my stand!”

And agin I sithed heavy, and I sez in a dretful impressive way, as I looked on
’em, “Josiah Allen, remember you are a father and a
grandfather!”

And he sez firmly, “If I wuz a great-grandfather I would trim my whiskers
in jest this way, that is if I wuz a goin’ to set up to be fashionable
and a goin’ to Saratoga for my health.”

And I groaned kinder low to myself, and kep’ hopin’ that mebby they
wouldn’t grow very fast, or that some axident would happen to ’em,
that they would get afire or sunthin’. But they didn’t. And they
grew from day to day luxurient in length, but thin. And his watchful care
kep’ ’em from axident, and I wuz too high princepled to set fire to
’em when he wuz asleep, though sometimes, on a moonlight night, I was
tempted to, sorely tempted.

But I didn’t, and they grew from day to day, till they wuz the curiusest
lookin’ patch o’ whiskers that I ever see. And when we sot out for
Saratoga, they wuz jest about as long as a shavin’ brush, and looked some
like one. There wuz no look of a class-leader, and a perfesser about
’em, and I told him so. But he worshiped ’em, and gloried in the
idee of goin’ afar to show ’em off.

But the neighbors received the news that we wuz goin’ to a waterin’
place coldly, or with ill-concealed envy.

Uncle Jonas Bently told us he shouldn’t think we would want to go round
to waterin’ troughs at our age.

And I told him it wuzn’t a waterin’ trough, and if it wuz, I
thought our age wuz jest as good a one as any, to go to it.

He had the impression that Saratoga wuz a immense waterin’ trough where
the country all drove themselves summers to be watered. He is deef as a
Hemlock post, and I yelled up at him jest as loud as I dast for fear of
breakin’ open my own chest, that the water got into us, instid of our
gettin’ into the water, but I didn’t make him understand, for I
hearn afterwards of his sayin’ that, as nigh as he could make out we all
got into the waterin’ trough and wuz watered.

The school teacher, a young man, with long, small lims, and some pimpley on the
face, but well meanin’, he sez to me: “Saratoga is a beautiful
spah.”

And I sez warmly, “It aint no such thing, it is a village, for I have
seen a peddler who went right through it, and watered his horses there, and he
sez it is a waterin’ place, and a village.”

“Yes,” sez he, “it is a beautiful village, a modest retiren
city, and at the same time it is the most noted spah on this continent.”

I wouldn’t contend with him for it wuz on the stoop of the meetin’
house, and I believe in bein’ reverent. But I knew it wuzn’t no
“spah,”—that had a dreadful flat sound to me. And any way I
knew I should face its realities soon and know all about it. Lots of wimen said
that for anybody who lived right on the side of a canal, and had two good,
cisterns on the place, and a well, they didn’t see why I should feel in a
sufferin’ condition for any more water; and if I did, why didn’t I
ketch rain water?

Such wuz some of the deep arguments they brung up aginst my embarkin’ on
this enterprise, they talked about it sights and sights;—why, it lasted
the neighbors for a stiddy conversation, till along about the middle of the
winter. Then the Minister’s wife bought a new alpacky
dress—unbeknown to the church till it wuz made up—and that kind
o’ drawed their minds off o’ me for a spell.

Aunt Polly Pixley wuz the only one who received the intelligence gladly. And
she thought she would go too. She had been kinder run down and most bed rid for
years. And she had a idee the water might help her. And I encouraged Aunt Polly
in the idee, for she wuz well off. Yes, Mr. and Miss Pixley wuz very well off
though they lived in a little mite of a dark, low, lonesome house, with some
tall Pollard willows in front of the door in a row, and jest acrost the road
from a grave-yard.

Her husband had been close and wuzn’t willin’ to have any other
luxury or means of recreation in the house only a bass viol, that had been his
father’s—he used to play on that for hours and hours. I thought
that wuz one reason why Polly wuz so nervous. I said to Josiah that it would
have killed me outright to have that low grumblin’ a goin’ on from
day to day, and to look at them tall lonesome willows and grave stuns.

But, howsumever, Polly’s husband had died durin’ the summer, and
Polly parted with the bass viol the day after the funeral. She got out some
now, and wuz quite wrought up with the idee of goin’ to Saratoga.

But Sister Minkley; sister in the church and sister-in-law by reason of
Wbitefield, sez to me, that she should think I would think twice before I
danced and waltzed round waltzes.

And I sez, “I haint thought of doin’ it, I haint thought of
dancin’ round or square or any other shape.”

Sez she, “You have got to, if you go to Saratoga.”

Sez I, “Not while life remains in this frame.”

And old Miss Bobbet came up that minute—it wuz in the store that we were
a talkin’—and sez she, “It seems to me, Josiah Allen’s
wife, that you are too old to wear low-necked dresses and short sleeves.”

“And I should think you’d take cold a goin’
bareheaded,” sez Miss Luman Spink who wuz with her.

Sez I, lookin’ at ’em coldly, “Are you lunys or has softness
begun on your brains?”

“Why,” sez they, “you are talking about goin’ to
Saratoga, hain’t you?”

“Yes,” sez I.

“Well then you have got to wear ’em,” says Miss Bobbet.
“They don’t let anybody inside of the incorporation without they
have got on a low-necked dress and short sleeves.”

“And bare-headed,” sez Miss Spink; “if they have’ got a
thing on their heads they won’t let ’em in.”

Sez I, “I don’t believe it”

Sez Miss Bobbet, “It is so, for I hearn it, and hearn it straight. James
Robbets’s wife’s sister had a second cousin who lived neighbor to a
woman whose niece had been there, been right there on the spot. And Celestine
Bobbet, Uncle Ephraim’s Celestine, hearn it from James’es wife when
she wuz up there last spring, it come straight. They all have to go in low
necks.”

“And not a mite of anything on their heads,” says Miss Spink.

Sez I in sarcastical axents, “Do men have to go in low necks too?”

“No,” says Miss Bobbet. “But they have to have the tails of
their coats kinder pinted. Why,” sez she, “I hearn of a man that
had got clear to the incorporation and they wouldn’t let him in because
his coat kinder rounded off round the bottom, so he went out by the side of the
road and pinned up his coat tails, into a sort of a pinted shape, and good land
the incorporation let him right in, and never said a word.”

I contended that these things wuzn’t so, but I found it wuz the
prevailin’ opinion. For when I went to see the dressmaker about
makin’ me a dress for the occasion, I see she felt just like the rest
about it. My dress wuz a good black alpacky. I thought I would have it begun
along in the edge of the winter, when she didn’t have so much to do, and
also to have it done on time. We laid out to start on the follerin’ July,
and I felt that I wanted everything ready.

I bought the dress the 7th day of November early in the forenoon, the next day
after my pardner consented to go, and give 65 cents a yard for it, double
wedth. I thought I could get it done on time, dressmakers are drove a good
deal. But I felt that a dressmaker could commence a dress in November and get
it done the follerin’ July, without no great strain bein’ put onto
her; and I am fur from bein’ the one to put strains onto wimmen, and
hurry ’em beyend their strength. But I felt Almily had time to make it on
honor and with good buttonholes.

“Well,” she sez, the first thing after she had unrolled the
alpacky, and held it up to the light to see if it was firm—sez she:

“I s’pose you are goin’ to have it made with a long train,
and low neck and short sleeves, and the waist all girted down to a
taper?”

I wuz agast at the idee, and to think Alminy should broach it to me, and I give
her a piece of my mind that must have lasted her for days and days. It wuz a
long piece, and firm as iron. But she is a woman who likes to have the last
word and carry out her own idees, and she insisted that nobody was allowed in
Saratoga—that they wuz outlawed, and laughed at if they didn’t have
trains and low necks, and little mites of waists no bigger than pipe-stems.

Sez I, “Alminy Hagidone, do you s’pose that I, a woman of my age,
and a member of the meetin’ house, am a goin’ to wear a low-necked
dress?”

“Why not?,” sez she, “it is all the fashion and wimmen as old
agin as you be wear ’em.”

Well, sez I, “It is a shame and a disgrace if they do, to say
nothin’ of the wickedness of it. Who do you s’pose wants to see
their old skin and bones? It haint nothin’ pretty anyway. And as fer the
waists bein’ all girted up and drawed in, that is nothin’ but
crushed bones and flesh and vitals, that is just crowdin’ down your
insides into a state o’ disease and deformity, torturin’ your heart
down so’s the blood can’t circulate, and your lungs so’s you
can’t breathe, it is nothin’ but slow murder anyway, and if I ever
take it into my head to kill myself, Alminy Hagidone, I haint a goin’ to
do it in a way of perfect torture and torment to me, I’d ruther be
drownded.”

She quailed, and I sez, “I am one that is goin’ to take good long
breaths to the very last.” She see I wuz like iron aginst the idee of
bein’ drawed in, and tapered, and she desisted. I s’pose I did look
skairful. But she seemed still to cling to the idee of low necks and trains,
and she sez sort a rebukingly:

“You ortn’t to go to Saratoga if you haint willin’ to do as
the rest do. I spose,” sez she dreamily, “the streets are full of
wimmen a walkin’ up and down with long trains a hangin’ down and
sweepin’ the streets, and ev’ry one on ’em with low necks and
short sleeves, and all on ’em a flirting with some man”

“Truly,” sez I, “if that is so, that is why the idee come to
me. I am needed there. I have a high mission to perform about. But I
don’t believe it is so.”

“Then you won’t have it made with a long train?” sez she, a
holdin’ up a breadth of the alpacky in front of me, to measure the skirt.

“No mom!” sez I, and there wuz both dignity and deep resolve in
that “mom.” It wuz as firm and stern principled a “mom”
as I ever see, though I say it that shouldn’t. And I see it skairt her.
She measured off the breadths kinder trembly, and seemed so anxious to pacify
me that she got it a leetle shorter in the back than it wuz in the front. And
(for the same reason) it fairly clicked me in the neck it wuz so high, and the
sleeves wuz that long that I told Josiah Allen (in confidence) I was tempted to
knit some loops across the bottom of ’em and wear ’em for mits.

But I didn’t, and I didn’t change the dress neither. Thinkses I,
mebby it will have a good moral effect on them other old wimmen there. Thinkses
I, when they see another woman melted and shortened and choked fur
principle’s sake, mebby they will pause in their wild careers.

Wall, this wuz in November, and I wuz to have the dress, if it wuz a possible
thing, by the middle of April, so’s to get it home in time to sew some
lace in the neck. And so havin’ everything settled about goin’ I
wuz calm in my frame most all the time, and so wuz my pardner.

And right here, let me insert this one word of wisdom for the special comfort
of my sect and yet it is one that may well be laid to heart by the more
opposite one. If your pardner gets restless and oneasy and middlin’
cross, as pardners will be anon, or even oftener—start them off on a
tower. A tower will in 9 cases out of 10 lift ’em out of their
oneasiness, their restlessness and their crossness.

Why this is so I cannot tell, no more than I can explain other mysteries of
creation, but I know it is so. I know they will come home more placider, more
serener, and more settled-downer. Why I have known a short tower to Slab City
or Loontown act like a charm on my pardner, when crossness wuz in his mean and
snappishness wuz present with him. I have known him to set off with the mean of
a lion and come back with the liniment of a lamb. Curious, haint it?

And jest the prospect of a tower ahead is a great help to a woman in
rulin’ and keepin’ a pardner straight and right in his liniments
and his acts. Somehow jest the thought of a tower sort a lifts him up in mind,
and happifys him, and makes him easier to quell, and pardners must be quelled
at times, else there would be no livin’ with ’em. This is known to
all wimmen companions and and men too. Great great is the mystery of pardners.

Chapter II.

ARDELLA TUTT AND HER MOTHER.

But to resoom and continue on. I was a settin’ one day, after it wuz all
decided, and plans laid on; I wuz a settin’ by the fire a mendin’
one of Josiah’s socks. I wuz a settin’ there, as soft and pliable
in my temper as the woosted I wuz a darnin’ ’em with, my Josiah at
the same time a peacefelly sawin’ wood in the wood-house, when I heard a
rap at the door and I riz up and opened it, and there stood two perfect
strangers, females. I, with a perfect dignity and grace (and with the sock
still in my left hand) asked ’em to set down, and consequently they sot.
Then ensued a slight pause durin’ which my two gray eyes roamed over the
females before me.

The oldest one wuz very sharp in her face and had a pair of small round eyes
that seemed when they were sot onto you to sort a bore into you like two
gimlets. Her nose was very sharp and defient, as if it wuz constantly
sayin’ to itself, “I am a nose to be looked up to, I am a nose to
be respected, and feared if necessary.” Her chin said the same thing, and
her lips which wuz very thin, and her elbow, which wuz very sharp.

Her dress was a stiff sort of a shinin’ poplin, made tight acrost the
chest and elboes. And her hat had some stiff feathers in it that stood up
straight and sort a sharp lookin’. She had a long sharp breast-pin sort a
stabbed in through the front of her stiff standin’ collar, and her
knuckles sot out through her firm lisle thread gloves, her umberell wuz long
and wound up hard, to that extent I have never seen before nor sense. She wuz,
take it all in all, a hard sight, and skairful.

The other one wuzn’t no more like her in looks than a soft fat young
cabbage head is like the sharp bean pole that it grows up by the side on, in
the same garden. She wuz soft in her complexion, her lips, her cheeks, her
hands, and as I mistrusted at that first minute, and found out afterwards, soft
in her head too. Her dress wuz a loose-wove parmetty, full in the waist and
sort a drabbly round the bottom. Her hat wuz drab-colored felt with some loose
ribbon bows a hangin’ down on it, and some soft ostridge tips. She had
silk mits on and her hands wuz fat and kinder moist-lookin’. Her eyes wuz
very large and round, and blue, and looked sort o’ dreamy and
wanderin’ and there wuz a kind of a wrapped smile on her face all the
time. She had a roll of paper in her hand and I didn’t dislike her looks
a mite.

Finally the oldest female opened her lips, some as a steel trap would open
sudden and kinder sharp, and sez she: “I am Miss Deacon Tutt, of
Tuttville, and this is my second daughter Ardelia. Cordelia is my oldest, and I
have 4 younger than Ardelia.”

I bowed real polite and said, “I wuz glad to make the acquaintance of the
hull 7 on ’em.” I can be very genteel when I set out, almost
stylish.

“I s’pose,” says she, “I am talkin’ to Josiah
Allen’s wife?”

I gin her to understand that that wuz my name and my station, and she went on,
and sez she: “I have hearn on you through my husband’s 2d cousin,
Cephas Tutt.”

“Cephas,” sez she, “bein’ wrote to by me on the subject
of Ardelia, the same letter containin’ seven poems of hern, and on
bein’ asked to point out the quickest way to make her name and fame known
to the world at large, wrote back that he havin’ always dealt in butter
and lard, wuzn’t up to the market price in poetry, and that you would be
a good one to go to for advice. And so,” sez she a pointin’ to a
bag she carried on her arm (a hard lookin’ bag made of crash with little
bullets and knobs of embroidery on it), “and so we took this bag full of
Ardelia’s poetry and come on the mornin’ train, Cephas’es
letter havin’ reached us at nine o’clock last night. I am a woman
of business.”

The bag would hold about 4 quarts and it wuz full. I looked at it and sithed.

“I see,” sez she, “that you are sorry that we didn’t
bring more poetry with us. But we thought that this little batch would give you
a idee of what a mind she has, what a glorious, soarin’ genus wuz in
front of you, and we could bring more the next time we come.”

I sithed agin, three times, but Miss Tutt didn’t notice ’em a mite
no more’n they’d been giggles or titters. She wouldn’t have
took no notice of them. She wuz firm and decided doin’ her own errent,
and not payin’ no attention to anything, nor anybody else.

“Ardelia, read the poem you have got under your arm to Miss Allen! The
bag wuz full of her longer ones,” sez she, “but I felt that I must
let you hear her poem on Spring. It is a gem. I felt it would be wrongin’
you, not to give you that treat. Read it Ardelia.”

I see Ardelia wuz used to obeyin’ her ma. She opened the sheet to once,
and begun. It wuz as follows:

“ARDELIA TUTT ON SPRING.”



“Oh spring, sweet spring, thou comest in the spring;

Thou comest in the spring time of the year.

We fain would have thee come in Autumn; fling-

est thou so sad a shade, oh Spring, so dear?



“So dear the hopes thou draggest in thy rear,

So mournful, and so wan, and not so sweet;

So weird thou art, and oh, all! all! too dear

Art thou, alas! oh mournful spring; my ear—



“My ear that long did lay at gate of hope,

Prone at the gate while years glided by—

I fain would lift that ear, alas, why cope

With cruel wrong, it must lie there so heavy ’tis my eye—



“My eye, I fling o’er buried ruins long,

I flung it there, regardless of the loss;

That eye, I fain would gather in with song;

In vain! ’tis gone, I bow and own the cross.



“Dear ear, lone eye, sweet buried hopes, alas,

I give thee to the proud inexorable main;

Deep calls to deep, and it doth not reply,

But sayeth my heart, they will not be mine own again.”

Jest the minute Ardelia stopped readin’ Miss Tatt says proudly:
“There! haint that a remarkable poem,?”

Sez I, calmly, “Yes it is a remarkable one.”

“Did you ever hear anything like it?” says she, triumphly.

“No,” sez I honestly, “I never did.”

“Ardelia, read the poem on Little Ardelia Cordelia; give Miss Allen the
treat of hearin’ that beautiful thing.”

I sort a sithed low to myself; it wuz more of a groan than a common sithe, but
Miss Tutt didn’t heed it, she kep’ right on—

“I have always brought up my children to make other folks happy, all they
can, and in rehearsin’ this lovely and remarkable poem, Ardelia will be
not only makin’ you perfectly happy, givin’ you a rich intellectual
feast, that you can’t often have, way out here in the country, fur from
Tuttville; but she will also be attendin’ to the business that brought us
here. I have always fetched my children up to combine joy and business; weld
’em together like brass and steel. Ardelia, begin!”

So Ardelia commenced agin’. It wuz wrote on a big sheet of paper and a
runnin’ vine wuz a runnin’ all ’round the edge of the paper,
made with a pen, it was as follows:

“STANZAS ENTITLED

“SWEET LITTLE THING.



“Wrote on the death of Ardelia Cordelia, who died at the age of seven days and seven hours.”



“Sweet little thing, that erst so soon did bloom,

And didest but fade, as falls the mystic flower!

Sweet little thing, we did but erst low croon

To thee a plaintive lay, and lo! for hour and hour—

Sweet little thing.



“For hours we sang to thee of high emprise, the songs of hope

Though aged but week (and seven hours) thou laughested in thy sleep;

We cling to that in peace, though mope

The dullard knave, and biddest us go and weep—

Sweet little thing.



“Thou laughested at high emprise, and yet, in sooth,

’Twere craven to say thou couldst not rise

To scale the mounts! to soar the cliffs! if worth

Were the test, twice worthy thou, in that the merit lies—

Sweet little thing.



“Thy words that might have shook the breathless world with might;

Alas! I catchested not on any earthly ground,

That voice that might have guided nations high aright,

Congealed within thy tiny windpipe ’twas, it did not steal around—

Sweet little thing.



“Sweet little thing, so soon thy wings unfurled

A wing, a feather lone low floated up the yard;

A world might weep, a world might stand appalled,

To hear it low rehearsed by tearful female bard—

Sweet little thing.”

Jest as soon as Ardelia stopped rehearsin’ the verses, Miss Tutt sez agin
to me:

“Haint that a most remarkable poem?”

And agin I sez calmly, and trutbfully, “Yes, it is a very remarkable
one!”

“And now,” sez Miss Tutt, plungin’ her hand in the bag, and
drawin’ out a sheet of paper, “to convince you that Ardelia has
always had this divine gift of poesy—that it is not, all the effect of
culture and high education—let me read to you a poem she wrote when she
wuz only a mere child,” and Miss Tutt read:

“LINES ON A CAT


“WRITTEN BY ARDELIA TUTT,

“At the age of fourteen years, two months and eight days.

“Oh Cat! Sweet Tabby cat of mine;

6 months of age has passed o’er thee,

And I would not resign, resign

The pleasure that I find in you.

Dear old cat!”

“Don’t you think,” sez Miss Tutt, “that this poem shows
a fund of passion, a reserve power of passion and constancy, remarkable in one
so young?”

“Yes,” sez I reasonably, “no doubt she liked the cat.
And,” sez I, wantin’ to say somethin’ pleasant and agreeable
to her, “no doubt it was a likely cat.”

“Oh the cat itself is of miner importance,” sez Miss Tutt.
“We will fling the cat to the winds. It’s of my daughter I would
speak. I simply handled the cat to show the rare precocious intellect. Oh! how
it gushed out in the last line in the unconquerable burst of repressed
passion—’Dear old cat!’ Shakespeare might have wrote that
line, do you not think so?”

“No doubt he might,” sez I, calmly, “but he
didn’t.”

I see she looked mad and I hastened to say: “He wuzn’t aquainted
with the cat.”

She looked kinder mollyfied and continued:

“Ardelia dashes off things with a speed that would astonish a mere common
writer. Why she dashed off thirty-nine verses once while she wuz waitin’
for the dish water to bile, and sent ’em right off to the printer,
without glancin’ at ’em agin.’

“I dare say so,” sez I, “I should judge so by the sound on
’em.”

“Out of envy and jealousy, the rankest envy, and the shearest jealousy,
them verses wuz sent back with the infamous request that she should use
’em for curl papers. But she sot right down and wrote forty-eight verses
on a ‘Cruel Request,’ wrote ’em inside of eighteen minutes.
She throws off things, Ardelia does, in half an hour, that it would take other
poets, weeks and weeks to write.”

“I persume so,” sez I, “I dare persume to say, they never
could write ’em.”

“And now,” sez Miss Tutt, “the question is, will you put
Ardelia on the back of that horse that poets ride to glory on? Will you lift
her onto the back of that horse, and do it at once? I require nothin’
hard of you,” sez she, a borin’ me through and through with her
eyes. “It must be a joy to you, Josiah Allen’s wife, a rare joy, to
be the means of bringin’ this rare genius before the public. I ask
nothin’ hard of you, I only ask that you demand, demand is the right
word, not ask; that would be grovelin’ trucklin’ folly, but demand
that the public that has long ignored my daugther Ardelia’s claim to a
seat amongst the immortal poets, demand them, compel them to pause, to listen,
and then seat her there, up, up on the highest, most perpendiciler pinnacle of
fame’s pillow. Will you do this?”

I sat in deep dejection and my rockin’ chair, and knew not what to
say—and Miss Tutt went on:

“We demand more than fame, deathless, immortal fame for ’em. We
want money, wealth for ’em, and want it at once! We want it for extra
household expenses, luxuries, clothing, jewelry, charity, etc. If we enrich the
world with this rare genius, the world must enrich us with its richest
emmolients. Will you see that we have it! Will you at once do as I asked you
to? Will you seat her immegately where I want her sot?

Sez I, considerin’, “I can’t get her up there alone, I haint
strong enough.” Sez I, sort a mekanikly, “I have got the
rheumatez.”

“So you scoff me do you? I came to you to get bread, am I to get worse
than a stun—a scoff?”

“I haint gin you no scoff,” sez I, a spunkin’ up a little,
“I haint thought on it. I like Ardelia and wish her well, but I
can’t do merikles, I can’t compel the public to like things if they
don’t.”

Sez Miss Tutt, “You are jealous of her, you hate her.”

“No, I don’t,” sez I, “I haint jealous of her, and I
like her looks first-rate. I love a pretty young girl,” sez I candidly,
“jest as I love a fresh posy with the dew still on it, a dainty rose-bud
with the sweet fragrance layin’ on its half-folded heart. I love
’em,” sez I, a beginnin’ to eppisode a little unbeknown to
me, “I love ’em jest as I love the soft unbroken silence of the
early spring mornin’, the sun all palely tinted with rose and blue, and
the earth alayin’ calm and unwoke-up, fresh and fair. I love such a
mornin’ and such a life, for itself and for the unwritten prophecis in
it. And when I see genius in such a sweet, young life, why it makes me feel as
it duz to see through all the tender prophetic beauty of the mornin’
skies, a big white dove a soarin’ up through the blue heavens.”

Sez Miss Tutt, “You see that in Ardelia, but you wont own it, you know
you do.”

“No!” sez I, “I would love to tell you that I see it in
Ardelia; I would honest, but I can’t look into them mornin’ skies
and say I see a white dove there, when I don’t see nothin’ more
than a plump pullet, a jumpin’ down from the fence or a pickin’
round calmly in the back door-yard. Jest as likely the hen is, as the white
dove, jest as honerable, but you mustn’t confound the two
together.”

“A hen,” sez Miss Tutt bitterly. “To confound my Ardelia with
a hen! And I don’t think there wuz ever a more ironieler
‘hen’ than that wuz, or a scornfuller one.”

“Why,” sez I reasonably. “Hens are necessary and useful in
any position, both walkin’ and settin’, and layin’. You
can’t get’em in any position hardly, but what they are useful and
respectable, only jest flyin’. Hens can’t fly. Their wings haint
shaped for it. They look some like a dove’s wings on the outside, the
same feathers, the same way of stretchin’ ’em out. But there is
sunthin lackin’ in ’em, some heaven-given capacity for
soarin’ an for flight that the hens don’t have. And it makes
trouble, sights and sights of trouble when hens try to fly, try to, and
can’t!

“At the same time it is hard for a dove to settle down in a back yard and
stay there, hard and tegus. She can and duz sometimes, but never till after her
wings have been clipped in some way. Poor little dove! I am always sorry for
’em to see ’em a walkin’ round there, a wantin’ to
fly—a not forgettin’ how it seemed to have their wings
soarin’ up through the clear sky, and the rush of the pure liquid
windwaves a sweepin’ aginst ’em, as they riz up, up, in freedom,
and happiness, and glory. Poor little creeters.

“Yes, but doves can, if you clip their wings, settle down and walk, but
hens CAN’T fly, not for any length of time they can’t. No amount of
stimulatin’ poultices applied to the ends of their tail feathers and
wings can ever make ’em fly. They can’t; it haint their nater. They
can make nests, and fill them with pretty downy chicks, they can be happy and
beautiful in life and mean; they can spend their lives in jest as honerable and
worthy a way as if they wuz a flyin’ round, and make a good honerable
appearance from day to day, till they begin to flop their wings, and
fly—then their mean is not beautiful and inspirin’; no, it is fur
from it. It is tuff to see ’em, tuff to see the floppin’, tuff to
see their vain efforts to soar through the air, tuff to see ’em fall
percepitously down onto the ground agin. For they must come there in the end;
they are morally certain to.

“Now Ardelia is a sweet pretty lookin’ girl, she can set down in a
cushioned arm-chair by a happy fireside, with pretty baby faces a
clusterin’ around her and some man’s face like the sun a
reflectin’ back the light of her happy heart. But she can’t sit up
on the pinnacle of fame’s pillow. I don’t believe she can ever get
up there, I don’t. Honestly speakin’, I don’t.”

“Envy!” sez Miss Tutt, “glarin’, shameless envy! You
don’t want Ardelia to rise! You don’t want her to mount that horse
I spoke of; you don’t want to own that you see genius in her. But you do,
Josiah Allen’s wife, you know you do—“

“No,” sez I, “I don’t see it. I see the sweetness of
pretty girlhood, the beauty and charm of openin’ life, but I don’t
see nothin’ else, I don’t, honest. I don’t believe she has
got genius,” sez I, “seein’ you put the question straight to
me and depend a answer; seein’ her future career depends on her choice
now, I must tell you that I believe she would succeed better in the millionary
trade or the mantilly maker’s than she will in tryin’ to mount the
horse you speak on.

“Why,” sez I, candidly, “some folks can’t get up on
that horse, their legs haint strong enough. And if they do manage to get on, it
throws ’em, and they lay under the heels for life. I don’t want to
see Ardelia there, I don’t want to see her maimed and lamed and stunted
so early in the mornin’ of life, by a kick from that animal, for she
can’t ride it,” sez I, “honestly she can’t.

“There is nothin’ so useless in life, and so sort a wearin’
as to be a lookin’ for sunthin’ that haint there. And when you
pretend it is there when it haint, you are addin’ iniquity to
uselessness; so if you’ll take my advice, the advice of a wellwisher, you
will stop lookin’, for I tell you plain that it haint there.”

Sez Miss Tutt, “Josiah Allen’s wife, you have for reasens best
known to your conscience baulked my hopes of a speedy immortality. You have
willfully tried to break down my hopes of an immense, immediate income to flow
out of them poems for luxuries, jewelry, charity, etc. But I can at least claim
this at your hands, I demand honesty. Tell me honestly what you yourself think
of them poems.”

Sez I (gettin’ up sort a quick and goin’ into the buttery, and
bringin’ out a little basket), “Here are some beautiful sweet
apples, won’t you have one?”

“Apples, at such a time as this;” sez Miss Tutt
“When the slumberin’ world trembles before the advancin’
tread of a new poet—When the heavens are listenin’ intently to
ketch the whispers of an Ardelia’s fate—Sweet apples! in such a
time as this!” sez she. But she took two.

“I demand the truth,” sez she. “And you are a base,
trucklin’ coward, if you give it not.”

Sez I, tryin’ to carry off the subject and the apples into the buttery;
“Poetry ort to have pains took with it.”

“Jealousy!” sez Miss Tutt. “Jealousy might well whisper this.
Envy, rank envy might breathe the suspicion that Ardelia haint been took pains
with. But I can see through it,” sez she. “I can see through
it.”

“Well,” sez I, wore out, “if they belonged to me, and if she
wuz my girl, I would throw the verses into the fire, and set her to a
trade.”

She stood for a minute and bored me through and through with them eyes. Why it
seemed as if there wuz two holes clear through my very spirit, and sole; she
partly lifted that fearful lookin’ umberell as if to pierce me through
and through; it wuz a fearful seen.

At last she turned, and flung the apple she wuz a holdin’ onto the floor
at my feet—and sez she, “I scorn ’em, and you too.” And
she kinder stomped her feet and sez, “I fling off the dust I have
gethered here, at your feet.”

Now my floor wuz clean and looked like yeller glass, almost, it wuz so
shinin’ and spotless, and I resented the idee of her sayin’ that
she collected dust off from it. But I didn’t say nothin’ back. She
had the bag of poetry on her arm, and I didn’t feel like addin’ any
more to her troubles.

But Ardelia, after her mother had swept out ahead, turned round and held out
her hand, and smiled a sweet but ruther of a despondent and sorrowful smile,
and I kissed her warmly. I like Ardelia. And what I said, I said for her good,
and she knew it. I like Ardelia.

Well, Miss Tutt and Ardelia went from our house to Eben Pixley’s. They
are distant relatives of hern, and live about 3 quarters of a mile from us. The
Pixleys think everything of Ardelia but they can’t bear her mother. There
has been difficulties in the family.

But Ardelia stayed there mor’n two weeks right along. She haint very
happy to home I believe. And before she went back home it wuz arranged that she
should teach the winter’s school and board to Miss Pixley’s. But
Miss Pixley wuz took sick with the tyfus before she had been there two
weeks—and, for all the world, if the deestrict didn’t want us to
board her. Josiah hadn’t much to do, so he could carry her back and forth
in stormy weather, and it wuz her wish to come. And it wuz Josiah’s wish
too, for the pay wuz good, and the work light—for him. And so I consented
after a parlay.

But I didn’t regret it. She is a good little creeter and no more like her
mother than a feather bed is like a darnin’ needle. I like Ardelia: so
does Josiah.

Chapter III.

THE CHERITY OF THE JONESVILLIANS.

We have been havin’ a pound party here in Jonesville. There wuz a lot of
children left without any father or mother, nobody only an old grandma to take
care of ’em, and she wuz half bent with the rheumatiz, and had a swelled
neck, and lumbago and fits.

They lived in an old tumble-down house jest outside of Jonesville. The father
wuz, I couldn’t deny, a shiftless sort of a chap, good-natured, always
ready to obleege a neighbor, but he hadn’nt no faculty. And I don’t
know, come to think of it, as anybody is any more to blame if they are born
without a faculty, than if they are born with only one eye. Faculty is one of
the things that you can’t buy.

He loved to hunt. That is, he loved to hunt some kinds of things. He never
loved to hunt stiddy, hard work, and foller on the trail of it till he evertook
success and captured it. No, he druther hunt after catamounts and painters, in
woods where catamounts haint mounted, and painters haint painted sence he wuz
born.

He generally killed nothin’ bigger than red squirrels and chipmunks. The
biggest game he ever brought down wuz himself. He shot himself one cold day in
the fall of the year. He wuz gettin’ over a brush fence, they
s’posed the gun hit against somethin’ and went off, for they found
him a layin’ dead at the bottom of the fence.

I always s’posed that the shock of his death comin’ so awful sudden
unto her, killed his wife. She had been sick for a long spell, she had
consumption and dropsy, and so forth, and so forth, for a long time, and after
he wuz brought in dead, she didn’t live a week. She thought her eyes of
him, for no earthly reason as I could ever see. How strange, how strange a
dispensation of Providence it duz seem, that some women love some men, and vicy
versey and the same.

But she did jest about worship him, and she died whisperin’ his name, and
reachin’ out her hands as if she see him jest ahead of her. And I told
Josiah I didn’t know but she did. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if she
did see him, for there is only the veil of mystery between us and the other
world at any time, and she had got so nigh to it, that I s’pose it got so
thin that she could see through it.

Just as you can see through the blue haze that lays before our forest in Injun
summer. Come nigh up to it and you can see the silvery trunks of the maples and
the red sumac leaves, and the bright evergreens, and the forms of the happy
hunters a passin’ along under the glint of the sunbeams and the soft
shadows.

They died in Injun summer. I made a wreath myself of the bright-colored leaves
to lay on their coffins. Dead leaves, dead to all use and purpose here, and yet
with the bright mysterious glow upon them that put me in mind of some immortal
destiny and blossoming beyond our poor dim vision. Jane Smedley wuz a good
woman, and so wuz Jim, good but shiftless.

But I made the same wreath for her and Jim, and the strange mellow light lay on
both of ’em, makin’ me think in spite of myself of some happy
sunrisin’ that haply may dawn on some future huntin’ ground, where
poor Jim Smedley even, may strike the trail of success and happiness, hid now
from the sight of Samantha, hid from Josiah.

Wall, they died within a week’s time of each other, and left nine
children, the oldest one of ’em not quite fifteen. She, the oldest one,
wuz a good girl, only she had the rickets so that when she walked, she seemed
to walk off all over the house backwards, and sideways, and every way, but when
she sot down, she wuz a good stiddy girl, and faithful; she took after her
mother, and her mother took after her grandmother, so there wuz three
takin’ after each other, one right after the other.

Jane wuz a good, faithful, hard-workin’ creeter when she wuz well,
brought up her children good as she could, learnt ’em the catechism, and
took in all kinds of work to earn a little somethin’ towards
gettin’ a home for ’em; she and her mother both did, her mother
lived with ’em, and wuz a smart old woman, too, for one that wuz pretty
nigh ninety. And she wuzn’t worrysome much, only about one
thing—she wanted a home, wanted a home dretfully. Some wimmen are so; she
had moved round so much, from one poor old place to another, that she sort
o’ hankered after bein’ settled down into a stiddy home.

Wall, there wuz eight children younger than Marvilla, that wuz the oldest young
girl’s name. Eight of ’em, countin’ each pair of twins as
two, as I s’pose they ort. The Town buried the father and mother, which
wuz likely and clever in it, but after that it wouldn’t give only jest so
much a week, which wuz very little, because it said, Town did, that they could
go to the poor-house, they could be supported easier there.

I don’t know as the Town could really be blamed for sayin’ it, and
yet it seemed kinder mean in it, the Town wuz so big, and the children, most of
’em, wuz so little.

But any way, it wuz jest sot on it, and there wuz the end of it, for you might
jest as well dispute the wind as to dispute the Town when it gets sot.

Wall, the old grandma said she would die in the streets before she would go to
the poor-house. She had come from a good family in the first place,

They say she run away and left a good home and got married, and did dretful
poor in the married state. He waz shiftless and didn’t have nothin’
and didn’t lay up any. And she didn’t keep any of her old
possessions only jest her pride. She kept that, or enough of it to say that she
would die on the road before she would go to the poor-house. And once I see her
cry she wanted a home so bad.

And lots of folks blamed her for it, blamed the old woman awfully. They said
pride wuz so wicked. Wimmen who would run like deers if company came when they
wuzn’t dressed up slick, they would say the minute they got back into the
room, all out of breath with hurryin’ into their best clothes,
they’d say a pantin’ “That old woman ought to be made to go
to the poorhouse, to take the pride out of her, pride wuz so awfully, dretfully
wicked, and it wuz a shame that she wuz so ongrateful as to want a home of her
own.” And then they would set down and rest.

Wall, the family wuz in a sufferin’ state. The Town allowed ’em one
dollar a week. But how wuz ten human beings to live on a dollar a week. The
children worked every chance they got, but they couldn’t earn enough to
keep ’em in shoes, let alone other clothin’ and vittles. And the
old house wuz too cold for ’em to stay in durin’ the cold weather,
it wuz for Grandma Smedley, anyway, if the children could stand it she
couldn’t. And what wuz to be done. A cold winter wuz a cumin’ on,
and it wouldn’t delay a minute because Jim Smedley had got shot, and his
wife had follered him, into, let us hope, a happier huntin’ ground than
he had ever found in earthly forests.

Wall, I proposed to have a pound party for ’em. I said they might have it
to our house if they wanted it, but if they thought they wanted it in a more
central place (our house wuz quite a little to one side), why we could have it
to the schoolhouse.

I proposed to Josiah the first one. He wuz a settin’ by the fire relapsed
into silence. It wuz a cold night outside, but the red curtains wuz down at our
sitting-room winders, shettin’ out the cold drizzlin’ storm of hail
and snow that wuz a deseendin’ onto the earth. The fire burned up warm
and bright, and we sot there in our comfortable home, with the teakettle
singin’ on the stove, and the tea-table set out cosy and cheerful, for
Josiah had been away and I had waited supper for him.

As I sot there waitin’ for the tea-kettle to bile (and when I say bile, I
mean bile, I don’t, mean simmer) the thought of the Smedleys would come
in. The warm red curtains would keep the storm out, but they couldn’t
keep the thought of the children, and the feeble old grandmother out of the
room. They come right in, through the curtains, and the firelight, and
everything, and sot right down by me and hanted me.

And what curious creeters thoughts be, haint they? and oncertain, too. You may
make all your plans to get away from ’em. You may shet up your doors and
winders, and set with a veil on and an umbrell up - but good land! how easy
they jest ontackle the doors and windows, with no sounds of ontacklin’
and come right in by you.

First you know there they be right by the side of you, under your umbrell,
under your veil, under your spectacles, a lookin’ right down into your
soul, and a hantin’ you.

And then agin, when you expect to be hanted by ’em, lay out to, why,
they’ll jest stand off somewhere else, and don’t come nigh you.
Don’t want to. Oncertain creeters, thoughts be, and curious, curious
where they come from, and how.

Why, I got to thinkin’ about it the other day, and I got lost, some like
children settin’ on a log over a creek a ridin’; there they be, and
there the log is, but they don’t seem to be there, they seem to be a
floatin’ down the water.

And there I wuz, a settin’ in my rockin’ chair, and I seemed to be
a floatin’ down deep water, very deep. A thinkin’ and a
wonderin’. A thinkin’ how all through the ages what secrets God had
told to man when the time had come, and the reverent soul below was ready to
hear the low words whispered to his soul, and a wonderin’ what strange
revelation God held now, ready to reveal when the soul below had fitted itself
to hear, and comprehend it.

Ah! such mysteries as He will reveal to us if we will listen. If we wait for
God’s voice. If we did not heed so much the confusing clamor of the
world’s voices about us. Emulation, envy, anger, strife, jealousy; if we
turned our heads away from these discords, and in the silence which is
God’s temple, listened, listened,—who knows the secrets He would
make known to us?

Secrets of the day, secrets of the night, the sunshine, the lightning, the
storm. The white glow of that wonderful light that is not like the glow of the
sun or of the moon, but yet lighteth the world. That strange light that has a
soul - that reads our thoughts, translates our wishes, overleaps distance,
carrying our whispered words after holding our thoughts for ages, and then
unfoldin’ ’em at will. What other wondrous mysteries lie concealed,
wrapped around by that soft pure flame, mysteries that shall lie hidden until
some inspired eye shall be waiting, looking upward at the moment when
God’s hand shall draw back the shining veil for an instant, and let him
read the glowing secret.

Secrets of language! shall some simple power, some symbol be revealed, and the
nations speak together?

Secrets of song! shall some serene, harmonious soul catch the note to celestial
melodies?

Secrets of sight! shall the eyes too dim now, see the faces of the silent
throngs that surround them, “the great cloud of witnesses”?

Secrets of the green pathways that lead up through the blue silent fields of
space - shall we float from star to star?

Secrets of holiness! shall earthly faces wear the pure light of the immortals?

But oh! who shall be the happy soul that shall be listening when the time has
fully come and He shall reveal His great secret? The happy soul listening so
intently that it shall catch the low, clear whisper.

Listening, maybe, through the sweet twilight shadows for the wonderful secret,
while the silver shallop of the moon is becalmed over the high northern
mountains, as if a fleet of heavenly guests had floated down through the clear
ocean waves of the sky to listen too - to hear the wonderful heavenly secret
revealed to man - and a clear star looks out over the glowing rose of the
western heavens, looking down like God’s eye, searching his soul,
searching if it be worthy of the great trust.

Maybe it will be in the fresh dawning of the day, that the great secret will
grow bright and clear and luminous, as the dawning of the light.

Maybe it will be in the midst of the storm - a mighty voice borne along by the
breath of the wind and the thunder, clamoring and demanding the hearer to
listen.

Oh! if we were only good enough, only pure enough, what might not our rapt
vision discern?

But we know not where or when the time shall be fully come, but who, who, shall
be the happy soul that shall, at the time, be listening?

Oh! how deep, how strange the waters wuz, and how I floated away on ’em,
and how I didn’t. For there I wuz a settin in my own rockin’ chair
and there opposite me sot my own Josiah a whittlin’, for the World
hadn’t come, and he wuz restless and ill at ease, and time hung heavy on
his hands.

There I sot the same Samantha - and the thought of the Smedleys, the same old
Smedleys, was a hantin’ of me, the same old hant, and I says to my
Josiah, says I: “Josiah, I can’t help thinkin’ about the
Smedleys,” says I. “What do you think about havin’ a pound
party for ’em, and will you take holt, and do your part?”

“Good land, Samantha! Are you crazy? Crazy as a loon? What under the sun
do you want to pound the Smedleys for? I should think they had trouble enough
without poundin’ ’em. Why,” says he, “the old woman
couldn’t stand any poundin’ at all, without killin’ her right
out and out, and the childern haint over tough any of ’em. Why, what has
got into you? I never knew you to propose anything of that wicked kind before.
I sha’n’t have anything to do with it. If you want ’em
pounded you must get your own club and do your own poundin’.”

Says I, “I don’t mean poundin’ ’em with a club, but let
folks buy a pound of different things to eat and drink and carry it to
’em, and we can try and raise a little money to get a warmer horse for
’em to stay in the coldest of the weather.”

“Oh!” says he, with a relieved look. “That’s a
different thing. I am willin’ to do that. I don’t know about
givin’ ’em any money towards gettin’ ’em a home, but
I’ll carry ’em a pound of crackers or a pound of flour, and help it
along all I can.”

Josiah is a clever creeter (though close), and he never made no more objections
towards havin’ it.

Wall, the next day I put on my shawl and hood (a new brown hood knit out of
zephyr worsted, very nice, a present from our daughter Maggie, our son Thomas
Jefferson’s wife), and sallied out to see what the neighbor’s
thought about it.

The first woman I called on wuz Miss Beazley, a new neighbor who had just moved
into the neighborhood. They are rich as they can be, and I expected at least to
get a pound of tea out of her.

She said it wuz a worthy object, and she would love to help it along, but they
had so many expenses of their own to grapple with, that she didn’t see
her way clear to promise to do anything. She said the girls had got to have
some new velvet suits, and some sealskin sacques this winter, and they had got
to new furnish the parlors, and send their oldest boy to college, and the girls
wanted to have some diamond lockets, and ought to have ’em but she
didn’t know whether they could manage to get them or not, if they did,
they had got to scrimp along every way they could. And then they wuz
goin’ to have company from a distance, and had got to get another girl to
wait on ’em. And though she wished the poor well, she felt that she could
not dare to promise a cent to ’em. She wished the Smedley family
well—dretful well—and hoped I would get lots of things for
’em. But she didn’t really feel as if it would be safe for her to
promise’em a pound of anything, though mebby she might, by a great
effort, raise a pound of flour for ’em, or meal.

Says I dryly (dry as meal ever wuz in its dryest times), “I
wouldn’t give too much. Though,” says I, “A pound of flour
would go a good ways if it is used right.” And I thought to myself that
she had better keep it to make a paste to smooth over things.

Wall, I went from that to Miss Jacob Hess’es, and Miss Jacob Hess
wouldn’t give anything because the old lady wuz disagreeable, old Grandma
Smedley, and I said to Miss Jacob Hess that if the Lord didn’t send His
rain and dew onto anybody only the perfectly agreeable, I guessed there would
be pretty dry times. It wuz my opinion there would be considerable of a drouth.

There wuz a woman there a visitin’ Miss Hess—she wuz a stranger to
me and I didn’t ask her for anything, but she spoke up of her own accord
and said she would give, and give liberal, only she wuz hampered. She
didn’t say why, or who, or when, but she only sez this that “she
wuz hampered,” and I don’t know to this day what her hamper wuz, or
who hampered her.

And then I went to Ebin Garven’ses, and Miss Ebin Garven wouldn’t
help any because she said “Joe Smedley had been right down lazy, and she
couldn’t call him anything else.”

“But,” says I, “Joe is dead, and why should his children
starve because their pa wasn’t over and above smart when he wuz
alive?” But she wouldn’t give.

Wall, Miss Whymper said she didn’t approve of the manner of giving. Her
face wuz all drawed down into a curious sort of a long expression that she
called religus and I called somethin’ that begins with
“h-y-p-o”—and I don’t mean hypoey, either.

No, she couldn’t give, she said, because she always made a practise of
not lettin’ her right hand know what her left hand give.

And I said, for I wuz kinder took aback, and didn’t think, I said to her,
a glancin’ at her hands which wuz crossed in front of her, that I
didn’t see how she managed it, unless she give when her right hand was
asleep.

And she said she always gave secret.

And I said, “So I have always s’posed—very secret.”

I s’pose my tone was some sarcastic, for she says, “Don’t the
Scripter command us to do so?”

Says I firmly, “I don’t believe the Scripter means to have us stand
round talkin’ Bible, and let the Smedleys starve,” says I. “I
s’pose it means not to boast of our good deeds.”

Says she, “I believe in takin’ the Scripter literal, and if I
can’t git my stuff there entirely unbeknown to my right hand I
sha’n’t give.”

“Wall,” says I, gettin’ up and movin’ towards the door,
“you must do as you’re a mind to with fear and
tremblin’.”

I said it pretty impressive, for I thought I would let her see I could quote
Scripter as well as she could, if I sot out.

But good land! I knew it wuz a excuse. I knew she wouldn’t give
nothin’ not if her right hand had the num palsy, and you could stick a
pin into it—no, she wouldn’t give, not if her right hand was cut
off and throwed away.

Wall, Miss Bombus, old Dr. Bombus’es widow, wouldn’t give—and
for all the world—I went right there from Miss Whymper’ses. Miss
Bombus wouldn’t give because I didn’t put the names in the
Jonesville Augur or Gimlet, for she said, “Let your good deeds so
shine.”

“Why,” says I, “Miss Whymper wouldn’t give because she
wanted to give secreter, and you won’t give because you want to give
publicker, and you both quote Scripter, but it don’t seem to help the
Smedleys much.”

She said that probably Miss Whymper was wrestin’ the Scripter to her own
destruction.”

“Wall,” says I, “while you and Miss Whymper are a
wrestin’ the Scripter, what will become of the Smedleys? It don’t
seem right to let them ‘freeze to death, and starve to death, while we
are a debatin’ on the ways of Providence.”

But she didn’t tell, and she wouldn’t give.

A woman wuz there a visitin’, Miss Bombus’es aunt, I think, and she
spoke up and said that she fully approved of her niece Bombus’es
decision. And she said, “As for herself, she never give to any subject
that she hadn’t thoroughly canvassed.”

Says I, “There they all are in that little hut, you can canvass them at
any time. Though,” says I, thoughtfully, “Marvilla might give you
some trouble.” And she asked why.

And I told her she had the rickets so she couldn’t stand still to be
canvassed, but she could probably follow her up and canvass her, if she tried
hard enough. And says I, “There is old Grandma Smedley, over eighty, and
five children under eight, you can canvass them easy.”

Says she, “The Bible says, ‘Search the Sperits.’”

And I was so wore out a seein’ how place after place, for three times a
runnin the Bible was lifted up and held as a shield before stingy creeters, to
ward off the criticism of the world and their own souls, that I says to
myself—loud enough so they could hear me, mebbe, “Why is it that
when anybody wants to do a mean, ungenerous act, they will try to quote a verse
of Scripter to uphold ’em, jest as a wolf will pull a lock of pure white
wool over his wolfish foretop, and try to look innocent and sheepish.”

I don’t care if they did hear me, I wuz on the step mostly when I thought
it, pretty loud.

Wall, from Miss Bombus’es I went to Miss Petingill’s.

Miss Petingill is a awful high-headed creeter. She come to the door herself and
she said, I must excuse her for answerin’ the door herself. (I never
heard the door say anything and don’t believe she did, it was jest one of
her ways.) But she said I must excuse her as her girl wuz busy at the time.

She never mistrusted that I knew her hired girl had left, and she wuz
doin’ her work herself. She had ketched off her apron I knew, as she come
through the hall, for I see it a layin’ behind the door, all covered with
flour. And after she had took me into the parlor, and we had set down, she
discovered some spots of flour on her dress, and she said she “had been
pastin’ some flowers into a scrap book to pass away the time.” But
I knew she had been bakin’ for she looked tired, tired to death almost,
and it wuz her bakin’ day. But she would sooner have had her head took
right off than to own up that she had been doin’ housework—why,
they say that once when she wuz doin’ her work herself, and was ketched
lookin’ awful, by a strange minister, that she passed herself off’
for a hired girl and said, “Miss Petingill wasn’t to home, and when
pressed hard she said she hadn’t “the least idee where Miss
Petingill wuz.”

Jest think on ’t once—and there she wuz herself. The idee!

Wall, the minute I sot down before I begun my business or anything, Miss
Petingill took me to do about puttin’ in Miss Bibbins President of our
Missionary Society for the Relief of Indignent Heathens.

The Bibbins’es are good, very good, but poor.

Says Miss Petingill: “It seems to me as if there might be some other
woman put in, that would have had more influence on the Church.”

Says I, “Haint Miss Bibbins a good Christian sister, and a great
worker?”

“Why yes, she wuz good, good in her place. But,” she said,
“the Petingills hadn’t never associated with the
Bibbins’es.”

And I asked her if she s’posed that would make any difference with the
heathen; if the heathen would be apt to think less of Miss Bibbins because she
hadn’t associated with the Petingills?

And she said, she didn’t s’pose “the heathens would ever know
it; it might make some difference to ’em if they did,” she thought,
“for it couldn’t be denied,” she said, “that Miss
Bibbins did not move in the first circles of Jonesville.”

It had been my doin’s a puttin’ Miss Bibbins in and I took it right
to home, she meant to have me, and I asked her if she thought the Lord would
condemn Miss Bibbins on the last day, because she hadn’t moved in the
first circles of Jonesville?

And Miss Petingill tosted her head a little, but had to own up, that she
thought “He wouldn’t.”

“Wall, then,” sez I, “do you s’pose the Lord has any
objections to her working for Him now?”

“Why no, I don’t know as the Lord would object.”

“Wall,” sez I, “we call this work the Lord’s work, and
if He is satisfied with Miss Bibbins, we ort to be.”

But she kinder nestled round, and I see she wuzn’t satisfied, but I
couldn’t stop to argue, and I tackled her then and there about the
Smedleys. I asked her to give a pound, or pounds, as she felt disposed.

But she answered me firmly that she could’t give one cent to the
Smedleys, she wuz principled against it.

And I asked her, “Why?”

And she said, because the old lady wuz proud and wanted a home, and she thought
that pride wuz so wicked, that it ort to be put down.

Wall, Miss Huff, Miss Cephas Huff, wouldn’t give anything because one of
the little Smedleys had lied to her. She wouldn’t encourage lyin’.

And I told her I didn’t believe she would be half so apt to reform him on
an empty stomach, as after he wuz fed up. But she wouldn’t yield.

Wall, Miss Daggett said she would give, and give abundant, only she
didn’t consider it a worthy object.

But it wuzn’t nothin’ only a excuse, for the object has never been
found yet that she thought wuz a worthy one. Why, she wouldn’t give a
cent towards painting the Methodist steeple, and if that haint a high and
worthy object, I don’t know what is. Why, our steeple is over seventy
feet from the ground. But she wouldn’t help us a mite—not a single
cent.

Take such folks as them and the object never suits ’em. They won’t
come right out and tell the truth that they are too stingy and mean to give
away a cent, but they will always put the excuse onto the object—the
object don’t suit ’em.

Why, I do believe it is the livin’ truth that if the angel Gabriel wuz
the object, if he wuz in need and we wuz gittin’ up a pound party for
him—she would find fault with Gabriel, and wouldn’t give him a
ounce of provisions.

Yes, I believe it—I believe they would tost their heads and say, they
always had had their thoughts about anybody that tooted so loud—it might
be all right but it didn’t look well, and would be apt to make talk. Or
they would say that he wuz shiftless and extravagant a loafin’ round in
the clouds, when he might go to work—or that he might raise the money
himself by selling the feathers offen his wings for down pillers—or some
of the rest of the Gabriel family might help him—or something, or
other—anyway they would propose some way of gittin’ out of
givin’ a cent to Gabriel. I believe it as much as I believe I live and
breathe; and so does Josiah.

Wall, Miss Mooney wouldn’t give anything because she thought Jane Smedley
wuzn’t so sick as she thought she wuz; she said “she was
spleeny.”

And I told Miss Mooney that when a woman was sick enough to die, I thought she
ort to be called sick.

But Miss Mooney wouldn’t give up, and insisted to the very last that Miss
Smedley wuz hypoey and spleeny—and thought she wuz sicker than she really
wuz. And she held her head and her nose up in a very disagreeable and haughty
way, and said as I left, that she never could bear to help spleeny people.

Wall, all that forenoon did I traipse through the street and not one cent did I
get for the Smedleys, only Miss Gowdey said she would bring a cabbage and Miss
Deacon Peedick and Miss Ingledue partly promised a squash apiece. And I
mistrusted that they give ’em more to please me than anything else.

Wall, I wuz clean discouraged and beat out, and so I told Josiah. But he
encouraged me some by sayin’:

“Wall, I could have told you jest how it would be,” and, “You
would have done better, Samantha, to have been to home a cookin’ for your
own famishin’ family.” And several more jest such inspirin’
remarks as men will give to the females of their families when they are engaged
in charitable enterprises.

But I got a good, a very good dinner, and it made me feel some better, and then
I haint one to give up to discouragements, anyway.

So I put on a little better dress for after noon, and my best bonnet and shawl,
and set sail again after dinner.

And if I ever had a lesson in not givin’ up to discouragements in the
first place I had it then. For whether it wuz on account of the more dressy
look of my bonnet and shawl—or whether it wuz that folks felt cleverer in
the afternoon—or whether it wuz that I had gone to the more
discouragin’ places in the forenoon, and the better ones in the
afternoon—or whether it wuz that I tackled on the subject in a better way
than I had tackled ’em—whether it wuz for any of these reasons, or
all of ’em or somethin’—anyway my luck turned at noon, 12 M.,
and all that afternoon I had one triumph after another—place after place
did I collect pound or pounds as the case may be (or collected the promises of
’em, I mean). I did splendid, and wuz prospered perfectly
amazing—and I went home feelin’ as happy and proud as a king or a
zar.

And the next Tuesday evenin’ we had the pound party. They concluded to
have it to our house. And Thomas Jefferson and Maggie, and Tirzah Ann and
Whitefield came home early in the afternoon to help trim the parlor and
setin’ room with evergreens and everlastin’ posies, and fern
leaves.

They made the room look perfectly beautiful. And they each of ’em, the
two childern and their companions, brought home a motto framed in nice plush
and gilt frames, which they put up on each side of the settin’ room, and
left them there as a present to their pa and me. They think a sight of us, the
childern do—and visey versey, and the same.

One of ’em wuz worked in gold letters on a red back-ground “Bear Ye
One Another’s Burdens.” And the other wuz “Feed my
Lambs.”

They think a sight on us, the childern do—they knew them mottoes would
highly tickle their pa and me. And they did seem to kinder invigorate up all
the folks that come to the party.

And they wuz seemingly legions. Why, they come, and they kept a comin’.
And it did seem as if every one of ’em had tried to see who could bring
the most. Why, they brought enough to keep the Smedleys comfortable all winter
long. It wuz a sight to see ’em.

It wuz a curious sight, too, to set and watch what some of the folks said and
done as they brought their pounds in.

I had to be to the table all the time a’most, for I wuz appointed a
committee, or a board—I s’pose it would be more proper to call
myself a board, more business like. Wall, I wuz the board appointed to lay the
things on—to see that they wuz all took care of, and put where they
couldn’t get eat up, or any other casuality happen to ’em.

And I declare if some of the queerest lookin’ creeters didn’t come
up to the table and talk to me. There wuz lots of ’em there that I
didn’t know, folks that come from Zoar, Jim Smedley’s old
neighborhood.

There wuz a long table stretched acrost one end of the settin’ room, and
I stood behind it some as if I wuz a dry goods merchant or grocery, and some
like a preacher.

And the women would come up to me and talk. There wuz one woman who got real
talkative to me before the evenin’ wuz out. She said her home wuz over
two miles beyond Zoar.

She had a young babe with her, a dark complexioned babe, with a little round
black head, that looked some like a cannon ball. She said she had shingled the
child that day about eight o’clock in the forenoon; she talked real
confidential to me.

She said the babe had sights of hair, and she told her husband that day that if
he would shingle the babe she would come to the party and if he wouldn’t
shingle it she wouldn’t come. It seemed they had had a altercation on the
subject; she wanted it shingled and he didn’t. But it seemed that ruther
than stay away from the party—he consented, and shingled it. So they
come.

They brought a eight pound loaf of maple sugar and two dozen eggs. They did
well. Then there wuz another woman who would walk her little girl into the
bedroom every few minutes, and wet her hair, and comb it over, and curl it on
her fingers. The child had a little blue flannel dress on, with a long plain
waist, and a long skirt gethered on full all round. Her hair lay jest as smooth
and slick as glass all the time, but five times did she walk her off, and go
through with that performance. She brought ten yards of factory cloth, and a
good woollen petticoat for the old grandma. She did first-rate.

And then there wuz another woman who stayed by the table most all the
evenin’. She would gently but firmly ask everybody who brought anything,
what the price of the article wuz—and then she would tackle the different
women who come up to the table for patterns. I do believe she got the pattern
of every bask waist there wuz there, and every mantilly.

And Abram Gee brought twenty-five loaves of bread—of different sizes, but
all on ’em good. And he looked at Ardelia Tutt every minute of the time.
And Ardelia brought a lot of verses,—“Stanzas on a
Grandmother.” I didn’t think they would do Grandma Smedley much
good, and then on the other hand I didn’t s’pose they would hurt
her any.

But we had a splendid good time after the things wuz all brought in—of
course, bein’ a board the fore part of the evenin’ I naturally had
a harder time than I did the latter part, after I had got over it.

The children, Thomas J., and Tirzah Ann, and Ardelia Tutt, and Abram Gee, and
some of the rest of the young folks sung and played some beautiful pieces, and
they had four tablows, which wuz perfectly beautiful.

And then we passed good nice light biscuit and butter, and hot coffee, and pop
corn and apples. And it did seem, and all the neighbors said so, that it wuz
the very best party they had ever attended to.

And before they went away they made a motion some of the responsable men
did—some made the motions and some seconded ’em—that they
would adjourn till jest one year from that night, when if the Smedleys was
still alive and in need—we would have jest such a party ag’in.

And at the last on’t Elder Minkley made a prayer—a very thankful
and good prayer, but short. And then they went home.

Wall, the next mornin’ we started to carry the things to the Smedleys. It
wuz very early, for Josiah had got to go clear to Loontown on business, and I
wuz goin’ to stay with the childern till he got back.

It wuz a very cold mornin’. We hadn’t heard from the Smedleys for
two or three days, because we wanted to surprise ’em, so we didn’t
want to give ’em a hint beforehand of what we wuz a doin’. So, as I
say, it wuz a number of days sense we had heard from ’em, and the weather
wuz cold.

When we got to the door it seemed to be dretful still there inside. And there
wuz some white frost on the latch jest as if a icy, white hand had onlatched
the door, and had laid on it last.

We rapped, but nobody answered. And then we opened the door and went in, and
there they all lay asleep. The children waked up. But old Grandma didn’t.

There wuzn’t any fire in the room, and you could see by the freezing
coldness of the air that there hadn’t been any for a day or two.

Grandma Smedley had took the poor old coverin’s all off from herself, and
put ’em round the youngest baby, little Jim. And he lay there all huddled
up tight to his Grandma, with his red cheek close to her white one, for he
loved her.

Josiah cried and wept, and wept and cried onto his bandana—but I
didn’t.

The tears run down my face some, to see the childern feel so bad when Grandma
couldn’t speak to ’em.

But I knew that the childern would be took care of now, I knew the
Jonesvillians would be all rousted up and sorry enough for ’em, and would
be willin’ to do anything now, when it wuz some too late.

And I felt that I couldn’t cry nor weep (and told Josiah so), the tears
jest dripped down my face in a stream, but I wouldn’t weep—for as I
said to myself:

While the Jonesvillians had been a disputin’ back and forth, and
wrestin’ Scripter, and the meanin’ of Providence in regard to
helpin’ Grandma Smedley and gittin’ her a comfortable place to stay
in, and somethin’ to eat, the Lord himself had took the case in hand and
had gin her a home and the bread that satisfies.”

Chapter IV.

ARDELIA AND ABRAM GEE.

Wall, I don’t s’pose there had been a teacher in our deestrict for
years and years that gin’ better satisfaction than Ardelia Tutt. Good
soft little creeter, the scholars any one of ’em felt above hurtin’
on her or plagin’ her any way. She sort a made ’em feel they had to
take care on her, she wuz so sort a helpless actin’, and good natured,
and yet her learnin’ wuz good, fust-rate.

Yes, Ardelia was thought a sight on in Jonesville by scholars and parents and
some that wuzn’t parents. One young chap in perticiler, Abram Gee by
name, who had just started a baker’s shop in Jonesville, he fell so deep
in love with her from the very start that I pitied him from about the bottom of
my heart. It wuz at our house that he fell.

The young folks of our meetin’-house had a sort of a evenin’
meetin’ there to see about raisin’ some money for the help of the
steeple—repairin’ of it. Abram is a member, and so is Ardelia, and
I see the hull thing. I see him totter and I see him fall. And prostrate he
wuz, from that first night. Never was there a feller that fell in love deeper,
or lay more helpless. And Ardelia liked him, that wuz plain to see; at fust as
I watched and see him totter, I thought she wuz a sort o’ wobblin’
too, and when he fell deep, deep in love, I looked to see her a follerin’
on. But Ardelia, as soft as she wuz, had an element of strength. She wuz
ambitious. She liked Abram, but she had read novels a good deal, and she had
for years been lookin’ for a prince to come a ridin’ up to their
dooryard in disguise with a crown on under his hat, and woo her to be his
bride.

And so she braced herself against the sweet influence of love and it wuz
tuff—I could see for myself that it wuz, when she had laid out to set on
a throne by the side of a prince, he a holdin’ his father’s scepter
in his hand—to descend from that elevation and wed a husband who wuz a
moulder of bread, with a rollin’ pin in his hand. It wuz tuff for
Ardelia; I could see right through her mind (it wuzn’t a great distance
to see), and I could see jest how a conflict wuz a goin’ on between love
and ambition.

But Abram had my best wishes, for he wuz a boy I had always liked. The Gees had
lived neighbor to us for years. He wuz a good creeter and his bread wuz
delicious (milk emptin’s). He wuz a sort of a hard, sound lookin’
chap, and she, bein’ so oncommon soft, the contrast kinder sot each other
off and made ’em look well together.

He had a house and lot all paid for, with no incumbrances only a mortgage of
150 dollars and a lame mother. But he laid out to clear off the mortgage this
year, and I wuz told that mother Gee wuz a goin’ to live with her
daughter Susan, who had jest come into a big property—as much as 700
dollars worth of land, besides cows, 2 heads of cow, and one head of a calf.

I knew Mother Gee and she wuz goin’ to stay with Abram till he got
married and then she wuz goin’ to live with Susan. And I s’pose it
is so. She is a likely old woman with a milk leg.

Wall, Abram paid Ardelia lots of attention, sech as walkin’ home with her
from protracted meetin’s nights, and lookin’ at her durin’
the meetin’s more protracted than the meetin’s wuz fur. And 3 times
he sent her a plate of riz biscuit sweetened, sweetened too sweet almost, he
went too fur in this and I see it.

Yes, he done his part as well as his condition would let him, paralyzed by his
feelin’s—but she acted kinder offish, and I see that sonthin’
wuz in the way. I mistrusted at first, it might be Abram’s incumbrance,
but durin’ a conversation I had with her, I see I wuz in the wrong
on’t. And I could see plain, though some couldn’t, that she liked
Abram as she did her eyes. Somebody run him down a little one day before me and
she sprouted right up and took his part voyalent. I could see her
feelin’s towards him though she wouldn’t own up to ’em. But
one day she came out plain to me and lamented his condition in life. Somebody
had attact her that day before me about marryin’ of him—and she
owned up to me, that she had laid out to marry somebody to elevate her. Some
one with a grand pure mission in life.

And I spoke right up and sez, “Why bread is jest as pure and innocent as
anything can be, you won’t find anything wicked about good yeast bread,
nor,” sez I, cordially, “in milk risin’, if it is made
proper.”

But she said she preferred a occupation that wuz risin’, and noble, and
that made a man necessary and helpful to the masses.

And I sez agin—“Good land! the masses have got to eat. And I guess
you starve the masses a spell and they’ll think that good bread is as
necessary and helpful to ’em as anything can be. And as fer its
bein’ a risin’ occupation, why,” sez I, “it is stiddy
risen’—risin’ in the mornin,’ and risin’ at
night, and all night, both hop and milk emptin’s. Why,” sez I,
“I never see a occupation so risin’ as his’n is, both milk
and hop.” But she wouldn’t seem to give in and encourage him much
only by spells.

And then Abram didn’t take the right way with her. I see he wuz a
goin’ just the wrong way to win a woman’s love. For his love, his
great honest love for her made him abject, he groveled at her feet, loved to
grovel.

I told him, for he confided in me from the first on’t and bewailed her
coldness to me, I told him to sprout up and act as if he had some will of his
own and some independent life of his own. Sez I, “Any woman that sees a
man a layin’ around under her feet will be tempted to step on him,”
sez I. “I don’t see how she can help it, if she calcerlates to get
round any, and walk.” Sez I, “Sprout up and be somebody. She is a
good little creeter, but no better than you are, Abram; be a man.”

And he would try to be. I could see him try. But one of her soft little
glances, specially if it wuz kind and tender to him, es it wuz a good deal of
the time, why it would just overthrow him ag’in. He would collapse and
become nothin’ ag’in, before her. Why I have hearn him sing that
old him, a lookin’ right at Ardelia stiddy:

“Oh to be nothin’, nothin’!”

And thinks I to myself, “if this keeps on, you are in a fairway to git
your wish.”

He wuz a good singer, a beartone, and she a secent. They loved to sing
together. They needed some air, but then they got along without it; and it
sounded quite well, though rather low and deep.

Wall, it run along for weeks and weeks, he with his hopes a risin’ up
sometimes like his yeast and then bein’ pounded down ag’in like his
bread, under the hard knuckles of a woman’s capricious cruelty. For I
must say that she did, for sech a soft littte creeter, have cold and cruel ways
to Abram. (But I s’pose it wuz when she got to thinkin’ about the
Prince, or some other genteel lover.)

But her real feelin’s would break out once in a while, and lift him up to
the 3d heaven of happiness and then he’d have to totter and fall down
ag’in. Abram Gee had a hard time on’t. I pitied him from nearly the
bottom of my heart. But I still kep’ a thinkin’ it would turn out
well in the end. For it wuz jest about this time that I happened to find this
poetry in a book where she had, I s’posed, left it. And I read ’em,
almost entirely unbeknown to myself.

It wuz wrote in a dreatful blind way but I recognized it at once. I looked
right through it, and see what she wuz a writin’ about though many
wouldn’t, it wuz wrote in sech a deep style.

“STANZAS ON BREAD;

“ or

“ A LAY OF A BROKEN HEART.

“Oh Bread, dear Bread, that seemest to us so cold,

Oft’times concealed thee within, may be a sting!

Sweet buried hopes may in thy crust be rolled;

A sad, burnt crust of deepest suffering.



“There are some griefs the female soul don’t tell,

And she may weep, and she may wretched be;

Though she may like the name of Abram well

And she may not like dislike the name of G-,



“Oh Fel Ambition, how thou lurest us on,

How by thy high, bold torch we’re stridin’ led:

Thou lurest us up, cold mountain top upon,

And seated by us there, thou scoffest at bread.



“Thou lookest down, Ambition, on the ovens brim;

Thou brookest not a word of him save with contumalee:

And yet, wert thou afar, how sweet to set by him

And cut low slices of sweet joy with G—,



“Oh! Fel Ambition, wert but thou away,

Could we thy hauntin’ form no more, nor see;

How sweet ’twould be to linger on with A—,

How sweet ’twould be to dwell for aye with G—.”

Wall, as I say, she gin good satisfaction in the deestrict and I declare for
it, I got to likin’ her dretful well before the winter wuz over. Softer
she wuz, and had to be, than any fuz that was ever on any cotton flannel fur or
near. And more verses she wrote than wuz good for her, or for anybody
else,—Why she would write “Lines on the Tongs,” or
“Stanzas on the Salt Suller,” if she couldn’t do any better;
it beats all! And then she would read ’em to me to get my idees on
’em. Why I had to call on every martyr in the hull string of martyrs
sometimes to keep myself from tellin’ her my full mind about ’em
unbeknown to me. For, if I had, it would have skairt the soft little creeter
out of what little wit she had.

So I kep’ middlin’ still, and see it go on. For she wuz a good
little soul, affectionate and kinder helpful. A good creeter now to find your
speks. Why she found ’em for me times out of number, and I got real
attached to her and visey versey. And when she came a visitin’ me in the
spring (at my request), and I happened to mention that Josiah and me laid out
to go to Saratoga for the summer, what did the soft little creeter want to do
but to go too. Her father was well off and wuz able to send her, and she had
relatives there on her own side, some of the Pixleys, so her board
wouldn’t cost nothin’. So it didn’t look nothin’
unreasonable, though whether I could get her there and back without her
mashin’ all down on my hands, like a over ripe peach, she wuz that soft,
wuz a question that hanted me, and so I told Josiah.

But Josiah kinder likes young girls (nothin’ light; a calm
meetin’-house affection), it is kinder nater that he should, and he sez:
“Better let her go, she won’t make much trouble.”

“No,” sez I, “not to you, but if you had to set for hours and
hours and hear her verses read to you on every subject—on heaven, and
earth, and the seas, and see her a measurin’ of it with a stick to get
the lines the right length; if you had to go through all this, mebby you would
meditate on the subject before you took it for a summer’s job.”

“ Wall,” sez he, “mebby she won’t write so much when
she gets started; she will be kinder jogged round and stirred up in body and
mebby her feelins’ will kinder rest. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if
they did,” sez he. “And then she can take a good many steps for
you, and I love to see you favored,” sez he.

He wanted her to go, I see that, and I see that it wuz natur that he should,
and so I consented in my mind—after a parlay.

She found his specks a sight and his hat. Nothin’ seemed to please her
better than to be gropin’ round after things to please somebody; her
disposition wuz such. So it wuz settled that she should accompany and go with
us. And the mornin’ we started she met us at the Jonesville Depot in good
sperits and a barege delaine dress, cream color, and a hat of the same.

I hadn’t seen her for some weeks, and she seemed softly tickled to see
Josiah and me, and asked a good many questions about Jonesville, kinder
turnin’ the conversation gradually round onto bread, as I could see. So I
branched right out, knowin’ what she wanted of me, and told her plain,
that “Abram Gee wuz a lookin’ kinder mauger. But doin’ his
duty stiddy,” sez I, lookin’ keenly at her, “a doin’
his duty by everybody, and beloved by everybody, him and his bread too.”

She turned her head away and kinder sithed, and I guess it wuz as much as a
quarter of a hour after that, that I see her take out a pencil and a piece of
paper out of her portmonny, and a little stick, and she went to makin’
some verses, a measurin’ ’em careful as she wrote ’em, and
when she handed ’em to me they wuz named

“A LAY ON A CAR;

“ or

“THE LESSON OF A LOCOMOTIVE.”

“Oh cars that bearest us on; oh cars that run

If backward thou didst go, we should not near

The place we started for at break of sun;

The place we love, with love devout, sincere.



“Oh! snortin’ Engine, didst thou not so snort

Thou wouldst not start, and lo! we see—

Our sorrows’ hidden griefs, they do not come for nort

They start the Locomotive, Life, with screechin’ agony



“Oh passengers that wail, and dread the screech,

Wail not; but lift eyes o’er the chimney top

As they bend over the Locomotive; beach

Thy hopes on fairer shores, a sweeter crop.”

After I had read it and handed it back to her, she sez, “Don’t you
think I improve on the melody and rhythm of my poetry? I take this little stick
with me now wherever I go, and measure my lines by it. They are jest of a
length, I am very particular; you know you advised me to be.”

“Yes,” sez I mechaniklly, “but I didn’t mean jest
that.” Sez I, “the poetry I wuz a thinkin’ on, is measured by
the soul, the enraptured throb of heart and brain; it don’t need
takin’ a stick to it. Howsumever,” sez I, for I see she looked sort
a disapinted, “howsumever, if you have measured ’em, they are
probable about the same length: it is a good sound stick, I haint no
doubt;” and I kinder sithed.

And she sez, “What do you think of the first verse? Haint that verse as
true as fate, or sadness, or anything else you know of?”

“Oh yes,” sez I candidly, “yes; if the cars run backwards we
shouldn’t go on; that is true as anything can be. But if I wuz in your
place, Ardelia,” sez I, “I wouldn’t write any more to-day. It
is a kind of muggy damp day. It is a awfully bad day for poetry to-day.
And,” sez I, to get her mind offen it, “Have you seen anything of
my companion’s specks?”

And that took her mind offen poetry and she went a huntin’ for ’em,
on the seat and under the seat. She hunted truly high and low and at last she
found ’em on my pardner’s foretop, the last place any of us thought
of lookin’. And she never said another word about poetry, or any other
trouble, nor I nuther.

Chapter V.

WE ARRIVE AT SARATOGA.

We arrived at Saratoga jest as sunset with a middlin’ gorgeous dress on
wuz a walkin’ down the west and a biddin’ us and the earth
good-bye. There wuz every color you could think on almost, in her gown and some
stars a shinin’ through the floatin’ drapery and a half moon
restin’ up on her cloudy foretop like a beautiful orniment.

(I s’pose mebby it is proper to describe sunset in this way on
goin’ to such a dressy place, though it haint my style to do so, I
don’t love to describe sunset as a female and don’t, much of the
time, but I love to see things correspond.)

Wall, we descended from the cars and went to the boardin’ place provided
for us beforehand by the look out of friends. It wuz a good place, there haint
no doubt of that, good folks; good fare and clean.

Ardelia parted away from us at the depo. She wuz a goin’ to board to a
smaller boardin’ house kep’ by a second cousin of her
father’s brother’s wife’s aunt. It wuz her father’s
request that she should get her board there on account of its bein’ in
the family. He loved “to see relations hang together;” so he said,
and “get their boards of each other.” But I thought then, and I
think now, that it wuz because they asked less for the board. Deacon Tutt is
close. But howsumever Ardelia went there, and my companion and me arrove at the
abode where we wuz to abide, with no eppisode only the triflin’ one of
the driver bein’ dretful mistook as to the price he asked to take us
there.

I thought, and Josiah thought, that 50 cents wuz the outlay of expendatur he
required to carry us where we would be; it wuz but a short distance. But no! He
said that 5 dollars wuz what he said, that is, if we heard anything about a 5.
But he thought we wuz deef, and dident hear him. He thought he spoke plain, and
said 4 dollars for the trip.

And on that price he sot down immovible. They arged, and Josiah Allen even went
so far as to use language that grated on my nerve, it wuz so voyalent and
vergin’ on the profane. But there the man sot, right onto that price, and
he had to me the appeerance of one who wuz goin’ to sot there on it all
night. And so rather than to spend the night out doors, in conversation with
him, he a settin’ on that price, and Josiah a shakin’ his fist at
it, and a jawin’ at it, I told Josiah that he had better pay it. And
finally he did, with groanin’s that could hardly be uttered.

Wall, after supper (a good supper and enough on’t), Josiah proposed that
we should take a short walk, we two alone, for Ardelia wuz afar from us, most
to the other end of the village, either asleep or a writin’ poetry, I
didn’t know which, but I knew it wuz one or the other of ’em. And I
wuz tired enough myself to lay my head down and repose in the arms of sleep,
and told my companion so, but he said:

“Oh shaw! Let old Morpheus wait for us till we get back, there’ll
be time enough to rest then.”

Josiah felt so neat, that he wuz fairly beginnin’ to talk high learnt,
and classical. But I didn’t say nothin’ to break it up, and tied on
my bonnet with calmness (and a double bow knot) and we sallied out.

Soon, or mebby a little after, for we didn’t walk fast on account of my
deep tucker, we stood in front of what seemed to be one hull side of a long
street, all full of orniments and open work, and pillows, and flowers, and
carvin’s, and scallops, and down between every scollop hung a big basket
full of posys, of every beautiful color under the heavens. And over all, and
way back as fur as we could see, wuz innumerable lights of every color,
gorgeousness a shinin’ down on gorgeousness, glory above, a shinin’
down on glory below. And sweet strains of music wuz a floatin, out from
somewhere, a shinin’ somewhere, renderin’ the seen fur more
beautiful to all 4 of our wraptured ears.

And Josiah sez, as we stood there nearly rooted to the place by our motions,
and a picket fence, sez he dreamily,

“I almost feel as if we had made a mistake, and that this is the land of
Beuler.” And he murmured to himself some words of the old him:

“Oh Beuler land! Sweet Beuler land!”

And I whispered back to him and sez—“Hush they don’t have brass
bands in Beulah land.”

And he sez, “How do you know what they have in Beuler?”

“Wall,” sez I, “’taint likely they do.”

But I don’t know as I felt like blamin’ him, for it did seem to me
to be the most beautiful place that I ever sot my eyes on. And it did seem
fairly as if them long glitterin’ chains and links of colored lights, a
stretchin’ fur back into the distance sort a begoned for us to enter into
a land of perfect beauty and Pure Delight.

And then them glitterin’ chains of light would jine onto other golden,
and crimson, and orange, and pink, and blue, and amber links of glory and hang
there all drippin’ with radiance, and way back as fur as we could see.
And away down under the shinin’ lanes the white statues stood, beautiful
snow-white females, a lookin’ as if they enjoyed it all. And the lake
mirrowed back all of the beauty.

Right out onto the lake stood a fairy-like structure all glowin’ with big
drops of light and every glitterin’ drop reflected down in the water and
the fountain a sprayin’ up on each side. Why it sprayed up floods of
diamonds, and rubys, and sapphires, and topazzes, and turkeys, and pearls, and
opals, and sparklin’ ’em right back into the water agin.

And right while we stood there, neerly rooted to the spot and gazin’
through extacy and 2 pickets, the band gin a loud burst of melody and then
stopped, and after a minute of silence, we hearn a voice angel-sweet a
risin’ up, up, like a lark, a tender-hearted, golden-throated lark.

High, high above all the throngs of human folks who wuz cheerin’ her down
below - up above the sea of glitterin’ light - up above the bendin’
trees that clasped their hands together in silent applaudin’ above her,
up, up, into the clear heavens, rose that glorious voice a singin’ some
song about love, love that wuz deathless, eternal.

Why it seemed as if the very clouds wuz full of shadowy faces a bendin’
down to hear it, and the new moon, shaped just like a boat, had glided down,
down the sky to listen.

If the man of the moon was there he wuz a layin’ in the bottom of the
boat, he wuzn’t in sight. But if he heard that music I’ll bet he
would say he wuzn’t in the practice of hearin’ any better. And
Josiah stood stun still till she had got done, and then he sort a sithed out:

“Oh, it seems as if it must be Beuler land! Do you s’pose,
Samantha, Beuler land is any more beautiful?”

And I sez, “I haint a thinkin’ about Beulah.” I sez it pretty
middlin’ tart, partly to hide my own feelin’s, which wuz perfectly
rousted up, and partly from principle, and sez I, “Don’t for
mercy’s sake call it Beuler.”

Josiah always will call it so. I’ve got a 4th cousin, Beulah Smith (my
own age and unmarried up to date), and he always did and would call her Beuler.
Truly in some things a pardner’s influence and encouragement fails to
accomplish the ends aimed at.

Wall, it wuz after some words that I drew Josiah away from that seen of
enchantment - or he me, I don’t exactly know which way it wuz - and we
wended onwards in our walk.

The hull broad streets wuz full of folks, full as they could be, all on
’em perfect strangers to us and who knew what motives or weapons they wuz
a carryin’ with ’em; but we knew we wuz safe, Josiah and me did,
for way up over all our heads, stood a big straight soldier, a volunteer
volunteerin, to see to the hull crew on ’em below, a seein’ that
they behaved themselves. His age wuz seventy-seven as near as I could make out
but he didn’t look more’n half that. He had kep’ his age
remarkable.

Wall, it wuz, if I remember right, jest about now that we see a
glitterin’ high up over our heads some writen in flame. I never see such
brilliant writin, before nor don’t know as I ever shall ag’in.

And Josiah stopped stun still, and stood a lookin’ perfectly dumfoundered
at it. And finally he sez, “I’d give a dollar bill if I could write
like that.”

I see he wuz deeply rousted up for 2 cents is as high as he usually goes in
betted. I see he felt deep and I didn’t blame him. Why,” sez he,
“jest imagine, Samantha, a hull letter wrote like that! how I’d
love to send one back to Uncle Nate Gowdey.

“How Uncle Nate’s eyes would open, and he wouldn’t want no
spectacles nor nothin’ to read it with, would he? I wonder if I could do
it,” sez he, a beginnin’ to be all rousted up.

But I sez, “Be calm,” for so deep is my mind that I grasped the
difficuties of the undertaken’ at once. “How could yon send it,
Josiah Allen? Where would you get a envelop? How could you get it into the mail
bag?” Sez I, “When anybody would send a letter wrote like that,
they would want to write it on sheets of lightnin’, and fold it up in the
envelopin’ clouds of the skies, and it should be received by a
kneelin’ and reverent soul. Who is Uncle Nate that he should get it? He
has not a reverent Soul and he has also rheumatiz in his legs.”

And then I thought, so quick and active is my mind when it gets to
startin’ off on a tower, I thought of what I had hearn a few days before,
of how the secret had been learnt by somebody who lived right there in the
village, of floatin’ letters up at sea from one ship to another,
sigualin’ out in letters of flame -

“Help! I’m a sinkin’!” or “Danger ahead! Look
out!”

And I thought what it must be to stand on a dusky night on a lone deck and see
up on the broad, dark; lonesome sky above, a sudden message, a flash of vivid
lightnin’, takin’ to itself the form of language. And I wondered to
myself if in the future we should use the great pages of the night-sky to write
messages from one city to another, or from sea to land, of danger and
warnin’; and then I thought to myself, if souls clog-bound to earth are
able to accomplish so much, who knows but the freed soul goin’ outward
and onward from height to height of wisdom may yet be able to signal down from
the Safe Land messages of help and warnin’ to the souls it loved below.

The souls a sailin’ and a driftin’ through the dark night of
despair - a dashin’ along through fog and mist and darkness aginst rocks.
What it would be to one kneelin’ in the lonesome night watches by a
grave, if the dark sky could grow luminous and he could read, - “Do not
despair! I am alive! I love you!”

Or, in the hour of the blackest temptation and dread, when the earth is hollow
and the sky a black vault, and the only way of happiness on God’s earth
seems down the dangerous, beautiful way, God-forbidden, what would it be to
have the empty vault lit up with “Danger ahead! We will help you! be
patient a little longer!”

Oh how fur my thoughts wuz a travellin’, and at what a good jog, but not
one trace did my companion see on my forward of these thoughts that wuz a
passin’ through my foretop: and at that very minute, we came up nigh
enough to see that right back of the glitterin’ language overhead, went a
long line of big, glowin’ stars of glory way up over our heads, and
leadin’ down a gentle declivity and Josiah sez, “Let’s foller
on, and see what it will lead us to, Samantha.”

“Wall,” sez I, “light is pretty generally, safe to foller,
Josiah Allen.” And so we meandered along, keepin’ our 2 heads as
nigh as we could under that long glitterin’ chain of golden drops that
wuz high overhead. And on, and on, we follered it dilligently; till for the
land’s sake! if it didn’t lead us to another one of them openwork
buildin’s, fixed off beautiful, and we could see inside 2 big wells like,
with acres of floor seemin’ly on each side of ’em, and crowds of
folks a walkin’ about and settin’ at little tables and most all of
’em a drinkin’.

The water they drinked we could see wuz a bubblin’ up and a runnin’
over all the time, in big round crystal globes. And up, up on a slender pole
way up over one of the wells hung another one of them crystal bowls, a
bubblin’ over with the water and sparklin’.

And ag’in Josiah asked me if I thought Beuler land could compare with it?

And I told him ag’in kinder sharp, That I wuzn’t a thinkin’
about Beuler, I didn’t know any sech a place or name. I wish he would
call things right.

Wall, he wuz so dead tired by this time, that we sot sail homewards; that is,
my feet wuz tired, and my bones, but my mind seemed more rousted up than
common.

Chapter VI.

SARATOGA BY DAYLIGHT.

Wall, the next mornin’ Josiah and me sallied out middlin’ early to
explore still further the beauties and grandness of Saratoga. I had on a black
straw bonnet, a green vail, and a umbrell. I also have my black alpacky, that
good moral dress.

My dress bein’ such a high mission one choked me. It wuz so high in the
neck it held my chin up in a most uncomfortable position, but sort a grand and
lofty lookin’. My sleeves wuz so long that more’n half the time my
hand wuz covered up by ’em and I wuz too honerable to wear ’em for
mits; no, in the name of principle I wore ’em for sleeves, good long
sleeves, a pattern to other grandmas that I might meet.

I felt that when they see me and see what I wuz a doin’ and
endurin’ fur the cause of female dressin’ they would pause in their
wild career, and cover up their necks and pull their sleeves down.

Wall, it haint to be expected that I could walk along carryin’ such hefty
emotions as I wuz a carryin’, and havin’ my neck held high and
stiddy both by principle and alpacky, and see to every step I wuz a
takin’. And, first I knew, right while I was enjoyin’ the loftiest
of these emotions, I ketched my foot in sunthin’, and most fell down.
Instinctively (such is the power of love) I put out my hand and clutched at the
arm of my pardner. But he too wuz nearly fallin’ at the same time. It wuz
a narrow chance that we wuz a runnin’ from having our prostrate forms a
layin’ there outstretched on the highway.

Instinctively I sez, “Good land!” and Josiah sez—wall, it is
fur from me to tell what he said, but it ended up with these words, “Dumb
them dumb sidewalks anyway;” and sez he, “I should think it would
pay to have a little less gilt paint and spangles and orniments overhead and a
few more solid bricks unless they want more funerals here, dumb
’em!”

Sez I,”Be calm! who be you a talkin’ about? who do you want to
bring down your fearful curses on, Josiah Allen?”

“Why, onto the dumb bricks,” sez he.

He wuz agitated and I said no more. But four times in that first walk, did I
descend almost precipitously into declivities amongst the bricks, risin’
simultaneously on similar elevations.

It wuz a fearful ordeel and I felt it so, but upheld by principle and Josiah, I
moved onwards, through what seemed to be 5 great throngs and masses of people,
3 on the ground and 2 hinted up above us on tall pillows.

Them immense places overhead long as the streets, wuz kinder scalloped out and
trimmed off handsum with railin’s, etc. And on it—oh! what a vast
congregation of heads of all sorts and sizes and colors. And oh! what a immense
display of parasols; why no parasol store in the land could begin with what I
see there.

I can truly say that I thought I knew somethin’ about parasols;,
havin’ owned 3 different ones in the course of my life, and havin’
one covered over. I thought I knew somethin’ of their nater and habits,
which is a good deal, so I had always s’posed, like a umbrell’s.
But good land! I gin up that I knew them not, nor never had.

Why anybody could learn more on ’em through one jerney down that street,
than from a hull lifetime in Jonesville. Truly travel is very upliftin’
and openin’ and spreadin’ out to the mind, both in parasols and
human nater.

Wall, them 2 masses over our heads wuz 2, then the one in which we wuz a
strugglin’ and the one opposite to it made 4. For anybody with any
pretence to learnin’ knows that twice 2 is 4. And then in the middle of
the broad street was a bigger mass of chariots and horsemen, and carts and
carriages, and great buggies and little ones, and big loads of barrels, and big
loads of ladies, and then a load of wood, and then a load of hay, and then a
pair of young folks pretty as a picture. And then came some high big coaches as
big as our spare bedroom, and as high as the roof on our horse barn, with six
horses hitched to e’m, all runnin’ over on top with men; and
wimmen, and children, and parasols, and giggles, and ha ha’s. And a man
wuz up behind a soundin’ out on a trumpet, a dretful sort of a high,
sweet note, not dwindlin’ down to the end as some music duz, but kinder
crinklin’ round and endin’ up in the air every time.

Josiah wuz dretful took with it and he told me in confidence that he laid out
when he got home to buy a trumpet and blow out jest them strains every time he
went into Jonesville or out of it. He said it would sound so sort a warlike and
impressive.

I expostulated aginst the idee. But sez he, “You’ll enjoy it when
you get used to it.”

“Never!” sez I.

“Yes you will,” sez he, “and while I live I lay out that you
shall have advantages, and shall enjoy things new and uneek.”

“Yes,” sez I feelin’ly, “I expect to, Josiah Allen, as
long as I live with you.” And I sithed. But I had little time to enjoy
even sithin’, for oh! the crowd that wuz a pressin’ onto us and
surroundin’ us on every side, some on ’em curius and strange
lookin’, some on ’em beautiful and grand. Pretty young girls
lookin’ sweet enough to kiss, and right behind ’em a Chinese man
with a long dress, and wooden shoes, and his hair in a long braid behind, and
his eyes sot in sideways. And then would come on a hull lot of wimmen in
dresses ev’ry color of the rainbow, and some men. Then a few childern,
lookin’ sweet as roses, with their mothers a pushin’ the little
carts ahead on ’em. And if you’ll believe it, I don’t
s’pose you will, but it is true, that lots of black ma’s had
childern jest as white as snow, and pretty as rosebuds, took after their
fathers I s’pose. But I don’t believe in a mixin’ of the
races. And when I see ’em a kissin’ the pretty babys, I begun to
muse a very little on the feelin’s of the indignent South, at
havin’ a colered girl set in the same car with ’em, or on a bench
in the same school room.

I mewsed on how they held the white forms clost to their black breasts at
birth, and in the hour of death—the black lips pressed to the white
cheeks and lips, in both cases. And all the way between life and death they
mingle clost as they can, some in some cases like the hill of knowledge. Then
the contact is too clost, when they sot out to climb up by ’em. Truly
there are deep conundrums and strange ones, all along through life; though the
white man may be, and is, cleer up out of his way, on the sunshiny brow of the
hill, and the black man at the foot, way down amongst the shadows and darkness
of the low grounds. They don’t come very nigh each other. But the arms
that have felt the clasp and the lips that have felt the kisses of that very
same black climber all through life, moves ’em and shouts ’em to
“go down,” to “go back,”

“The contact is getting too clost, danger is ahead.” Curious, haint
it? Jest as if any danger is so dangerous as ignorance and brutality. Curious,
haint it? But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.

Wall, right after the babies we’d meet a Catholic priest with a calm and
fur away look on his face, a lookin’ at the crowd as if he wuz in it, but
not of it. And then a burgler, mebby, anyway a mean lookin’ creeter,
ragged and humble. And then 2 or 3 men foreign lookin’, jabberin’
in a tongue I know nothin’ of, nor Josiah either. And then some more
childern, and wimmen, and dogs, and parasols, and men, and babies, and Injuns,
and Frenchmen, and old young wimmen, and young old ones, and handsome ones, and
hombly ones, and parasols, and some sweet young girls ag’in, and some
black men, and some white men, and some more wimmen, and parasols, and silk,
and velvet, and lace, and puckers, and raffles, and gethers, and gores, and
flowers, and feathers, and fringes, and frizzles, and then some men, some
Southerners from the South, some Westerners from the West, some Easterners from
the East, and some Cubebs from Cuba, and some Chinamen from China.

Oh! what a seen! What a seen! back and forth, passin’ and
repassin’, to and fro, parasols, and dogs, and wimmen, and men, and
babies, and parasols, to and fro, to and fro. Why, if I stood there long so
crazed would I have become at the seen, that I should have felt that Josiah wuz
a To and I wuz a Fro, or I wuz a parasol and he wuz a dog.

And to prevent that fearful catastrophe, I sez, “If we ever get beyond
this side of the village that seems all run together, if we ever do get beyond
it, which seems doubtful, le’s go and sit down, in some quiet spot, and
try to collect our scattered minds.” Sez I, “I feel curius, Josiah
Allen!” and sez I, “How do you feel?”

His answer I will not translate; it was neither Biblical nor even moral. And I
sez agin, “Hain’t it strange that they have the village all run
together with no streets turnin’ off of it.” Sez I, “It makes
me feel queer, Josiah Allen, and I am a goin’ to enquire into it.”
So we wended our way some further on amongst the dense crowd I have spoken of,
only more crowded and more denser, and anon, if not oftener, Josiah’s
head would be scooped in by passin’ parasols, and then in low, deep
tones, Josiah would use words that I wouldn’t repeat for a dollar bill,
till at last I asked a by bystander a standin’ by, and sez I, “Is
this village all built together—don’t you have no streets a
turnin’ off of it?”

“Yes,” sez he, “you’ll find a street jest as soon as
you get by this hotel.”

I stopped right in my tracts; I wuz dumbfoundered. Sez I, “Do you mean to
say that this hull side of the street that we have been a traversin’
anon, or long before anon,—do you say that this is all one
buildin’?”

“Yes mom,” sez he.

Sez I, in faint axents, “When shall we get to the end on it?”

Sez he, “You have come jest about half way.”

Josiah gin a deep groan and turned him round in his tracts and sez,
“Le’s go back this minute.”

I too thought of the quiet haven from whence we had set out, with a deep
longin’, but sech is the force and strength of my mind that I grasped
holt of the situation and held it there tight. If we wuz half way across it
wouldn’t be no further to go on than it would to go back. Such wuz my
intellect that I see it to once, but Josiah’s mind couldn’t grasp
it, and with words murmured in my ears which I will never repeat to a
livin’ soul he wended on by my side through the same old
crowd—parasols, and wimmen, and dogs, and babies, and men, and parasols,
and Injuns, and Spanards, and Creoles, and pretty girls, and old wimmen, and
puckers, and gethers, and bracelets, and diamonds, and lace, and parasols.
Several times, if not more, wuz Josiah Allen scooped in by a parasol held by a
female, and I felt he wuz liable to be torn from me. His weight is but small. 3
times his hat fell off in the operation and wuz reskued with difficulty, and he
spoke words I blush to recall as havin’ passed my pardner’s lips.

Wall, in the fullness of time, or a little after, for truly I wuz not in a
condition to sense things much, we arrove at a street and we gladly turned our
2 frames into it, and wended our way on it, goin’ at a pretty good jog.
The crowd a growin’ less and less and we kep a goin’, and kep a
goin’, till Josiah sez in weary axents:

“Where be you a goin’, Samantha? Haint you never goin’ to
stop? I am fairly tuckered out.”

And I sez in faint axents, “I would fain reach a land where parasols and
puckers are not and dogs and diamonds are no more.”

I wuz middlin’ incoherent from my agitation. But I meant well. I wuz
truly in hopes I would reach some quiet place where Josiah and me could set
down alone. Where I could look in quiet and repose upon that dear bald head,
and recooperate my strength.

We went by beautiful places, grand houses of different colors but every one on
’em good lookin’ ones, a settin’ back amongst their green
trees, with shady grass-covered yards, and fountains and flower beds in front
of ’em, and more grand handsome houses, and more big beautiful yards,
green velvet grass and beautiful flowers and fountains, and birds and beauty on
every side on us.

And though I felt and knew that in them big carriages that was a passin’
2 and fro all the time, though I felt that parasols, and puckers, and laces,
and dogs, and diamonds, wuz a bein’ borne past me all the time, yet sech
is the force of my mind that I could withdraw my specks from ’em, and
look at the beautiful works of nater (assisted by man) that wuz about me on
every hand.

Finally my long search wuz rewarded, we came to a big open gateway that seemed
to lead into a large, quiet delightful forest. And in that lovely, lonesome
place, Josiah and me sot down to recooperate our 2 energies.

Josiah looked good to me. Men are nice creeters, but you don’t want to
see too meny of ’em to once, likeways with wimmen. Josiah looked to me at
that moment some like a calico dress that you have picked out of a dense
quantity of patterns of calico at a store, it looks better to you when you get
it away from the rest. Josiah Allen looked good to me.

But anon, after I had bathed my distracted eyes (as you may say) in the
liniment of my pardner, I began to take in the rare beauty of the seen laid out
before me and we arose and wended our way onwards peaceful and serene, as 2
childern led on by their mother.

Dear Mother Nature! how dost thou rest and soothe thy distracted childern when
too hardly used by the grindin’, oppressive hands of fashion,and the
weerisome elements of a too civilized life. Maybe thou art a heathen mother,
oneducated and ignorant in all but the wisdom of love, but thy bosom is soft
and restful, and thy arms lovin’ and tender. And, heathen if thou art, we
love thee first and at last. We are glad to slip out of all the vain and gilded
supports that have held us weerily up, and lay down our tired heads on thy
kindly and unquestionin’ bosom and rest.

As we rose from the soft turf, on which we had been a restin’, and
meandered on through that beautiful park, (so tenderly had nature used him,)
not one trace of the wild commotion that had almost rent Josiah Allen’s
breast, could be seen save one expirin’ threeoh of agony. As we started
out ag’in, he looked down onto my faithful umberell, that had stiddied me
on so many towers of principle, and sez he, in low concentrated axents of skern
and bitterness, “If that wuz a dumb parasol, Samantha, I would crush it
to the earth and grind it to atoms.”

Truly he could not forget how his bald head had been gethered in like a ripe
sheaf, by 7 females, during that very walk, hombly ones too, so it had
happened. But I sez nothin’ in reply to this expirin’ note of the
crysis he had passed through, knowin’ this was not the time for silver
speech but for golden silence, and so we meandered onwards.

And it wuz anon that we see in the distance a fair white female a
standin’ kinder still in the edge of the woods, and Josiah spoke in a
seemin’ly careless way, and sez he, “She don’t seem to have
many clothes on, Samantha.”

Sez I, “Hush, Josiah! she has probably overslept herself, and come out in
a hurry, mebby to look for some herbs or sunthin’. I persoom one of her
childern are sick, and she sprung right up out of bed, and come out to get some
weather-wort, or catnip, or sunthin’.”

And as I spoke I drawed Josiah down a side path away from her. But he stopped
stun still and sez he, “Mebby I ought to go and help her Samantha.”

Sez I, “Josiah Allen, sense I lived with you, I don’t think I have
been shamder of you;” sez I, “it would mortify her to death if she
should mistrust you had seen her in that condition.”

“Wall,” sez he, still a hangin’ back, “if the child is
very sick, and I can be any help to her, it is my duty to go.”

His eye had been on her nearly every moment of the time, in spite of my almost
voyalent protests, and sez he, kinder excited like, “She is
standin’ stun still, as if she is skarit; mebby there is a snake in front
of her or sunthin’, or mebby she is took paralysed, I’d better go
and see.”

Sez I, in low, deep axents, “You stay where you be, Josiah Allen, and I
will go forward, bein’ 2 females together, it is what it is right to do
and if we need your help I will holler.”

And finally he consented after a parlay.

Wall, as I got up to her I see she wuzn’t a live, meat woman, but a
statute and so I hastened back to my Josiah and told him there wuzn’t no
need of his help and he wuz in the right on’t—she wuz stun
still.”

He said he guessed we’d better go that way. And I sez, “No, Josiah,
I want to go round by the other road.”

Wall, we got back to our abode perfectly tuckered out, but perfectly happy. And
we concluded that after dinner we would set out and see the different springs
and partake of ’em. Had it not been for our almost frenzied haste to get
away from parasols and dogs and destraction into a place of rest we should have
beheld them sooner. And our afternoon’s adventures I will relate in
another epistol.

Chapter VII.

SEEING THE DIFFERENT SPRINGS.

Immegeatly after dinner (a good one) Josiah Allen, Ardelia Tutt and me sot out
to view and look at the different springs and to partake of the same. We
hadn’t drinked a drop of it as yet. Ardelia had come over to go with us.
She had on a kind of a yellowish drab dress and a hat made of the same, with
some drab and blue bows of ribbon and some pink holly-hawks in it, and she had
some mits on (her hands prespired dretfully, and she sweat easy). As I have
said, she is a good lookin’ girl but soft. And most any dress she puts on
kinder falls into the same looks. It may be quite a hard lookin’ dress
before she puts it on, but before she has wore it half a hour it will kinder
crease down into the softest lookin, thing you ever see. And so with her
bonnets, and mantillys, and everything.

The down onto a goslin’s breast never looked softer than every rag she
had on this very afternoon, and no tender goslin’ itself wuz ever softer
than she wuz on the inside on’t. But that didn’t hinder my
likin’ her.

Wall, anon, or a little before, we came to that long, long buildin’,
beautiful and dretful ornimental, but I could see plain by daylight what I had
mistrusted before, that it wuzn’t built for warmth. It must be dretful
cold in the winter, and I don’t see how the wimmen folks of the home
could stand it, unless they hang up bed quilts and blankets round the side, and
then, I should think they would freeze. They couldn’t keep their house
plants over winter any way - and I see they had sights of ’em - unless
they kep’ ’em down suller.

But howsumever, that is none of my lookout. If they want to be so fashionable,
as to try to live out doors and in the house too, that is none of my business.
And of course it looked dretful ornimental and pretty. But I will say this, it
haint bein’ mejum. I should rather live either out doors, or in the
house, one of the 2. But I am a eppisodin’. And to resoom.

Josiah Allen paid the money demanded of him and we went in and advanced onwards
to where a boy wuz a pullin’ up the water and handin’ of it round.

It looked dretful bubblin’ and sparklin’. Why sunthin’ seemed
to be a sparklin’ up all the time in the water and I thought to myself
mebby it wuz water thoughts, mebby it wanted to tell sunthin’, mebby it
has all through these years been a tryin’ to bubble up and sparkle out in
wisdom but haint found any one yet who could understand its liquid language.
Who knows now?

I took my glass and looked close - sparkle, sparkle, up came the tiny thought
sparks! But I wuzn’t wise enough to read the glitterin’ language.
No I wuzn’t deep enough. It would take a deep mind, mebby thousands of
feet deep, to understand the great glowin’ secret that it has been a
tryin’ to reveal and couldn’t. Mebby it has been a tryin’ to
tell of big diamond mines that it has passed through - great cliffs and crags
of gold sot deep with the crystalized dew of diamonds.

But no, I didn’t believe that wuz it. That wouldn’t help the world,
only to make it happier, and these seemed to me to be dretful inspirin’,
upliftin’ thoughts. No, mebby it is a tryin’ to tell a cold world
about a way to heat it. Mebby it has been a runnin’ over and is
sparklin’ with bright thoughts about how deep underneath the earth lay a
big fireplace, that all the cold beggars of mortality could set round and warm
their frozen fingers by,—a tryin’ to tell how the heat of that fire
that escapes now up the chimbleys of volcanoes, and sometimes in sudden drafts
blows out sideways into earthquakes, etc., could be utilized by conveyin’
it up on top of the ground, and have it carried into the houses like Croton
water. Who knows now? Mebby that is it!

Oh! I felt that it would be a happy hour for Samantha when she could bile her
potatoes by the heat of that large noble fire-place. And more than that, far
more wuz the thought that heat might become, in the future, as cheap as cold.
That the little cold hands that freeze every winter in the big cities, could be
stretched out before the big generous warmth of that noble fire-place. And who
built that fire in the first place? Who laid the first sticks on the handirons,
and put the match to it? Who wuz it that did it, and how did he look, and when
wuz he born, and why, and where?

These, and many other thoughts of similar size and shape, filled my brane
almost full enough to lift up the bunnet, that reposed gracefully on my
foretop, as I stood and held the sparklin’ glass in my hands.

Sparkle! sparkle! sparkle! what wuz it, it wuz a tryin’ to say to me and
couldn’t? Good land! I couldn’t tell, and Josiah couldn’t, I
knew instinctively he couldn’t, though I didn’t ask him.

No, I turned and looked at that beloved man, for truly I had for the time
bein’ been by the side of myself, and I see that he wuz a drinkin’
lavishly of the noble water. I see that he wuz a drinkin’ more than wuz
for his good, his linement showed it, and sez I, for he wuz a liftin’
another tumbler full onto his lips, sez I, “Pause, Josiah Allen, and
don’t imbibe too much.”

“Why,” he whispered, “you can drink all you are a mind to for
5 cents. I am bound for once, Samantha Allen, to get the worth of my
money.”

And he drinked the tumbler full down at one swoller almost, and turned to the
weary boy for another. He looked bad, and eager, and sez I, “How many
have you drinked?”

Sez he, in a eager, animated whisper, “9.” And he whispered in the
same axents, “5 times 9 is 45 ; if it had been to a fair, or Fourth of
July, or anything, it would have cost me 45 cents, and if it had been to a
church social - lemme see - 9 times 10 is 90. It would have cost me a dollar
bill! And here I am a havin’ it all for 5 cents. Why,” sez he,
“I never see the beat on’t in my life.”

And ag’in he drinked a tumbler full down, and motioned to the frightened
boy for another.

But I took him by the vest and whispered to him, sez I, “Josiah Allen, do
you want to die, because you can die cheap? Why,” sez I, “it will
kill you to drink so much.”

“But think of the cheapness on’t Samantha! The chance I have of
getting the worth of my money.”

But I whispered back to him in anxus axents and told him, that I guessed if
funeral expenses wuz added to that 5 cents it wouldn’t come so cheap, and
sez I, “you wont live through many more glasses, and you’ll see you
wont. Why,” sez I, “you are a drowndin’ out your
insides.”

He wuz fairly a gettin’ white round the mouth, and I finally got him to
withdraw, though he looked back longingly at the tumblers and murmured even
after I had got him to the door, that it wuz a dumb pity when anybody got a
chance to get the worth of their money, which wuzn’t often, to think they
couldn’t take advantage on it.

And I sez back to him in low deep axents, “There is such a thing as
bein’ too graspin’, Josiah Allen.” Sez I, “The children
of Israel used to want to lay up more manny than they wanted or needed, and it
spilte on their hands.” And sez I, “you see if it haint jest so
with you; you have been in too great haste to enrich yourself, and you’ll
be sorry for it, you see if you haint.”

And he was. Though he uttered language I wouldn’t wish to repeat, about
the children of Israel and about me for bringin’ of ’em up. But the
man wuz dethly sick. Why he had drinked 11 tumblers full, and I trembled to
think what would have follered on, and ensued, if I hadn’t interfered. As
it wuz, he wuz confined to our abode for the rest of the day.

But I wouldn’t have Josiah Allen blamed more than is due for this little
incedent, for it only illustrates a pervailin’ trait in men’s
nater, and sometimes wimmen’s - a too great desire to amass sudden
riches, and when opportunity offers, burden themselves with useless and
wearysome and oft-times painful gear.

They don’t need it but seeing they have a chance to get it cheap,
“dog cheap “ as the poet observes, why they weight themselves down
with it, and then groan under the burden of unnecessary and wearin’
wealth. This is a deep subject, deep as the well from which my companion
drinked, and nearly drinked himself into a untimely grave.

Men heap up more riches than they can enjoy and then groan and rithe under the
taxes, the charity given, the envy, the noteriety, the glare, and the glitter,
the crowd of fortune-hunters and greedy hangers-on, and the care and anxiety.
They orniment the high front of their houses with the paint, the gildin’,
the fashion, and the show of enormous wealth, and while the crowd of
fashion-seekers and fortune-hunters pour in and out of the lofty doorway they
set out on the back stoop a groanin’ and a sithin’ at the cares and
sleepless anxietes of their big wealth, and then they git up and go down street
and try their best to heap up more treasure to groan over.

And wimmen now, when wuz there ever a woman who could resist a good bargain?
Her upper beauro draws may be a runnin’ over with laces and ribbons, but
let her see a great bargain sold for nothin’ almost, and where is the
female woman that can resist addin’ to that already too filled up beauro
draw.

A baby, be he a male, or be he a female child, when he has got a appel in both
hands, will try to lay holt of another, if you hold it out to him. It is human
nater. Josiah must not be considered as one alone in layin’ up more
riches than he needed. He suffered, and I also, for sech is the divine law of
love, that if one member of the family suffers, the other members suffer also,
specially when the sufferin’ member is impatient and voyalent is his
distress, and talks loud and angry at them who truly are not to blame.

Now I didn’t make the springs nor I wuzn’t to blame for their
bein’ discovered in the first place. But Josiah laid it to me. And though
I tried to make him know that it wuz a Injun that discovered ’em first,
he wouldn’t gin in and seemed to think they wouldn’t have been
there if it hadn’t been for me.

I hated to hear him go on so. And in the cause of Duty, I brung up Sir William
Johnson and others. But he lay there on the lounge, and kep’ his face
turned resolute towards the wall, in a dretful oncomfertable position (sech wuz
his temper of mind), and said, he never had heard of them, nor the springs
nuther, and shouldn’t if it hadn’t been for me.

Why, sez I, “A Injun brought Sir William Johnson here on his back.”

“Wall,” sez he, cross as a bear, “that is the way
you’ll have to take me back, if you go on in this way much longer.”

“In what way, Josiah?” sez I.

“Why a findin’ springs and draggin’ a man off to ’em,
and makin’ him drink.”

“Why, Josiah Allen,” sez I, “I told you not to drink -
don’t you remember?”

“No! I don’t remember nuthin’, nor don’t want to. I
want to go to sleep!” sez he, snappish as anything, so I went out and let
him think if he wanted to, that I made the Springs, and the Minerals, and the
Gysers, and the Spoutin’ Rock, and everything. Good land! I knew I
didn’t; but I had to rest under the unkind insinnuation. Such is some of
the trials of pardners.

But Josiah waked up real clever. And I brung him up some delicate warm toast
and some fragrant tea, and his smile on me wuz dretful good-natured, almost
warm. And I forgot all his former petulence and basked in the rays of love and
happiness that beamed on me out of the blue sky of my companion’s eyes.
The clear blue sky that held two stars, to which my heart turned.

Such is some of the joys of pardners with which the world don’t meddle
with, nor can’t destroy.

But to resoom. Ardelia sot down awhile in our room before she went back to her
boardin’ house. I see she wuz a writin’ for she had a long lead
pencil in her right hand and occasionally she would lean her forrerd down upon
it, in deep thought, and before she went, she slipped the verses into my hand:

“STANZAS ON A MINERAL SPRING.

“Oh! waters that doth bubble up and spout

Oh, didst thou bubble down insted of up,

Thou couldest not with all thy minerals get out

We could not then arise and drink thee in a cup.



“Oh! human waves that float and seeth and tear

Oh wiltest thou not too a learn to bubble up

Instead of down, a lesson deep to bear,

Oh Soul, can here be learned, one smooth, or rough.



“A lesson deep of powerful min-er-als

That act with power the constitution on,^[1]

And still that softly bubbles up, and tells

To souls unborn, how sweetly they have ron.



“Oh water that doth mount on slender tip,

And spoutest up some 30 feet, through pole;

Oh Hope, learn thou a lesson from the water’s lip,

Spout out, spout out, in peace from hollow soul.”

[1]
As in the case of Mr. Allen, poor dear man.

Sez I, a lookin’ over my specks at Ardelia after I had finished
readin’ the verses: “What does ‘ron’ mean? I never
heerd of that word before, nor knew there wuz sech a one.”

Sez she, “I meant ran, but I s’pose it is a poetical license to say
‘ron,’ don’t you think so?”

“Oh, yes,” sez I, “I s’pose so, I don’t know much
about licenses, nor don’t want to, they are suthin’ I never
believed in. But,” sez I, for I see she looked red and overcasted by my
remarks, “I don’t s’pose it will make any difference in a 100
years whether you say ran or ron.”

But sez I, “Ardelia, it is a hot day, and I wouldn’t write any more
if I wuz in your place. If you should heat your bra-, the upper part of your
head, you might not get over it for some time.”

“But,” sez she, “you have told me sometimes to stop on
account of cold weather.”

“Wall,” sez I, “most any kind of weather is hard on some
kinds of poetry.” Sez I, “Poetry is sunthin’ that takes
particular kinds of folks and weather to be successful.” Sez I, “It
is sunthin’ that can’t be tampered with with impunity by Christians
or world’s people. It is a kind of a resky thing to do, and I
wouldn’t write any more to-day, Ardelia.”

And she heard to me and after a settin’ a while with us, she went back to
Mr. Pixley’s.

Chapter VIII.

JOSIAH AND SAMANTHA TAKE A LONG WALK.

Wall, we hadn’t been to Saratoga long before Aunt Polly Pixley came over
to see us, for Aunt Polly had been as good as her word and had come to
Saratoga, to her 2d cousins, the Mr. Pixley’ses, where Ardelia wuz a
stopping. Ardelia herself is a distant relation to Aunt Polly, quite distant,
about 40 or 50 miles distant when they are both to home.

Wall, the change in Aunt Polly is wonderful, perfectly wonderful. She
don’t look like the same woman.

She took her knittin’ work and come in the forenoon, for a all
day’s visit, jest as she wuz used to in the country, good old soul - and
I took her right to my room and done well by her, and we talked considerable
about other wimmen, not runnin’ talk, but good plain talk.

She thinks a sight of the Saratoga water, and well she may, if that is what has
brung her up, for she wuz always sick in Jonesville, kinder bedrid. And when
she sot out for Saratoga she had to have a piller to put on the seat behind her
to sort a prop her up (hen’s feather).

And now, she told me she got up early every mornin’ and walked down to
the spring for a drink of the water - walked afoot. And she sez, “It is
astonishin’ how much good that water is a doin’ me; for,” sez
she, “when I am to home I don’t stir out of the house from one
day’s end to the other; and here,” sez she, “I set out doors
all day a’most, a listenin’ to the music in the park mornin’
and evenin’ I hear every strain on’t.”

Aunt Polly is the greatest one for music I ever see, or hearn on. And I sez to
her, “Don’t you believe that one great thing that is helpin’
you, is bein’ where you are kep’ gay and cheerful, - by music and
good company; and bein’ out so much in the sunshine and pure air.”
(Better air than Saratoga has got never wuz made; that is my opinion and
Josiah’s too.) And sez I, “I lay a good deal to that air.”

“No,” she said, “it wuz the water.”

Sez I, “The water is good, I don’t make no doubts
on’t.” But I continued calmly - for though I never dispute, I do
most always maintain my opinion - and I sez again calmly, “There has been
a great change in you for the better, sense you come here, Miss Pixley. But
some on’t I lay to your bein’ where things are so much more
cheerful and happyfyin’. You say you haint heerd a strain of music except
a base viol for over 14 years before you come here. And though base viols if
played right may be melodious, yet Sam Pixley’s base viol wuz a old one,
and sort a cracked and grumbly in tone, and he wuzn’t much of a player
anyway, and to me, base viols always sounded kinder base anyway.”

And sez I, “Don’t you believe a gettin’ out of your little
low dark rooms, shaded by Pollard willers and grave stuns, and gettin’
out onto a place where you can heer sweet music from mornin’ till night,
a liftin’ you up and makin’ you happier - don’t you believe
that has sunthin’ to do with your feelin’ so much better - that and
the pure sweet air of the mountains comin’ down and bein’ softened
and enriched by the breath of the valley, and the minerals, makin’ a
balmy atmosphere most full of balm - I lay a good deal to that.”

“Oh no,” sez she, “it is the water.”

“Yes,” sez I, in a very polite way, - I will be polite, “the
water is good, first rate.”

But at that very minute, word come to her that she had company, and she sot
sail homewards immegetly, and to once.

And now I don’t care anything for the last word, some wimmen do, but I
don’t. But I sez to her, as I watched her a goin’ down the
stairway, steppin’ out like a girl almost, sez I, “How well you do
seem, Aunt Polly; and I lay a good deal on’t to that air.”

Now who would have thought she would speak out from the bottom of the stairway
and say, “No, it is the water?”

Wall, the water is good, there haint no doubt, and anyway, through the water
and the air, and bein’ took out of her home cares, and old
surroundin’s onto a brght happy place, the change in Polly Pixley is
sunthin’ to be wondered at.

Yes, the water is good. And it is dretful smart, knowin’ water too. Why,
wouldn’t anybody think that when it all comes from the same place, or
pretty nigh the same place anyway, that they would get kinder flustrated and
mixed up once in a while?

But they don’t. These hundreds and thousands of years, and I don’t
know how much longer, they have kep’ themselves separate from each other,
livin’ nigh neighbors there down under the ground, but never
neighborin’ with each other, or intermarryin’ in each other’s
families. No, they have kep’ themselves apart, livin’ exclosive
down below and bubblin’ up exclosive.

They know how to make each other keep their proper distance, and I s’pose
through all the centuries to come they will bubble up, right side by side,
entirely different from each other.

Curius, hain’t it? Dretful smart, knowin’ waters they be, fairly
sparklin’ and flashin’ with light and brightness, and intelligence.
They are for the healin’ and refreshin’ of ,the nations, and the
nations are all here this summer, a bein’ healed by ’em. But still
I lay a good deal to that air.

Amongst the things that Aunt Polly told me about wimmen that day, wuz this,
that Ardelia Tutt had got a new Bo, Bial Flamburg, by name.

She said Mr. Flamburg had asked Ardelia’s 3d cousin to introduce him to
her, and from that time his attentions to her had been unremittent, voyalent,
and close. She said that to all human appearance he wuz in love with her from
his hat band down to his boots and she didn’t know what the result would
be, though she felt that the situation wuz dangerus, and more’n probable
Abram Gee had more trouble ahead on him. (Aunt Polly jest worships Abram Gee,
jest as everybody duz that gets to know him well.) And I too, felt that the
situation wuz dubersome. For Ardelia I knew wuz one of the soft little wimmen
that has got to have men a trailin’ round after ’em; and her
bein’ so uncommon tender hearted, and Mr. Flamburg so deep in love, I
feared the result.

Wall, I wuz jest a thinkin’ of this that day after dinner when Josiah
proposed a walk, so we sot out. He proposed we should walk through the park, so
we did. The air wuz heavenly sweet and that park is one of the most restful and
beautiful places this side of Heaven, or so it seemed to us that pleasant
afternoon. The music was very soft and sweet that day, sweet with a undertone
of sadness, some like a great sorrowful soul in a beautiful body.

The balmy south wind whispered through the branches of the bendin’ trees
on the hill where we sot. The light was a shinin’ and a siftin’
down through the green leaves, in a soft golden haze, and the music seemed to
go right up into them shadowy, shinin’ pathways of golden misty light, a
climbin’ up on them shadowy steps of mist and gold, and amber, up, up
into the soft depths of the blue overhead - up to the abode of melody and love.

Down the hill in the beautiful little valley, all amongst the fountains and
windin’ walks and white statutes, and green, green, grass, little
children wuz a playin’. Sweet little toddlers, jest able to walk about,
and bolder spirits, though small, a trudgin’ about with little canes, and
jumpin’ round, and havin’ a good time.

Little boys and little girls (beautiful creeters, the hull on ’em), for
if their faces, every one on ’em, wuzn’t jest perfect! They all had
the beauty of childhood and happiness. And crowds of older folks wuz there. And
some happy young couples, youths and maidens, wuz a settin’ round, and a
wanderin’ off by themselves, and amongst them we see the form of Ardelia,
and a young man by her side.

She wuz a leanin’ on the stun railin’ that fences in the trout
pond. She wuz evidently a lookin’ down pensively at the shinin’
dartin’ figures of the trout, a movin’ round down in the cool
waters.

I wuzn’t nigh enough to ’em to see really how her companion looked,
but even at that distance I recognized a certain air and atmosphere a
surroundin’ Ardelia that I knew meant poetry.

And Josiah recognized it too, and he sez to me, “We may as well go round
the hill and out to the road that way,” sez he, (a pointin’ to the
way furthest from Ardelia) “and we may as well be a goin’.”

That man abhors poetry.

Wall, we wandered down into the high way and havin’ most the hull
afternoon before us, we kinder sauntered round amongst the stores that wuz
pretty nigh to where we wuz. There is some likely good lookin’ stores
kep’ by the natives, as they call the stiddy dwellers in Saratoga. Good
lookin’ respectable stores full of comfort and consolation, for the outer
or inner man or woman. (I speak it in a mortal sense).

But with the hundred thousand summer dwellers, who flock here with the summer
birds, and go out before the swallers go south, there comes lots of summer
stores, and summer shops, and picture studios, etc., etc. Like big summer
bird’s-nests, all full and a runnin’ over with summer wealth, to be
blowed down by the autumn winds. These shops are full of everything elegant and
beautiful and useful. The most gorgeous vases and plaks and chiner ware of
every description and color, and books, and jewelry, and rugs, and fans, and
parasols, and embroideries, and laces, and etc., etc., etc.

And one shop seemed to be jest full of drops of light, light and sunshine,
crystalized in golden, clear, tinted amber. There wuz a young female statute a
standin’ up in the winder of that store with her hands outstretched and
jest a drippin’ with the great glowin’ amber drops. Some wuz a
hangin’ over her wings for she was a young flyin’ female. And I
thought to myself it must be she would fly better with all that golden light a
drippin’ about her.

Josiah liked her looks first rate. And he liked the looks of some of the
pictures extremely. There wuz lots of places all full of pictures. A big
collection of water colors, though as Josiah said and well said, How they could
get so many colors out of water wuz a mystery to him.

But my choice out of all the pictures I see, wuz a little one called “The
Sands of Dee.” It wuz “Mary a callin’ the cattle home.”
The cruel treacherus water wuz a risin’ about her round bare ankles as
she stood there amongst the rushes with her little milk-bucket on her arm.

Her pretty innocent face wuz a lookin’ off into the shadows, and the last
ray of sunset was a fallin’ on her. Maybe it wuz the pity on’t that
struck so hard as I looked at it, to know that the “cruel, crawli’n
foam” wuz so soon to creep over the sweet young face and round limbs. And
there seemed to be a shadow of the comin’ fate, a sweepin’ in on
the gray mist behind her.

I stood for some time, and I don’t know but longer, a lookin’ at
it, my Josiah a standin’ placidly behind me, a lookin’ over my
shoulder and enjoyin’ of it too, till the price wuz mentioned. But at
that fearful moment, my pardner seized me by the arm, and walked me so
voyalently out of that store and down the walk that I did not find and recover
myself till we stood at the entrance to Philey street.

And I wuz so out of breath, by his powerful speed, that she didn’t look
nateral to me, I hardly recognized Philey. But Josiah hurried me down Philey
and wanted to get my mind offen Mary Dee I knew, for he says as we come under a
sign hangin’ down over the road, “Horse Exchange,” sez he,
“What do you say, Samantha, do you spose I could change off the old mair,
for a camel or sunthin’? How would you like a camel to ride?”

I looked at him in speechless witherin’ silence, and he went on hurridly,
“It would make a great show in Jonesville, wouldn’t it, to see us
comin’ to meetin’ on a camel, or to see us ridin’ in a cutter
drawed by one. I guess I’ll see about it, some other time.”

And he went on hurridly, and almost incoherently as we see another sign, over
the road - oh! how vollubly he did talk - “Quick, Livery.”

“I hate to see folks so dumb conceeted! Now I don’t spose that man
has got any hosses much faster than the old mair.”

“‘Wing’s!’ Shaw! I don’t believe no such thing -
a livery on wings. I don’t believe a word on’t. And you
wouldn’t ketch me on one on ’em, if they had!”

“‘Yet Sing!’” sez he, a lookin’ accost the street
into a laundry house. “What do I care if you do sing? ’Taint of
much account if you do any way. I sing sometimes, I yet sing,” says he.

“Sing,” sez I in neerly witherin’ tone. “I’d love
to hear you sing, I haint yet and I’ve lived with you agoin’ on 30
years.”

“Wall, if you haint heerd me, it is because you are deef,” sez he.

But that is jest the way he kep’ on, a hurryin’ me along, and a
talkin’ fast to try to get the price of that picture out of my head.
Anon, and sometimes oftener, we would come to the word in big letters on signs,
or on the fence, or the sides of barns, “Pray.” And sometimes it
would read, “Pray for my wife!” And Josiah every time he came to
the words would stop and reflect on ’em.

“‘Pray!’ What business is it of yourn, whether I pray or not?
‘Pray for my wife!’ That haint none of your business.”

Sez he, a shakin’ his fist at the fence, “’Taint likely I
should have a wife without prayin’ for her. She needs it bad
enough,” sez he once, as he stood lookin’ at it.

I gin him a strange look, and he sez, “You wouldn’t like it, would
you, if I didn’t pray for you?”

“No,” sez I, “and truly as you say, the woman who is your
wife needs prayer, she needs help, morn half the time she duz.”

He looked kinder dissatisfied at the way I turned it, but he sez,
“‘Plumbin’ done here!’”

“I’d love to know where they are goin’ to plum. I don’t
see no sign of plum trees, nor no stick to knock ’em off with.” And
agin he sez, “You would make a great ‘fuss, Samantha, if I should
say what is painted up right there on that cross piece. You would say I wuz a
swearin’.”

Sez I coldly, (or as cold as I could with my blood heated by the voyalence and
rapidity of the walk he had been a leadin’ me,) “There is a Van in
front of it. Van Dam haint swearin’.”

“You would say it wuz if I used it,” sez he reproachfully.
“If I should fall down on the ice, or stub my toe, and trip up on the
meetin’ house steps, and I should happen to mention the name of that
street about the same time, you would say I wuz a swearin’.”

I did not reply to him; I wouldn’t. And ag’in he hurried me
on’ards by some good lookin’ bildin’s, and trees, and
tavrens, and cottages, and etc., etc., and we come to Caroline street, and
Jane, and Matilda, and lots of wimmen’s names.

And Josiah sez, “I’ll bet the man that named them streets wuz love
sick!”

But he wuzn’t no such thing. It was a father that owned the land, and
laid out the streets, and named ’em for his daughters. Good old creeter!
I wuzn’t goin’ to have him run at this late day, and run down his
own streets too.

But ag’in Josiah hurried me on’ards. And bimeby we found ourselves
a standin’ in front of a kind of a lonesome lookin’ house, big and
square, with tall pillows in front. It wuz a standin’ back as if it wuz a
kinder a drawin’ back from company, in a square yard all dark and shady
with tall trees. And it all looked kinder dusky, and solemn like. And a
bystander a standin’ by told us that it wuz “ha’nted.”

Josiah pawed at it, and shawed at the idee of a gost.

But I sez, “There! that is the only thing Saratoga lacked to make her
perfectly interestin’, and that is a gost!”

But agin Josiah pawed at the idee, and sez, “There never wuz such a thing
as a gost! and never will be.” And sez he, “what an extraordenary
idiot anybody must be to believe in any sech thing.” And ag’in he
looked very skernful and high-headed, and once ag’in he shawed.

And I kep’ pretty middlin’ calm and serene and asked the bystander,
when the gost ha’nted, and where?

And he said, it opened doors and blowed out lights mostly, and trampled up
stairs.

“Openin’, and blowin’, and tramplin’,” sez I
dreamily.

“Yes,” sez the man, “that’s what it duz.”

And agin Josiah shawed loud. And agin I kep’ calm, and sez I,
“I’d give a cent to see it.” And sez I, “Do you suppose
it would blow out and trample if we should go in?”

But Josiah grasped holt of my arm and sez, “’Taint safe! my dear
Samantha! don’t le’s go near the house.”

“Why? “ sez I coldly, “you say there haint no sech thing as a
gost, what are you afraid on?”

His teeth wuz fairly chatterin’. “Oh! there might be spiders there,
or mice, it haint best to go.”

I turned silently round and started on, for my companion’s looks was
pitiful in the extreme. But I merely observed this, as we wended onwards,
“I have always noticed this, Josiah Allen, that them that shaw the most
at sech things, are the ones whose teeth chatter when they come a nigh
’em, showin’ plain that the shawers are really the ones that
believe in ’em.”

“My teeth chattered,” sez he, “because my gooms ache.”

“Well,” sez I, “the leest said the soonest mended.” And
we went on fast ag’in by big houses and little, and boardin’
houses, and boardin’ houses, and boardin’ houses, and tavrens, and
tavrens, and he kept me a walkin’ till my feet wuz most blistered.

I see what his aim wuz; I had recognized it all the hull time.

But as we went up the stairway into our room, perfectly tuckered out, both on
us, I sez to him, in weary axents, “That picture wuz cheap enough, for
the money, wuzn’t it?”

He groaned aloud. And sech is my love for that man, that the minute I heard
that groan I immegetly added, “Though I hadn’t no idee of
buyin’ it, Josiah.”

Immegetly he smiled warmly, and wuz very affectionate in his demeener to me for
as much as two hours and a half. Sech is the might of human love.

His hurryin’ me over them swelterin’ and blisterin’ streets,
and showin’ me all the beauty and glory of the world, and his
conversation had no effect, skercely on my mind. But what them hours of
frenzied effert could not accomplish, that one still, small groan did. I love
that man. I almost worship him, and he me, vise versey, and the same.

We found that Ardelia Tutt had been to see us in our absence. She had been into
our room I see, for she had dropped one of her mits there. And the chambermaid
said she had been in and waited for us quite a spell - the young man a
waitin’ below on the piazza, so I s’posed.

I expect Ardelia wanted to show him off to us and I myself wuz quite anxus to
see him, feelin’ worried and oncomfertable about Abram Gee and
wantin’ to see if this young chap wuz anywhere nigh as good as Abram.

Well about a hour after we came back, Josiah missed his glasses he reads with.
And we looked all over the house for ’em, and under the bed, and on the
ceilin’, and through our trunks and bandboxes, and all our pockets, and
in the Bible, and Josiah’s boots, and everywhere. And finely, after
givin’ ’em up as lost, the idee come to us that they might possibly
have ketched on the fringe of Ardelia’s shawl, and so rode home with her
on it.

So we sent one of the office-boys home with her mit and asked her if she had
seen Josiah’s glasses. And word come back by the boy that she
hadn’t seen ’em, and she sent word to me to look on my
pardner’s head for ’em, and sure enough there we found ’em,
right on his foretop, to both of our surprises.

She sent also by the boy a poem she had wrote that afternoon, and sent word how
sorry she wuz I wuzn’t to home to see Mr. Flamburg. But I see him only a
day or two after that, and I didn’t like his looks a mite.

But he said, and stuck to it, that his father owned a large bank, that he wuz a
banker, and a doin’ a heavy business.

Wall, that raised him dretfully in Ardelia’s eyes; she owned up to me
that it did. She owned to me that she lead always thought she would love to be
a Banker’s Bride. She thought it sounded rich. She said, “banker
sounded so different from baker.”

I sez to her coolly, that “it wuz only a difference of one letter, and I
never wuz much of a one to put the letter N above any of the others, or to be
haughty on havin’ it added to, or diminished from my name.”

But she kep’ on a goin’ with him. She told me it wuz real
romanticle the way he got aquanted with her. He see her onbeknown to her one
day, when she wuz a writin’ a poem on one of the benches in the park.

“A Poem on a Bench!”

She wuz a settin’ on the bench, and a writin’ about it, she was a
writin’ on the bench in two different ways. Curius, haint it?

But to resoom. He immegetly fell in love with her. And he got a feller who wuz
a boardin’ to his boardin’ place to interduce him to
Ardelia’s relative, Mr. Pixley, and Mr. Pixley interduced him to Ardelia.
He told Ardelia’s relatives the same story - That his father wuz a
banker, that he owned a bank and wuz doin’ a heavy business.

Wall, I watched that young chap, and watched him close, and I see there wuz one
thing about him that could be depended on, he wuz truthful.

He seemed almost morbid on the subject, and would dispute himself half a hour,
to get a thing or a story he wuz tellin’ jest exactly right. But he
drinked; that I know for I know the symptoms. Coffee can’t blind the eyes
of her that waz once Smith, nor peppermint cast a mist before ’em. My
nose could have took its oath, if noses wuz ever put onto a bar of Justice - my
nose would have gin its firm testimony that Bial Flamburg drinked.

And there wuz that sort of a air about him, that I can’t describe exactly
- a sort of a half offish, half familier and wholly disagreeable mean, that can
be onderstood but not described. No, you can’t picture that liniment, but
you can be affected by it. Wall, Bial had it.

And I kep’ on a not likin’ him, and kep’ stiddy onwards a
likin’ Abram Gee. I couldn’t help it, nor did’nt want to. And
I looked out constant to ketch him in some big story that would break him right
down in Ardelia’s eyes, for I knew if she had been brought up on any one
commandment more’n another, it wuz the one ag’inst lyin’. She
hated lyin’.

She had been brought up on the hull of the commandments but on that one in
particeler; she wuz brung up sharp but good. But not one lie could I ketch him
in. And he stuck to it, that his father wuz a banker and doin’ a heavy
business.

Wall, it kep’ on, she a goin’ with him through ambition, for I see
plain, by signs I knoo, that she didn’t love him half as well as she did
Abram. And I felt bad, dretful bad, to set still and see Ambition ondoin’
of her. For oft and oft she would speak to me of Bial’s father’s
bank and the heft of the business he wuz a doin’.

And I finally got so worked up in my mind that I gin a sly hint to Abram Gee,
that if he ever wanted to get Ardelia Tutt, he had better make a summer trip to
Saratoga. I never told Ardelia what I had done, but trusted to a
overrulin’ destiny, that seems to enrap babys, and lunatiks, and soft
little wimmen, when their heads get kinder turned by a man, and to
Abram’s honest face when she should compare it with Bial
Flamburg’s, and to Abram’s pure, sweet breath with that mixture of
stale cigars, tobacco, beer, and peppermint.

But Abram wrote back to me that his mother wuz a lyin’ at the p’int
of death with a fever - that his sister Susan wuz sick a bed with the same
fever and couldn’t come a nigh her and he couldn’t leave what might
be his mother’s death-bed. And he sez, if Ardelia had forgot him in so
short a time, mebby it wuz the best thing he could do, to try and forget her.
Anyway, he wouldn’t leave his dying mother for anything or anybody.

That wuz Abram Gee all over, a doin’ his duty every time by bread and
humanity. But he added a postscript and it wuz wrote in a agitated hand - that
jest as soon as his mother got so he could leave her, he should come to
Saratoga.

The verses that Ardelia sent over to me wuz as follers:

“A LAY ON A FEMALE TROUT IN CENTRAL PARK.

“BY ARDELIA TUTT.



“Oh trout, sweet female trout, oh fain would I

In hottest day, perspirin’ dretfelee

Desend, and dressed most cool like thee, would lie

As deep in water, some two feet, or three

Or even four.



“Who would not dress like thee on summer day?

How cool thy robes—lo! not one boddice waist

Or corset stay, to make thee taper small.

Thou taperest without them, and not then with haste,

Or Bandaline.



“Thou crimpest not, or bangest up thy hair;

Thou hast no hair to bang, sweet trout so dear,

Thou dost not dance round dances, nor repair

Unto the thronged piazzas, nor appear,

Sweet modest trout.



“In long and haughty trains thou never dost appear

And switch them up and down the corredere and hall

With diamond jewels hanging to thy ear;

Thou hast not ears to hang them on, no! not at all.

No, not one ear.



“Thou walkest not in high heeled shoes, thou cannest not

For reesons it were vain to now relate.

Ah no! But let us cast one eye adown thy grot

And see thee sweet and patient wear thy fate,

And wear it well.



“At Garden parties, Race Course, Music Hall,

We ne’er have set our weary eyes thy form upon;

Thou dost not ramble in the crowded maul,

Thou hast no legs sweet trout to ramble on;

Ah! no! dear one.



“And so thou seemest well content to saunter not,

Or waltz about in garments fine and gay;

Oh. Mortal Man! a lesson learn of Trout

If thou no legs hast got, why seek to waltz away,

Or promenade?



“And, beautius female, learn thou of dear trout

So move and swim in thine own native way;

Seek not high stations, titles great, and flout

Not thou at fate, but gently swim away

On native waves.



“Cool blooded hold thy heart, like female trout;

Melt not at sweet, false words, that melt and seeth and burn;

She melteth not, oh no! she cooly turns about

And nibbles on, so thou, and follow on

Sweet female one.”

Chapter IX.

JOSIAH’S FLIRTATIONS.

They say there is a sight of flirtin’ done at Saratoga. I didn’t
hear so much about it as Josiah did, naturally there are things that are talked
of more amongst men than women. Night after night he would come home and tell
me how fashionable it wuz, and pretty soon I could see that he kinder wanted to
follow the fashion.

I told him from the first on’t that he’d better let it entirely
alone. Says I, “Josiah Allen, you wouldn’t never carry it through
successful if you should undertake it—and then think of the wickedness
on’t.”

But he seemed sot. He said “it wuz more fashionable amongst married men
and wimmen, than the more single ones,” he said “it wuz dretful
fashionable amongst pardners.”

“Wall,” says I, “I shall have, nothin’ to do with it,
and I advise you, if you know when you are well off, to let it entirely
alone.”

“Of course,” says he, fiercely, “You needn’t have
nothin’ to do with it. It is nothin’ you would want to foller up.
And I would ruther see you sunk into the ground, or be sunk myself, than to see
you goin’ into it. Why,” says he, savagely, “I would tear a
man lim from lim, if I see him a tryin’ to flirt with you.” (Josiah
Allen worships me.) “But,” says he, more placider like, “men
have to do things sometimes, that they know is too hard for their pardners to
do—men sometimes feel called upon to do things that their pardners
don’t care about—that they haint strong enough to tackle. Wimmen
are fragile creeters anyway.”

“Oh, the fallacy of them arguments—and the weakness of ’em.

But I didn’t say nothin’ only to reiterate my utterance, that
“if he went into it, he would have to foller it up alone, that he
musn’t expect any help from me.”

“Oh no!” says he. “Oh! certainly not.”

His tone wuz very genteel, but there seemed to be sumthin’ strange in it.
And I looked at him pityin’ly over my specks. The hull idea on it wuz
extremely distasteful to me, this talk about flirtin’, and etc., at our
ages, and with our stations in the Jonesville meetin’ house, and with our
grandchildren.

But I see from day to day that he wuz a hankerin’ after it, and I almost
made up my mind that I should have to let him make a trial, knowin’ that
experience wuz the best teacher, and knowin’ that his morals wuz sound,
and he wuz devoted to me, and only went into the enterprize because he thought
it wuz fashionable.

There wuz a young English girl a boardin’ to the same place we did. She
dressed some like a young man, carried a cane, etc. But she wuz one of the
upper 10, and wuz as pretty as a picture, and I see Josiah had kinder sot his
eyes on her as bein’ a good one to try his experiment with. He thought
she wuz beautiful. But good land! I didn’t care. I liked her myself. But
I could see, though he couldn’t see it, that she wuz one of the girls who
would flirt with the town pump, or the meetin’ house steeple, if she
couldn’t get nobody else to flirt with. She wuz born so, but I suppose
ontirely unbeknown to her when she wuz born.

Wall, Josiah Allen would set and look at her by the hour—dretful
admirin’. But good land! I didn’t care. I loved to look at her
myself. And then too I had this feelin’ that his morals wuz sound. But
after awhile, I could see, and couldn’t help seein’, that he wuz a
tryin’ in his feeble way to flirt with her. And I told him kindly, but
firmly, “that it wuz somethin’ that I hated to see a goin’
on.”

But he says, “Well, dumb it all, Samantha, if anybody goes to a
fashionable place, they ort to try to be fashionable. ’Taint
nothin’ I want to do, and you ort to know it.”

And I says in pityin’ axents but firm, “If you don’t want to,
Josiah, I wouldn’t, fashion or no fashion.”

But I see I couldn’t convince him, and there happened to be a skercity of
men jest then—and he kep’ it up, and it kep’ me on the key
veav, as Maggie says, when she is on the tenter hooks of suspense.

I felt bad to see it go on, not that I wuz jealous, no, my foretop lay smooth
from day to day, not a jealous hair in it, not one—but I felt sorry for
my companion. I see that while the endurin’ of it wuz hard and tejus for
him (for truly he was not a addep at the business; it come tuff, feerful tuff
on him), the endin’ wuz sure to be harder. And I tried to convince him,
from a sense of duty, that she wuz makin’ fun of him—he had told me
lots of the pretty things she had said to him—and out of principle I told
him that she didn’t mean one word of ’em. But I couldn’t
convince him, and as is the way of pardners, after I had sot the reasen and the
sense before him, and he wouldn’t hear to me, why then I had to set down
and bear it. Such is some of the trials of pardners?

Wall, it kep’ agoin’ on, and a goin’ on, and I kep’ a
hatin’ to see it, for if anybody has got to flirt, which I am far from
approvin’ of, but if I have got to see it a goin’ on, I would fain
see it well done, and Josiah’s efforts to flirt wuz like an effort of our
old mair to play a tune on the melodian, no grace in it, no system, nor comfort
to him, nor me.

I s’pose the girl got some fun out of it; I hope she did, for if she
didn’t it wuz a wearisome job all round.

Wall, a week or so rolled on, and it wuz still in progress. And one day an old
friend of ours, Miss Ezra Balch, from the east part of Jonesville, come to see
me. She come to Saratoga for the rheumatiz, and wuz gettin’ well fast,
and Ezra was gettin’ entirely cured of biles, for which he had come,
carbunkles.

Wall, she invited Josiah and me to take a ride with ’em, and we both
accepted of it, and at the appointed time I wuz ready to the minute, down on
the piazza, with my brown cotton gloves on, and my mantilly hung gracefully
over my arm. But at the last minute, Josiah Allen said “he couldn’t
go.”

I says “Why can’t you go?”

“Oh,” he says, kinder drawin’ up his collar, and
smoothin’ down his vest, “Oh, I have got another engagement.”

He looked real high-headed, and I says to him:

“Josiah Allen didn’t you promise Druzilla Balch that you would go
with her and Ezra to-day?”

“Wall yes,” says he, “but I can’t.”

“Why not?” says I.

“Wall, Samantha, though they are well meanin’, good people, they
haint what you may call fashionable, they haint the upper 10.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen you have fell over 15 cents in my estimation, sense
we have begun talkin’, you won’t go with ’em because they
haint fashionable. They are good, honest Christian Methodists, and have stood
by you and me many a time, in times of trouble, and now,” says I,
“you turn against ’em because they haint fashionable.” Says
I, “Josiah Allen where do you think you’ll go to?”

“Oh, probable down through Congress Park, and we may walk up as fur as
the Indian Encampment. I feel kinder mauger to-day, and my corns ache
feerful.” (His boots wuz that small that they wuz sights to behold,
sights!) “We probably shan’t walk fur,” says he.

I see how ’twuze in a minute. That English girl had asked him to walk
with her, and my pardner had broken a solemn engagement with Ezra and Druzilla
Balch to go a walkin’ with her. I see how ’twuz, but I sot in
silence and one of the big rockin’ chairs, and didn’t say
nothin’.

Finally he says, with a sort of a anxious look onto his foreward:

“You don’t feel bad, do you Samantha? You haint jealous, are
you?”

“Jealous!” says I, a lookin’ him calmly over from head to
feet—it wuz a witherin’ look, and yet pitiful, that took in the
hull body and soul, and weighed ’em in the balances of common sense, and
pity, and justice. It wuz a look that seemed to envelop him all to one time,
and took him all in, his bald head, his vest, and his boots, and his mind (what
he had), and his efforts to be fashionable, and his trials and tribulations at
it, and—and everything. I give him that one long look, and then I says:

“Jealous? No, I haint jealous.”

Then silence rained again about us, and Josiah spoke out (his conscience was a
troublin’ him), and he says:

“You know in fashionable life, Samantha, you have to do things which seem
unkind, and Ezra, though a good, worthy man, can’t understand these
things as I do.”

Says I: “Josiah Allen, you’ll see the day that you’ll be
sorry for your treatment of Druzilla Balch, and Ezra.”

“Oh wall,” says he, pullin’ up his collar, “I’m
bound to be fashionable. While I can go with the upper 10, it is my duty and my
privilege to go with ’em, and not mingle in the lower classes like the
Balches.”

Says I firmly, “You look out, or some of them 10 will be the death of
you, and you may see the day that you will be glad to leave ’em, the hull
10 of em, and go back to Druzilla and Ezra Balch.”

But what more words might have passed between us, wuz cut short by the arrival
of Ezra and Druzilla in a good big carriage, with Miss Balch on the back seat,
and Ezra acrost from her, and a man up in front a drivin’. It wuz a good
lookin’ sight, and I hastened down the steps, Josiah disappearin’
inside jest as quick as he ketched sight of their heads.

They asked me anxiously “where Josiah wuz and why he didn’t
come?” And I told ’em, “that Josiah had told me that
mornin’ that he felt manger, and he had some corns that wuz a
achin’.”

So much wuz truth, and I told it, and then moved off the subject, and they
seein’ my looks, didn’t pursue it any further. They proposed to go
back to their boardin’ place, and take in Deacon Balch, Ezra’s
brother from Chicago, who wuz stayin’ there a few days to recooperate his
energies, and get help for tizick. So they did. He wuz a widowed man. Yes, he
was the widower of Cornelia Balch who I used to know well, a good lookin’
and a good actin’ man. And he seemed to like my appeerance pretty well,
though I am fur from bein’ the one that ort to say it.

And as we rolled on over the broad beautiful road towards Saratoga Lake, I
begun to feel better in my mind.

The Deacon wuz edifyin’ in conversation, and he thought, and said,
“that my mind was the heftiest one that he had ever met, and he had met
hundreds and hundreds of ’em.” He meant it, you could see that, he
meant every word he said. And it wuz kind of comfortin’ to hear the
Deacon say so, for I respected the Deacon, and I knew he meant just what he
said.

He said, and believed, though it haint so, but the Deacon believed it,
“that I looked younger than I did the day I wuz married.”

I told him “I didn’t feel so young.”

“Wall,” he said, “then my looks deceived me, for I looked as
young, if not younger.”

Deacon Balch is a good, kind, Christian man.

His conversation was very edifyin’, and he looked kinder good, and
warm-hearted at me out of his eyes, which wuz blue, some the color of my
Josiah’s. But alas! I felt that though some comforted and edified by his
talk, still, my heart was not there, not there in that double buggy with 2
seats, but wuz afur off with my pardner. I felt that Josiah Allen wuz a
carryin’ my heart with him wherever he wuz a goin’. Curious, haint
it? Now you may set and smile, and talk, and seem to be enjoyin’ yourself
first-rate, with agreeable personages all around you, and you do enjoy yourself
with that part of your nater. But with it all, down deep under the laughs, and
the bright words, the comfort you get out of the answerin’ laughs, the
gay talk, under it all is the steady consciousness that the real self is fur
away, the heart, the soul is fur away, held by some creeter whether he be high,
or whether he be low, it don’t matter—there your heart is, a
goin’ towards happiness, or a travellin’ towards pain as the case
may be—curious, haint it?

Wall, Ezra and Druzilla wanted to go to the Sulphur Springs way beyend Saratoga
Lake, and as the Deacon wuz agreeable, and I also, we sot out for it, though,
as we all said, it wuz goin’ to be a pretty long and tegus journey for a
hot day. But we went along the broad, beautiful highway, by the high, handsome
gates of the Racing Park, down, down, by handsome houses and shady woods, and
fields of bright-colored wild flowers on each side of the road, down to the
beautiful lake, acrost it over the long bridge, and then into the long, cool
shadows of the bendin’ trees that bend over the road on each side, while
through the green boughs, jest at our side we could ketch a sight of the blue,
peaceful waters, a lyin’ calm and beautiful jest by the side of
us—on, on, through the long, sheltered pathway, out into the sunshine for
a spell, with peaceful fields a layin’ about us, and peaceful cattle a
wanderin’ over ’em, and then into the shade agin, till at last we
see a beautiful mountin’, with its head held kinder high, crowned with
ferns and hemlocks, and its feet washed by the cool water of the beautiful
lake.

The shadows of this mountin’, tree crowned, lay on the smooth, placid
wave, and a white sail boat wuz a comin’ round the side on’t, and
floatin’ over the green, crystal branches, and golden shadows. It wuz a
fair seen, seen for a moment, and then away we went into the green shadows of
the woods again, round a corner, and here we wuz, at the Sulphur Springs.

It wuz a quiet peaceful spot. The house looked pleasant, and so did the
Landlord, and Landlady, and we dismounted and walked through a long clean hall,
and went out onto a back piazza and sot down. And I thought as I sot there,
that I would be glad enough to set there, for some time. Everything looked so
quiet and serene. The paths leadin’ up the hills in different directions,
out into the green woods, looked quiet; the pretty, grassy backyard
leadin’ down to the water side looked green and peaceable, and around
all, and beyond all, wuz the glory of the waters. They lay stretched out
beautiful and in heavenly calm, and the sun, which wuz low in the West, made a
gold path acrost ’em, where it seemed as if one could walk over only a
little ways, into Perfect Repose. The Lake somehow looked like a glowin’
pavement, it didn’t look like water, but it seemed like broad fields of
azure and palest lavender, and pinky grey, and pearly white, and every soft and
delicate color that water could be crystalized into. And over all lay the
glowin’, tender sunset skies—it wuz a fair seen. And even as I
looked on in a almost rapped way, the sun come out from behind a soft cloud,
and lay on the water like a pillow of fire jest as I dream that pillow did,
that went ahead of my old 4 fathers.

The rest on ’em seemed to be more intent on the lemonade with 2 straws in
’em. I didn’t make no fuss. They are nice, clean folks, I make no
doubt. I wouldn’t make no fuss and tell on the hired man—women of
the house have enough to worry ’em anyway. But he had dropped some straws
into our tumblers, every one on ’em, I dare presume to say they had been
a fillin’ straw ticks. I jest took mine out in a quiet way, and throwed
’em to one side. The rest on ’em, I see, and it wuz real good in
’em, drinked through ’em, as we used to at school. It wuz real good
in Druzilla, and Ezra, and also in the Deacon. It kinder ondeared the hull on
’em to me. I hope this won’t be told of, it orto be kep—for
he wuz a goodnatured lookin’ hired man, black, but not to blame for
that—and good land! what is a straw?—anyway they wuz clean.

There wuz some tents sot up there in the back yard, lookin’ some as I
s’pose our old 4 fathers tents did, in the pleasant summer times of old.
And I asked a bystander a standin’ by, whose tents they wuz, and he said
they wuz Free Thinkers havin’ a convention.

And I says, “How free?”

And he said “they wuz great cases to doubt everything, they doubted
whether they wuz or not, and if they wuz or when, and if so, why?”

And he says, “won’t you stay to-night over and attend the
meetin’?”

And I says, “What are they goin’ to teach tonight?”

And he says, “The Whyness of the What”

I says, “I guess that is too deep a subject for me to tackle,” and
says I, “Don’t they believe anything easier than that?”

And he says, “They don’t believe anything. That is their
belief—to believe nothin’.”

“Nothin’!” says I.

“Yes,” says he, “Nothin’.” And, says he,
“to-morrer they are goin’ to prove beyond any question, that there
haint any God, nor anything, and never wuz anything.”

“Be they?” sez I.

“Yes,” says he, “and won’t you come and be
convinced?”

I looked off onto the peaceful waters, onto the hills that lay as the mountains
did about Jerusalem, onto the pillow of fire that seemed to hold in it the
flames of that light that had lighted the old world onto the mornin’ of
the new day,—and one star had come out, and stood tremblin’ over
the brow of the mountain and I thought of that star that had riz so long time
ago, and had guided the three wise men, guided ’em jest alike from their
three different homes, entirely unbeknown to each other, guidin’
’em to the cradle where lay the infant Redeemer of the world, so long
foretold by bard and prophet. I looked out onto the heavenly glory of the day,
and then inside into my heart, that held a faith jest as bright and
undyin’ as the light of that star—and I says, “No, I guess I
won’t go and be convinced.”

Wall, we riz up to go most immediately afterwerds, and the Deacon (he is very
smart) observed:

“How highly tickled and even highlarious the man seemed in talkin’
about there not bein’ any future.” And he says, “It wuz a
good deal like a man laughin’ and clappin’ his hands to see his
house burn down”

And I sez, “it wuz far wurse, for his home wouldn’t stand
more’n a 100 years or so, and this home he wuz a tryin’ to destroy,
wuz one that would last through eternity.” “But,” says I,
“it hain’t built by hands, and I guess their hands hain’t
strong enough to tear it down, nor high enough to set fire to it.”

And the Deacon says, “Jest so, Miss Allen, you spoke truthfully, and
eloquent.” (The Deacon is very smart.)

When we got into the buggy to start, the Deacon says, “I would like to
resoom the conversation with you, Josiah Allen’s wife, a goin’
back.”

And Druzilla spoke right out and says, “I will set on the front seat by
Ezra.” I says, “Oh no, Druzilla, I can hear the Deacon from where I
sot before.”

But the Deacon says, Talkin’ loud towards night always offected his voice
onpleasantly, mebby Druzilla and he had better change seats.

Again I demurred. And then Druzilla said she must set by Ezra, she wanted to
tell him sumthin’ in confidence.

And so it wuz arraigned, for I felt that I wuz not the one to come between
pardners, no indeed. The road laid peacefuller and beautifuller than ever, or
so it seemed under the sunset glory that sort o’ hung round it. Jest
about half way through the woods we met the English girl, a stridin’
along alone, each step more’n 3 feet long, or so it seemed to me. There
wuz a look of health, and happy determination on her forwerd as she strided
rapidly by.

I would have fain questioned her concernin’ my pardner, as she strode by,
but before I could call out, or begon to her she wuz far in the rearwerd, and
goin’ in a full pressure and in a knot of several miles an hour.

Wall, from that minute I felt strange and curious. And though Druzilla and Ezra
was agreeable and the Deacon edifyin’, I didn’t seem to feel
edified, and the most warm-hearted looks didn’t seem to warm my heart
none, it wuz oppressed with gloomy forebodings of, Where wuz my pardner? They
had laid out to set out together. Had they sot? This question was a
goverin’ me, and the follerin’ one: If they had sot out together,
where wuz my pardner, Josiah Allen, now? As I thought these feerful thoughts,
instinctively I turned around to see if I could see a trace of his companion in
the distance. Yes, I could ketch a faint glimpse of her as she wuz
mountin’ a diclivity, and stood for an instant in sight, but long before
even, she disopeered agin, for her gait wuz tremendous, and at a rate of a good
many knots she wuz a goin’, that I knew. And the fearful thought would
rise, Josiah Allen could not go more than half a knot, if he could that. He wuz
a slow predestinatur any way, and then his corns was feerful, and never could
be told—and his boots had in ’em the elements of feerful
sufferin’. It wuz all he could do when he had ’em on to hobble down
to the spring, and post-office. Where? where wuz he? And she a goin’ at
the rate of so many knots.

Oh! the agony of them several minutes, while these thoughts wuz rampagin
through my destracted brain.

Oh! if pardners only knew the agony they bring onto their devoted companions,
by their onguarded and thoughtless acts, and attentions to other females, gin
without proper reseerch and precautions, it would draw their liniments down
into expressions of shame and remorse. Josiah wouldn’t have gone with her
if he had known the number of knots she wuz a goin’, no, not one
step—then why couldn’t he have found out the number of them
knots—why couldn’t he? Why can’t pardners look ahead and see
to where their gay attentions, their flirtations that they call mild and
innercent, will lead ’em to? Why can’t they realize that it haint
only themselves they are injurin’, but them that are bound to ’em
by the most sacred ties that folks can be twisted up in? Why can’t they
realize that a end must come to it, and it may be a fearful and a shameful one,
and if it is a happiness that stops, it will leave in the heart when happiness
gets out, a emptiness, a holler place, where like as not onhappiness will get
in, and mebby stay there for some time, gaulin’ and heart-breakin’
to the opposite pardner to see it go on?

If it is indifference, or fashion, or anything of that sort, why it don’t
pay none of the time, it don’t seem to me it duz, and the end will be
emptier and hollerer then the beginnin’.

In the case of my pardner it wuz fashion, nothing but the butterfly of fashion
he wuz after, to act in a high-toned, fashionable manner, like other
fashionable men. And jest see the end on’t why he had brought
sufferin’ of the deepest dye onto his companion, and what, what hed he
brought onto himself—onto his feet?

Oh! the agony of them several moments while them thoughts was a rackin’
at me. The moments swelled out into a half hour, it must have been a long half
hour, before I see far ahead, for the eyes of love is keen - a form a
settin’ on the grass by the wayside, that I recognized as the form of my
pardner. As we drew nearer we all recognized the figure—but Josiah Allen
didn’t seem to notice us. His boots was off, and his stockin’s, and
even in that first look I could see the agony that was a rendin’ them
toes almost to burstin’. Oh, how sorry I felt for them toes! He was a
restin’ in a most dejected and melancholy manner on his hand, as if it
wuz more than sufferin’ that ailed him—he looked a sufferer from
remorse, and regret, and also had the air of one whom mortification has
stricken.

He never seemed to sense a thing that wuz passin’ by him, till the driver
pulled up his horses clost by him, and then he looked up and see us. And far be
it from me to describe the way he looked in his lowly place on the grass. There
wuz a good stun by him on which he might have sot, but no, he seemed to feel
too mean to get up onto that stun; grass, lowly, unassumin’ grass, wuz
what seemed to suit him best, and on it he sot with one of his feet stretched
out in front of him.

Oh! the pitifulness of that look he gin us, oh! the meakinness of it. And even,
when his eye fell on the Deacon a settin’ by my side, oh! the wild gleam
of hatred, and sullen anger that glowed within his orb, and revenge! He looked
at the Deacon, and then at his boots, and I see the wild thought wuz a
enterin’ his sole, to throw that boot at him. But I says out of that
buggy the very first thing the words I have so oft spoke to him in hours of
danger:

“Joisiah, be calm!”

His eye fell onto the peaceful grass agin, and he says: “Who hain’t
a bein’ calm? I should say I wuz calm enough, if that is what you
want.”

But, oh, the sullenness of that love.

Says Ezra, good man—he see right through it all in a minute, and so did
Druzilla and the Deacon—says Ezra, “Get up on the seat with the
driver, Josiah Allen, and drive back with us.”

“No,” says Josiah, “I have no occasion, I am a settin’
here,” (looking round in perfect agony) “I am a settin’ here
to admire the scenery.”

Then I leaned over the side of the buggy, and says I, “Josiah Allen, do
you get in and ride, it will kill you to walk back; put on your boots if you
can, and ride, seein’ Ezra is so perlite as to ask you.”

“Yes, I see he is very perlite, I see you have set amongst very perlite
folks, Samantha,” says he, a glarin’ at Deacon Balch as if he would
rend him from lim to lim, “But as I said, I have no occasion to ride, I
took off my boots and stockin’s merely—merely to pass away time.
You know at fashionable resorts,” says he, “it is sometimes hard
for men to pass away time.”

Says I in low, deep accents, “Do put on your stockin’s, and your
boots, if you can get ’em on, which I doubt, but put your stockin’s
on this minute, and get in, and ride.”

“Yes,” says Ezra, “hurry up and get in, Josiah Allen, it must
be dretful oncomfortabe a settin’ down there in the grass.”

“Oh, no!” says Josiah, and he kinder whistled a few bars of no tune
that wuz ever heard on, or ever will be heard on agin, so wild and meloncholy
it wuz—“I sot down here kind o’ careless. I thought
seein’ I hadn’t much on hand to do at this time o’ year, I
thought I would like to look at my feet—we hain’t got a very big
lookin’ glass in our room.”

Oh, how incoherent and over-crazed he was a becomin’! Who ever heard of
seein’ anybody’s feet in a lookin’ glass—of
dependin’ on a lookin’ glass for a sight on ’em? Oh, how I
pitied that man! and I bent down and says to him in soothin’ axents:
“Josiah Allen, to please your pardner you put on your stockin’s and
get into this buggy. Take your boots in your hand, Josiah, I know you
can’t get ’em on, you have walked too far for them corns. Corns
that are trampled on, Josiah Allen, rise up and rends you, or me, or anybody
else who owns ’em or tramples on ’em. It hain’t your fault,
nobody blames you. Now get right in.”

“Yes, do,” says the Deacon.

Oh! the look that Josiah Allen gin him. I see the voyolence of that look, that
rested first on the Deacon, and then on that, boot.

And agin I says, “Josiah Allen.” And agin the thought of his own
feerful acts, and my warnin’s came over him, and again mortification
seemed to envelop him like a mantilly, the tabs goin’ down and
coverin’ his lims—and agin he didn’t throw that boot. Agin
Deacon Balch escaped oninjured, saved by my voice, and Josiah’s inward
conscience, inside of him.

Wall, suffice it to say, that after a long parley, Josiah Allen wuz a
settin’ on the high seat with the driver, a holdin’ his boots in
his hand, for truly no power on earth could have placed them boots on Josiah
Allen’s feet in the condition they then wuz.

And so he rode on howewards, occasionally a lookin’ down on the Deacon
with looks that I hope the recordin’ angel didn’t photograph, so
dire, and so revengeful, and jealous, and—and everything, they wuz. And
ever, after ketchin’ the look in my eye, the look in his’n would
change to a heart-rendin’ one of remorse, and sorrow, and shame for what
he had done. And the Deacon, wantin’ to be dretful perlite to him, would
ask him questions, and I could see the side of Josiah’s face, all
glarin’ like a hyena at the sound of his voice, and then he would turn
round and ossume a perlite genteel look as he answered him, and then he glare
at me in a mad way every time I spoke to the Deacon, and then his mad look
would change, even to one of shame and meakinness. And he in his stockin’
feet, and a pertendin’ that he didn’t put his boots on, because it
wuzn’t wuth while to put ’em on agin so near bed-time. And he that
sot out that afternoon a feelin’ so haughty, and lookin’ down on
Ezra and Druzilla, and bein’ brung back by ’em, in that
condition—and bein’ goured all the time by thoughts of the
ignominious way his flirtin’ had ended, by her droppin’ him by the
side of the road, like a weed she had trampled on too hardly. And a bein’
gourded deeper than all the rest of his agonies, by a senseless jealousy of
Deacon Balch—and a thinkin’ for the first time in his life, what it
would be, if her affections, that had been like a divine beacon to him all his
life, if that flame should ever go out, or ever flicker in its earthly
socket—oh, those thoughts that he had seemed to consider in his own mad
race for fashion—oh, how that sass that had seemed sweet to him as a
gander, oh how bitter and poisonous it wuz to partake of as a goose.

Oh! the agony of that ride. We went middlin’ slow back—and before
we got to Saratoga the English girl went past us, she had been to the Sulphur
Springs and back agin. She didn’t pay no attention to us, for she wuz
alayin’ on a plan in her own mind, for a moonlight pedestrian excursion
on foot, that evenin’, out to the old battle ground of Saratoga.

Josiah never looked to the right hand or the left, as she passed him, at many,
many a knot an hour. And I felt that my pardner’s sufferin from that
cause was over, and mine too, but oh! by what agony wuz it gained. For 3 days
and 3 nights he never stood on any of his feet for a consecutive minute and a
half, and I bathed him with anarky, and bathed his very soul with many a sweet
moral lesson at the same time. And when at last Josiah Allen emerged from that
chamber, he wuz a changed man in his demeanor and liniment, such is the power
of love and womanly devotion.

He never looked at a woman durin’ our hull stay at Saratoga, save with
the eye of a philosopher and a Methodist.

Chapter X.

MISS G. WASHINGTON FLAMM.

Miss G. Washington Flamm is a very fashionable woman. Thomas Jefferson carried
her through a law-suit, and carried her stiddy and safe. (She wuz in the right
on’t, there haint no doubt of that.)

She had come to Jonesville for the summer to board, her husband bein’ to
home at the time in New York village, down on Wall street. He had to stay
there, so she said. I don’t know why, but s’pose sunthin’ wuz
the matter with the wall; anyway he couldn’t leave it. And she went round
to different places a good deal for her health. There didn’t seem to be
much health round where her husband wuz, so she had to go away after it, go a
huntin’ for it, way over to Europe and back ag’in; and away off to
California, and Colorado, and Long Branch, and Newport, and Saratoga, and into
the Country. It made it real bad for Miss Flamm.

Now I always found it healthier where Josiah wuz than in any other place.
Difference in folks I s’pose. But they say there is sights and sights of
husbands and wives jest like Miss Flamm. Can’t find a mite of health
anywhere near where their families is, and have to poke off alone after it. It
makes it real bad for ’em.

But anyway she came to Jonesville for her health. And she hearn of Thomas
Jefferson and employed him. It wuz money that fell onto her from her father, or
that should have fell, that she wuz a tryin’ to git it to fall. And he
won the case. It fell. She wuz rich as a Jew before she got this money, but she
acted as tickled over it as if she wuzn’t worth a cent. (Human nater.)
She paid Thomas J. well and she and Maggie and he got to be quite good friends.

She is a well-meanin’, fat little creeter, what there is of her. I have
seen folks smaller than she is, and then ag’in we seen them that
wuzn’t so small. She is middlin’ good lookin’, not old by any
means, but there is a deep wrinkle plowed right into her forward, and down each
side of her mouth. They are plowed deep. And I have always wondered to myself
who held the plow.

It wuz’nt age, for she haint old enough. Wuz it Worry? That will do as
good a day’s work a plowin’ as any creeter I ever see, and work as
stiddy after it gits to doin’ day’s works in a female’s face.

Waz it Dissatisfaction and Disappointment? They, too, will plow deep furrows
and a sight of ’em. I don’t know what it wuz. Mebby it wuz her
waist and sleeves. Her sleeves wuz so tight that they kep’ her hands
lookin’ a kinder bloated and swelled all the time, and must have been
dretful painful. And her waist—it wuz drawed in so at the bottom, that to
tell the livin’ truth it wuzn’t much bigger’n a pipe’s
tail. It beat all to see the size immegatly above and below, why it looked
perfectly meraculous. She couldn’t get her hands up to her head to save
her life; if she felt her head a tottlin’ off her shoulders she
couldn’t have lifted her hands to have stiddied it, and, of course, she
couldn’t get a long breath, or short ones with any comfort.

Mebby that worried her, and then ag’in, mebby it wuz dogs. I know it
would wear me out to take such stiddy care on one, day and night. I never
seemed to feel no drawin’s to take care of animals, wash ’em, and
bathe ’em, and exercise ’em, etc., etc., never havin’ been in
the menagery line and Josiah always keepin’ a boy to take care of the
animals when he wuzn’t well. Mebby it wuz dogs. Anyway she took splendid
care of hern, jest wore herself out a doin’ for it stiddy day and night
and bein’ trampled on, and barked at almost all the time she wuz a
bringin’ on it up.

Yes, she took perfectly wonderful care on’t, for a woman in her health.
She never had been able to take any care of her children, bein’ very
delicate. Never had been well enough to have any of ’em in the room with
her nights, or in the day time either. They tired her so, and she wuz one of
the wimmen who felt it wuz her duty to preserve her health for her
family’s sake. Though when they wuz a goin’ to get the benefit of
her health I don’t know.

But howsumever she never could take a mite of care of her children, they wuz
brought up on wet nurses, and bottles, etc., etc., and wuz rather weakly, some
on ’em. The nurses, wet and dry ones both, used to gin ’em things
to make ’em sleep, and kinder yank ’em round and scare ’em
nights to keep ’em in the bed, and neglect ’em a good deal, and
keep ’em out in the brilin’ sun when they wanted to see their bows;
and for the same reeson keepin’ em out in their little thin dresses in
the cold, and pinch their little arms black and blue if they went to tell any
of their tricks. And they learnt the older ones to be deceitful and sly and
cowerdly. Learnt ’em to use jest the same slang phrases and low language
that they did; tell the same lies, and so they wuz a spilin’ ’em in
every way; spilin’ their brains with narcotics, their bodies by neglect
and bad usage, and their minds and morals by evil examples.

You see some nurses are dretful good. But Miss Flamm’s health bein’
so poor and her mind bein’ so took up with fashion, dogs, etc., that she
couldn’t take the trouble to find out about their characters and they wuz
dretful poor unbeknown to her. She had dretful bad luck with ’em, and the
last one drinked, so I have been told.

Yes, it made it dretful bad for Miss Flamm that her health was so poor, and her
fashionable engagements so many and arduous that she didn’t have the time
to take a little care of her children and the dog too. For you could see plain,
by the care that she took of that dog, what a splendid hand she would be with
the children, if she only had the time and health.

Why, I don’t believe there wuz another dog in America, either the upper
or lower continent, that had more lovin’, anxus, intelligent, devoted
attention than that dog had, day and night, from Miss Flamm. She took 2 dog
papers, so they say, to get the latest information on the subject; she compared
notes with other dog wimmen, I don’t say it in a runnin’ way at
all. I mean wimmen who have gin their hull minds to dog, havin’, some on
’em, renounced husbands, and mothers, and children for dog sake.

You know there are sich wimmen, and Miss Flamm read up and studied with
constant and absorbed attention all the latest things on dog. Their habits,
their diet, their baths, their robes, their ribbons, and bells, and collars,
their barks—nothin’ escaped her; she put the best things she
learned into practice, and studied out new ones for herself. She said she had
reduced the subject to a science, and she boasted proudly that her dog, the
last one she had, went ahead of any dog in the country. And I don’t know
but it did. I knew it had a good healthy bark. A loud strong bark that must
have made it bad for her in the night. It always slept with her, for she
didn’t dast to trust it out of her sight nights. It had had some spells
in the night, kinder chills, or spuzzums like, and she didn’t dast to be
away from it for a minute.

She wouldn’t let the wet nurse tech it, for her youngest child, little G.
Washington Flamm, Jr., wuzn’t very healthy, and Miss Flamm thought that
mebby the dog might ketch his weakness if the nurse handled it right after she
had been nursin’ the baby. And then she objected to the nurse, so I
hearn, on account of her bein’ wet. She wanted to keep the dog dry. I
hearn this; I don’t know as it wuz so. But I hearn these things long
enough before I ever see her. And when I did see her I see that they
didn’t tell me no lies about her devotion to the dog, for she jest
worshiped it, that was plain to be seen.

Wall, she has got a splendid place at Saratoga; a cottage she calls it. I,
myself, should call it a house, for it is big as our house and Deacon
Peddick’ses and Mr. Bobbett’ses all put together, and I don’t
know but bigger.

Wall, she invited Josiah and me to drive with her, and so her dog and she
stopped for us. (I put the dog first, for truly she seemed to put him forward
on every occasion in front of herself, and so did her high-toned relatives, who
wuz with her.)

Or I s’pose they wuz her relatives for they sot up straight, and wuz
dretful dressed up, and acted awful big-feelin’ and never took no notice
of Josiah and me, no more than if we hadn’t been there. But good land! I
didn’t care for that. What if they didn’t pay any attention to us?
But Josiah, on account of his tryin’ to be so fashionable, felt it
deeply, and he sez to me while Miss Flamm wuz a bendin’ down over the
dog, a talkin’ to him, for truly it wuz tired completely out a
barkin’ at Josiah, it had barked at him every single minute sense we had
started, and she wuz a talkin’ earnest to it a tryin’ to soothe it,
and Josiah whispered to me, “I’ll tell you, Samantha, why them
fellers feel above me; it is because I haint dressed up in sech a dressy
fashion. Let me once have on a suit like their’n, white legs and yellow
trimmin’s, and big shinin’ buttons sot on in rows, and white
gloves, and rosettes in my hat—why I could appear in jest as good company
as they go in.”

Sez I, “You are too old to be dressed up so gay, Josiah Allen. There is a
time for all things. Gay buttons and rosettes look well with brown hair and
sound teeth, but they ort to gently pass away when they do. Don’t talk
any more about it, Josiah, for I tell you plain, you are too old to dress like
them, they are young men.”

“Wall,” he whispered, in deep resolve, “I will have a white
rosette in my hat, Samantha. I will go so far, old or not old. What a sensation
it will create in the Jonesville meetin’-house to see me come a
walkin’ proudly in, with a white rosette in my hat.”

“You are goin’ to walk into meetin’ with your hat on, are
you?” sez I coldly.

“Oh, ketch a feller up. You know what I mean. And don’t you think
I’ll make a show? Won’t it create a sensation in Jonesville?”

Sez I: “Most probable it would. But you haint a goin’ to wear no
bows on your hat at your age, not if I can break it up,” sez I.

He looked almost black at me, and sez he, “Don’t go too fur,
Samantha! I’ll own you’ve been a good wife and mother and all that,
but there is a line that you must stop at. You mustn’t go too fur. There
is some things in which a man must be footloose, and that is in the matter of
dress. I shall have a white rosette on my hat, and some big white buttons up
and down the back of my overcoat! That is my aim, Samantha, and I shall reach
it if I walk through goar.”

He uttered them fearful words in a loud fierce whisper which made the dog bark
at him for more’n ten minutes stiddy, at the top of its voice, and in
quick short yelps.

If it had been her young child that wuz yellin’ at a visitor in that way
and ketchin’ holt of him, and tearin’ at his clothes, the child
would have been consigned to banishment out of the room, and mebby punishment.
But it wuzn’t her babe and so it remained, and it dug its feet down into
the satin and laces and beads of Miss Flamm’s dress, and barked to that
extent that we couldn’t hear ourselves think.

And she called it “sweet little angel,” and told it it might
“bark its little cunnin’ bark.” The idee of a angel
barkin’; jest think on’t. And we endured it as best we could with
shakin’ nerves and achin’ earpans.

It wuz a curius time. The dog harrowin’ our nerve, and snappin’ at
Josiah anon, if not oftener, and ketchin’ holt of him anywhere, and she a
callin’ it a angel; and Josiah a lookin’ so voyalent at it, that it
seemed almost as if that glance could stun it.

It wuz a curius seen. But truly worse wuz to come, for Miss Flamm in an
interval of silence, sez, “We will go first to the Gizer Spring, and
then, afterwards, to the Moon.”

Or, that is what I understand her to say. And though I kep’ still, I wuz
determined to keep my eyes out, and if I see her goin’ into anything
dangerus, I wuz goin’ to reject her overtures to take us. But thinkses I
to myself, “We always said I believed we should travel to the stars some
time, but I little thought it would be to-day, or that I should go in a
buggy.”

Josiah shared my feelin’s I could see, for he whispered to me,
“Don’t le’s go, Samantha, it must be dangerus!”

But I whispered back, “Le’s wait, Josiah, and see. We won’t
do nothin’ percipitate, but,” sez I, “this is a chance that
we most probable never will have ag’in. Don’t le’s be
hasty.” We talked these things in secret, while Miss Flamm wuz a
bendin’ over, and conversin’ with the dog. For Josiah would ruther
have died than not be s’pozed to be “Oh Fay,” as Maggie would
say, in everything fashionable. And it has always been my way to wait and see,
and count 10, or even 20, before speakin’.

And then Miss Flamin sez sunthin’ about what beautiful fried potatoes you
could get there in the moon, and you could always get them, any time you wanted
’em.

And the very next time she went to kissin’ the dog so voyalently as not
to notice us, my Josiah whispered to me and sez, “Did you have any idee
that wuz what the old man wuz a doin’? I knew he wuz always a
settin’ up there in the moon, but it never passed my mind that he wuz a
fryin’ potatoes.”

But I sez, “Keep still, Josiah. It is a deep subject, a great
undertakin’, and it requires caution and deliberation.”

But he sez,”I haint a goin’, Samantha! Nor I haint a goin’ to
let you go. It is dangerus.”

But I kinder nudged him, for she had the dog down on her lap, and was ready to
resoom conversation. And about that time we got to the entrance of the spring,
and one of her relatives got down and opened the carriage door.

I wondered ag’in that she didn’t introduce us. But I didn’t
care if she didn’t. I felt that I wuz jest as good as they wuz, if they
wuz so haughty. But Josiah wantin’ to make himself agreeable to ’em
(he hankers after gettin’ into high society), he took off his hat and
bowed low to ’em, before he got out, and sez he, “I am proud to
know you, sir,” and tried to shake hands with him. But the man rejected
his overtoors and looked perfectly wooden, and oninterested. A
big-feelin’, high-headed creeter. Josiah Allen is as good as he is any
day. And I whispered to him and sez, “Don’t demean yourself by
tryin’ to force your company onto them any more.”

“Wall,” he whispered back, “I do love to move in high
circles.”

Sez I, “Then I shouldn’t think you would be so afraid of the
undertakin’ ahead on us. If neighborin’ with the old man in the
moon, and eatin’ supper with him, haint movin’ in high circles,
then I don’t know what is.”

“But I don’t want to go into anything dangerus,” sez he.

But jest then Miss Flamm.spoke to me, and I moved forward by her side and into
a middlin’ big room, and in the middle wuz a great sort of a well like,
with the water a bubblin’ up into a clear crystal globe, and a
sprayin’ up out of it, in a slender misty sparklin’ spray. It wuz a
pretty sight. And we drinked a glass full of it a piece, and then we wandered
out of the back door-way, and went down into the pretty; old-fashioned garden
back of the house.

Josiah and me and Miss Flamm went. The dog and the two relatives didn’t
seem to want to go. The relatives sot up there straight as two sticks, one of
’em holdin’ the dog, and they didn’t even look round at us.

“Felt too big to go with us,” sez Josiah, bitterly, as we went down
the steps. “They won’t associate with me.”

“Wall, I wouldn’t care if I wuz in your place, Josiah Allen,”
sez I, “you are jest as good as they be, and I know it.”

“You couldn’t make ’em think so, dumb ’em,” sez
he.

I liked the looks of it down there. It seems sometimes as if Happiness gets
kinder homesick, in the big dusty fashionable places, and so goes back to the
wild, green wood, and kinder wanders off, and loafs round, amongst the pine
trees, and cool sparklin’ brooks and wild flowers and long shinin’
grasses and slate stuns, and etc., etc.

I don’t believe she likes it half so well up in the big hotel gardens or
Courtin’ yards, as she does down there. You see it seems as if Happiness
would have to be more dressed up, up there, and girted down, and stiff
actin’, and on her good behavior, and afraid of actin’ or
lookin’ onfashionable. But down here by the side of the quiet little
brook, amongst the cool, green grasses, fur away from diamonds, and satins, and
big words, and dogs, and parasols, and so many, many that are a chasin’
of her and a follerin’ of her up, it seemed more as if she loved to get
away from it all, and get where she could take her crown off, lay down her
septer, onhook her corset, and put on a long loose gown, and lounge round and
enjoy herself (metafor).

We had a happy time there. We went over the little rustick bridges which would
have been spilte in my eyes if they had been rounded off on the edges, or a
mite of paint on ’em. Truly, I felt that I had seen enough of paint and
gildin’ to last me through a long life, and it did seem such a treat to
me to see a board ag’in, jest a plain rough bass-wood board, and some
stuns a lyin’ in the road, and some deep tall grass that you had to sort
a wade through.

Miss Flamm seemed to enjoy it some down there, though she spoke of the dog,
which she had left up with her relatives.

“3 big-feelin’ ones together,” I whispered to Josiah.

And he sez, “Yes, that dog is a big-feelin’ little cuss-tomer. And
if I wuz a chipmunk he couldn’t bark at me no more than he duz.”

And I looked severe at Josiah and sez I, “If you don’t jine your
syllables closer together you will see trouble, Josiah Allen. You’ll find
yourself swearin’ before you know it.”

“Oh shaw, sez he, “customer haint a swearin’ word; ministers
use it. I’ve hearn ’em many a time.”

“Yes,” sez I, “but they don’t draw it out as you did,
Josiah Allen.”

“Oh! wall! Folks can’t always speak up pert and quick when they are
off on pleasure exertions and have been barked at as long as I have been. But
now I’ve got a minutes chance,” sez he, “let me tell you
ag’in, don’t you make no arraingments to go to the Moon. It is
dangerus, and I won’t go myself, nor let you go.”

“Let,” sez I to myself. “That is rather of a gaulin’
word to me. Won’t let me go.” But then I thought ag’in, and
thought how love and tenderness wuz a dictatin’ the term, and I thought
to myself, it has a good sound to me, I like the word. I love to hear him say
he won’t let me go.

And truly to me it looked hazerdus. But Miss Flamm seemed ready to go on, and
onwillin’ly I followed on after her footsteps. But I looked ’round,
and said “Good-bye” in my heart, to the fine trees, and cleer,
brown waters of the brook, the grass, and the wild flowers, and the sweet peace
that wuz over all.

“Good-bye,” sez I. “If I don’t see you ag’in,
you’ll find some other lover that will appreciate you, though I am fur
away.”

They didn’t answer me back, none on ’em, but I felt that they
understood me. The pines whispered sunthin’ to each other, and the brook
put its moist lips up to the pebbly shore and whispered sunthin’ to the
grasses that bent down to hear it. I don’t know exactly what it wuz, but
it wuz sunthin’ friendly I know, for I felt it speak right through the
soft, summer sunshine into my heart. They couldn’t exactly tell what they
felt towards me, and I couldn’t exactly tell what I felt towards them,
yet we understood each other; curi’us, haint it?

Wall, we got into the carriage ag’in, one of her relatives gettin’
down to open the door. They knew what good manners is; I’ll say that for
’em. And Miss Flamm took her dog into her arms seemin’ly glad to
get holt of him ag’in, and kissed it several times with a deep love and
devotedness. She takes good care of that dog. And what makes it harder for her
to handle him is, her dress is so tight, and her sleeves. I s’pose that
is why she can’t breathe any better, and what makes her face and hands
red, and kinder swelled up. She can’t get her hands to her head to save
her, and if a assassin should strike her, she couldn’t raise her arm to
ward off the blow if he killed her. I s’pose it worrys her.

And she has to put her bunnet on jest as quick as she gets her petticoats on,
for she can’t lift he arms to save her life after she gets her corsets
on. She owned up to me once that it made her feel queer to be a walkin’
’round her room with not much on only her bunnet all trimmed off with
high feathers and artificial flowers.

But she said she wuz willing to do anythin’ necessary, and she felt that
she must have her waist taper, no matter what stood in the way on’t. She
loves the looks of a waist that tapers. That wuz all the fault she found with
the Goddus of Liberty enlightenin’ the world in New York Harber. We got
to talkin’ about it and she said, “If that Goddus only had corsets
on, and sleeves that wuz skin tight, and her overskirt looped back over a
bustle, it would be perfect!”

But I told her I liked her looks as well ag’in as she wuz.
“Why,” sez I, “How could she lift her torch above her head?
And how could she ever enlighten the world, if she wuz so held down by her
corsets and sleeves that she couldn’t wave her torch?”

She see in a minute that it couldn’t be done. She owned up that she
couldn’t enlighten the world in that condition, but as fur as looks went,
it would be perfectly beautiful.

But I don’t think so at all. But, as I say, Miss Flamm has a real hard
time on’t, all bard down as she is, and takin’ all the care of that
dog, day and night. She is jest devoted to it.

Why jest before we started a little lame girl with a shabby dress, but a face
angel sweet, came to the side of the carriage to sell some water lilies. Her
face looked patient, and wistful, and she jest held out her flowers silently,
and stood with her bare feet on the wet ground and her pretty eyes
lookin’ pitifully into our’n. She wanted to sell ’em awfully,
I could see. And I should have bought the hull of ’em immegitly, my
feelin’s was sech, but onfortionably I had left my port-money in my other
pocket, and Josiah said he had left his (mebby he had). But Miss Flamm would
have bought ’em in a minute, I knew, the child’s face looked so
mournful and appealin’; she would have bought ’em, but she wuz so
engrossed by the dog; she wuz a holdin’ him up in front of her a
admirin’ and carressin’ of him, so’s she never ketched sight
of the lame child.

No body, not the best natured creeter in the world, can see through a dog when
it is held clost up to the eye, closer than anything else.

Wall, we drove down to what they called Vichy Spring and there on a pretty pond
clost to the springhouse, we see a boat with a bycycle on it, and a boy a
ridin’ it. The boat wuz rigged out to look like a swan with its wings a
comin’ up each side of the boy. And down on the water, a sailin’
along closely and silently wuz another swan, a shadow swan, a follerin’
it right along. It wuz a fair seen.

And Josiah sez to me, “He should ride that boat before he left Saratoga;
he said that wuz a undertakin’ that a man might be proud to
accomplish.”

Sez I, “Josiah Allen, don’t you do anything of the kind.”

“I must, Samantha,” sez he. And then he got all animated about
fixin’ up a boat like it at home. Sez he, “Don’t you think it
would be splendid to have one on the canal jest beyond the orchard?” And
sez he, “Mebby, bein’ on a farm, it would be more appropriate to
have a big goose sculptured out on it; don’t you think so?”

Sez I, “Yes, it would be fur more appropriate, and a goose a ridin’
on it. But,” sez I, “you will never go into that undertakin’
with my consent, Josiah Allen.”

“Why,” sez he, “it would be a beautiful recreation; so
uneek.”

But at that minute Miss Flamm gin the order to turn round and start for the
Moon, or that is how I understood her, and I whispered to Josiah and sez,
“She means to go in the buggy, for the land’s sake!”

And Josiah sez, “Wall, I haint a goin’ and you haint. I won’t
let you go into anythin’ so dangerus. She will probably drive into a
baloon before long, and go up in that way, but jest before she drives in, you
and I will get out, Samantha, if we have to walk back.”

“I never heard of anybody goin’ up in a baloon with two horses and
a buggy,” sez I.

“Wall, new things are a happenin’ all the time, Samantha. And I
heard a feller a talkin’ about it yesterday. You know they are a
havin’ the big political convention here, and he said, (he wuz a real
cute chap too,) he said, ‘if the wind wasted in that convention could be
utilized by pipes goin’ up out of the ruff of that buildin’ where
it is held,’ he said, ‘it would take a man up to the moon.’ I
heerd him say it. And now, who knows but they have got it all fixed. There wuz
dretful windy speeches there this mornin’. I hearn ’em, and
I’ll bet that is her idee, of bein’ the first one to try it; she is
so fashionable. But I haint a goin’ up in no sech a way.”

“No,” sez I. “Nor I nuther. It would be fur from my wishes to
be carried up to the skies on the wind of a political convention.
“Though,” sez I reasonably, “I haint a doubt that there wuz
sights, and sights of it used there.”

But jest at this minute Miss Flamm got through talkin’ with her relatives
about the road, and settled down to caressin’ the dog ag’in, and
Josiah hadn’t time to remark any further, only to say, “Watch me,
Samantha, and when I say jump, jump.”

And then we sot still but watchful. And Miss Flamm kissed the dog several times
and pressed him to her heart that throbbed full of such a boundless love for
him. And he lifted his head and snapped at a fly, and barked at my companion
with a renewed energy, and showed his intellect and delightful qualities in
sech remarkable ways, that filled Miss Flamm’s soul deep with a proud joy
in him. And then he went to sleep a layin, down in her lap, a mashin’
down the delicate lace and embroidery and beads. He had been a eating the
beads, I see him gnaw off more than two dozen of ’em, and I called her
attention to it, but she said, “The dear little darlin’ had to have
some such recreation.” And she let him go on with it, a mowin’
’em down, as long as he seemed to have a appetite for ’em. And
ag’in she called him “angel.” The idee of a angel a
gnawin’ off beads and a yelpin’!

And I asked her, and I couldn’t help it. How her baby wuz that afternoon,
and if she ever took it out to drive?

And she said she didn’t really know how it wuz this afternoon; it
wuzn’t very well in the mornin’. The nurse had it out somewhere,
she didn’t really know just where. And she said, no, she didn’t
take it out with her at all—fur she didn’t feel equal to the care
of it, in this hot weather.

Miss Flamm haint very well I could see that. The care of that dog is jest a
killin’ her, a carryin’ it round with her all the time daytimes,
and a bein’ up with it so much nights. She said it had a dretful chill
the night before, and she had to get up to warm blankets to put round it;
“its nerves wuz so weak,” she said, “and it wuz so sensative
that she could not trust it to a nurse.” She has a hard time of it; there
haint a doubt of it.

Wall, it wuz anon, or jest about anon, that Miss Flamm turned to me and sez,
“Moon’s is one of the pleasantest places on the lake. I want you to
see it; folks drive out there a sight from Saratoga.”

And then I looked at Josiah, and Josiah looked at me, and peace and happiness
settled down ag’in onto our hearts.

Wall, we got there considerably before anon and we found that Moon’s
insted of bein’ up in another planet wuz a big, long sort a low
buildin’ settled right down onto this old earth, with a immense piazza
stretchin’ along the side on’t.

And Miss Flamm and Josiah and me disembarked from the carriage right onto the
end of it. But the dog and her relatives stayed back in the buggy and Josiah
spoke bitterly to me ag’in but low, “They think it would hurt
’em to associate with me a little, dumb ’m; but I am jest as good
as they be any day of the week, if I haint dressed up so fancy.”

“That’s so,” sez I, whisperin’ back to him, “and
don’t let it worry you a mite. Don’t try to act like Haman,”
sez I. “You are havin’ lots of the good things of this world, and
are goin’ to have some fried potatoes. Don’t let them two Mordecais
at the gate, poison all your happiness, or you may get come up with jest as
Haman wuz.”

“I’d love to hang’em,” sez he, “as high as
Haman’s gallows would let ’em hang.”

“Why,” sez I, “they haint injured you in any way. They seem
to eat like perfect gentlemen. A little too exclusive and aristocratic, mebby,
but they haint done nothin’ to you.”

“No,” sez he, “that is the stick on it, here we be, three men
with a lot of wimmen. And they can’t associate with me as man with man,
but set off by themselves too dumb proud to say a word to me, that is the dumb
of it.”

But at this very minute, before I could rebuke him for his feerful profanity,
Miss Flamm motioned to us to come and take a seat round a little table, and
consequently we sot.

It was a long broad piazza with sights and sights of folks on it a
settin’ round little tables like our’n, and all a lookin’
happy, and a laughin’, and a talkin’ and a drinkin’ different
drinks, sech as lemonade, etc., and eatin’ fried potatoes and sech.

And out in the road by which we had come, wuz sights and sights of vehicles and
conveyances of all kinds from big Tally Ho coaches with four horses on
’em, down to a little two wheeled buggy. The road wuz full on’em.

In front of us, down at the bottom of a steep though beautiful hill, lay
stretched out the clear blue waters of the lake. Smooth and tranquil it looked
in the light of that pleasant afternoon, and fur off, over the shinin’
waves, lay the island. And white-sailed boats wuz a sailin’ slowly by,
and the shadow of their white sails lay down in the water a floatin’ on
by the side of the boats, lookin’ some like the wings of that white dove
that used to watch over Lake Saratoga.

And as I looked down on the peaceful seen, the feelin’s I had down in the
wild wood, back of the Gizer Spring come back to me. The waves rolled in softly
from fur off, fur off, bringin’ a greetin’ to me unbeknown to
anybody, unbeknown to me. It come into my heart unbidden, unsought, from afur,
afur.

Where did it come from that news of lands more beautiful than any that lay
round Mr. Moons’es, beautiful as it wuz.

Echoes of music sweeter fur than wuz a soundin’ from the band down by the
shore, music heard by some finer sense than heard that, heavenly sweet,
heavenly sad, throbbin’ through the remoteness of that country, through
the nearness of it, and fillin’ my eyes with tears. Not sad tears, not
happy ones, but tears that come only to them that shet their eyes and behold
the country, and love it. The waves softly lappin’ the shore brought a
message to me; my soul hearn it. Who sent it? And where, and when, and why?

Not a trace of these emotions could be read on my countenance as I sot there
calmly a eatin’ fried potatoes. And they did go beyond anything I ever
see in the line of potatoes, and I thought I could fry potatoes with any one:
Yes, such wuz my feelin’s when I sot out for Mr. Moons’es. But I
went back a thinkin’ that potatoes had never been fried by me, sech is
the power of a grand achievment over a inferior one, and so easy is the sails
taken down out of the swellin’ barge of egotism.

No, them potatoes you could carry in your pocket for weeks right by the side of
the finest lace, and the lace would be improved by the purity of ’em.
Fried potatoes in that condition, you could eat ’em with the lightest
silk gloves one and the tips of the fingers would be improved by ’em;
fried potatoes, jest think on’t!

Wall, we had some lemonade too, and if you’ll believe it,—I
don’t s’pose you will but it is the truth,—there wuz straws
in them glasses too. But you may as well believe it for I tell the truth at all
times, and if I wuz a goin’ to lie, I wouldn’t lie about lemons.
And then I’ve always noticed it, that if things git to happenin’ to
you, lots of things jest like it will happen. That made twice in one week or
so, that I had found straws in my tumbler. But then I have had company three
days a runnin’, rainy days too sometimes. It haint nothin’ to
wonder at too much. Any way it is the truth.

Wall, we drinked our lemonade, I a quietly takin’ out the straws and
droppin’ ’em on the floor at my side in a quiet ladylike manner,
and Josiah, a bein’ wunk at by me, doin’ the same thing.

And anon, our carriage drove up to the end of the piazza agin and we sot sail
homewards. And the dog barked at Josiah almost every step of the way back, and
when we got to our boardin’ place, Miss Flamm shook hands with us both,
and her relatives never took a mite of notice of us, further than to jump down
and open the carriage door for us as we got out. (They are genteel in their
manners, and Josiah had to admit that they wuz, much as his feelin’s wuz
hurt by their haughtiness towards him.)

And then the dog, and Miss Flamm and Miss Flamm’s relatives drove off.

Chapter XI.

VISIT TO THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT.

It wuz a fair sunshiny mornin’ (and it duz seem to me that the fairness
of a Saratoga mornin’ seems fairer, and the sunshine more sunshiny than
it duz anywhere else), that Josiah and Ardelia and me sot sail for the Indian
Encampment, which wuz encamped on a little rise of ground to the eastward of
where we wuz.

Ardelia wuz to come to our boardin’ place at halfpast 9 A. M., forenoon,
and we wuz to set out together from there. And punctual to the very half minute
I wuz down on the piazza, with my mantilly hung over my arm and my umberel in
my left hand. Josiah Allen was on the right side on me. And as Ardelia
hadn’t come yet we sot down in a middlin’ quiet part of the piazza,
and waited for her. And as we sot there, I sez to Josiah, as I looked out on
the fair pleasant mornin’ and the fair pleasant faces environin’ of
us round, sez I, “Saratoga is a good-natured place, haint it,
Josiah?”

And he said (I mistrust his corns ached worse than common, or sunthin’),
he said, he didn’t see as it wuz any better-natured than Jonesville or
Loontown.

And I sez, “Yes it is, Josiah Allen.” Sez I, folks are happier here
and more generous, the rich ones seem inclined to help them that need help to a
little comfort and happiness. Jest as I have always said, Josiah Allen. When
folks are happy, they are more inclined to do good.”

“Oh shaw!” sez Josiah. “That never made no difference with
me.”

“What didn’t?” sez I.

“I’m always good,” sez he, and he snapped out the words real
snappish, and loud.

And I sez mildly, “Wall, you needn’t bring the ruff down to prove
your goodness.”

And he went on: “I don’t see as they are so pesky good here; I
haint seen nothin’ of it.”

“Wall,” sez I, “when I look over Yaddo, and Hilton Park, it
makes me reconciled, Josiah, to have men get rich; it makes me willin’,
Josiah.”

And he sez (cross), He guessed men would get rich whether I wuz willin’
or not; he guessed they wouldn’t ask me.

“Wall, you needn’t snap my head off, Josiah Allen,” sez I,
“because I love to see folks use their wealth to make pleasant places for
poor folks to wander round in, and forget their own narrow rocky roads for a
spell. It is a noble thing to do, Josiah Allen; they might have built high
walls round ’em if they had been a mind to, and locked the gates and shet
out all the poor and tired-out ones, But they didn’t, and I am highly
tickled at the thought on’t, Josiah Allen.”

“Wall, I don’t shet up our sugar lot, do I? and I have never heerd
you say one word a praisin’ me up for that.”

“That is far different, Josiah Allen,” sez I, “there is
nothin’ there that can git hurt, only stumps. And you have never laid out
a cent of money on it. And they have spent thousands and thousands of dollars;
and the poorest little child in Saratoga, if it has beauty-lovin’ eyes,
can go in and enjoy these places jest as much as the owners can. And it is a
sweet thought to me, Josiah Allen.”

“Oh wall,” sez he, “you have probable said enough about
it.”

Now I never care for the last word, some wimmen do, but I never do. But still I
wuzn’t goih’ to be shet right eff from talkin’ about these
places, and I intimated as much to him, and he said, “Dumb it all! I
could talk about ’em all day, if I wanted to, and about Demorist’s
Woods too.”

“Wall,” sez I, “that is another place, Josiah Allen, that is
a likely well-meanin’ spot. Middlin’ curius to look at,” sez
I, reesonably. “It makes one’s head feel sort a strange to see them
criss-cross, curius poles, and floors up in trees, and ladders, and
teterin’ boards, and springs, etc., etc., etc. But it is a
well-meanin’ spot, Josiah Allen. And it highly tickled me to think that
the little fresh air children wuz brung up there by the owner of the woods and
the poor little creeters, out of their dingy dirty homes, and filthy air,
wandered round for one happy day in the green woods, in the fresh air and
sunshine. That wuz a likely thing to do, Josiah Allen, and it raises a man more
in my estimation when he’s doin’ sech things as that, than to set
up in a political high chair, and have a lot of dirty hands clapped, and beery
breaths a cheerin’ him on up the political arena.”

“Oh wall,” sez Josiah, “the doin’s in them woods is
enough to make anybody a dumb lunatick. The crazyest lookin’ lot of stuff
I ever set eyes on.”

“Wall, anyway,” sez I, “it is a good crazy, if it is, and a
well-meanin’ one.”

“Oh, how cross Josiah Allen did look as he heered me say these words.
That man can’t bear to hear me say one word a praisin’ up another
man, and it grows on him.

But good land! I am a goin’ to speak out my mind as long as my breath is
spared. And I said quite a number of words more about the deep enjoyment it
gin’ me to see these broad, pleasure grounds free for all, rich and poor,
bond and free, hombly and handsome, etc., etc.

And I spoke about the charitable houses, St. Christiana’s home, and the
Home for Old Female Wimmen, and mentioned the fact in warm tones of how a good,
noble-hearted woman had started that charity in the first on’t.

And Josiah, while I wuz talkin’ about these wimmen, became meak as a
lamb. They seemed to quiet him. He looked real mollyfied by the time Ardelia
got there, which wuz anon. And then we sot sail for the Encampment.

The Encampment is encamped on one end of a big, square, wild-lookin’ lot
right back of one of the biggest tarvens in Saratoga. It is jest as wild
lookin’ and appeerin’ a field as there is in the outskirts of
Loontown or Jonesville. Why Uncle Grant Hozzleton’s stunny pasture
don’t look no more sort a broke up and rural than that duz. I wondered
some why they had it there, and then I thought mebby they kep’ it to
remember Nater by, old Nater herself, that runs a pretty small chance to be
thought on in sech a place as this.

You know there is so much orniment and gildin’ and art in the landscape
and folks, that mebby they might forget the great mother of us all, that is,
right in the thickest of the crowd they might, but they have only to take these
few steps and they will see Ma Nater with her every-day dress on, not fixed up
a mite. And I s’pose she looks good to ’em.

I myself think that Mother Nater might smooth herself out a little there with
no hurt to herself or her children. I don’t believe in Mas goin’
round with their dresses onhooked, and slip-shod, and their hair all
stragglin’ out of their combs. (I say this in metafor. I don’t
spose Ma Nater ever wore a back comb or had hooks and eyes on her gown; I say
it for oritory, and would wish to be took in a oritorius way.

And I don’t say right out, that the reeson I have named is the one why
they keep that place a lookin’ so like furey, I said, mebby. But I will
say this, that it is a wild-lookin’ spot, and hombly.

Wall, on the upper end on’t, standin’ up on the top of a sort of a
hill, the Indian Encampment is encamped. There is a hull row of little stores,
and there is swings, and public diversions of different kinds, krokay grounds,
etc., etc., etc.

Wall, Ardelia stopped at one of these stores kep’ by a Injun, not a West,
but a East one, and began to price some wooden bracelets, and try ’em on,
and Josiah and me wandered on.

And anon, we came to a tent with some good verses of Scripter on it; good solid
Bible it wuz; and so I see it wuz a good creeter in there anyway. And I asked a
bystander a standin’ by, Who wuz in there, and Why, and When?

And he said it wuz a fortune-teller who would look in the pamm of my hand, and
tell me all my fortune that wuz a passin’ by. And I said I guessed I
would go in, for I would love to know how the children wuz that mornin’
and whether the baby had got over her cold. I hadn’t heerd from ’em
in over two days.

Josiah kinder hung ’round outside though he wuz willin’ to have me
go in. He jest worships the children and the baby. And he sees the texts from
Job on it, with his own eyes.

So I bid him a affectionate farewell, and we see the woman a lookin’ out
of the tent and witnessin’ on’t. But I didn’t care. If a pair
of companions and a pair of grandparents can’t act affectionate, who can?
And the world and the Social Science meetin’ might try in vain to bring
up any reeson why they shouldn’t.

So I went in, with my mind all took up with the grandchildern. But the first
words she sez to me wuz, as she looked close at the pamm of my hand,
“Keep up good spirits, Mom; you will get him in spite of all
opposition.”

“Get who?” sez I, “And what?”

“A man you want to marry. A small baldheaded man, a
amiable-lookin’, slender man. His heart is sot on you. And all the
efferts of the light-complected woman in the blue hat will be in vain to break
it up. Keep up good courage, you will marry him in spite of all,” sez
she, porin’ over my pamm and studyin’ it as if it wuz a jography.

“For the land’s sake!” sez I, bein’ fairly stunted with
the idees she promulgated.

“Yes, you will marry him, and be happy. But you have had a sickness in
the past and your line of happiness has been broken once or twice.”

Sez I, “I should think as much; let a woman live with a man, the best man
in the world for 20 years, and if her line of happiness haint broke more than
once or twice, why it speaks well for the line, that is all. It is a good,
strong line.”

“Then you have been married?” says she.

“Yes, Mom,” sez I.

“Oh, I see, down in the corner of your hand is a coffin, you are a widow,
you have seen trouble. But you will be happy. The mild, bald gentleman will
make you happy. He will lead you to the altar in spite of the light-complected
woman with the blue bat on.”

Ardelia Tutt had on a blue hat, the idee! But I let her go on. Thinkses I,
“I have paid my money and now it stands me in hand to get the worth
on’t.” So she comferted me up with the hope of gettin’ my
Josiah for quite a spell.

Gettin’ my pardner! Gettin’ the father of my childern, and the
grandparent of my grandchildren! Jest think on’t, will you?

But then she branched off and told me things that wuz truly wonderful. Where
and how she got ’em wuz and is a mistery to me. True things, and strange.

Why it seemed same as if them tall pines, that wuz a whisperin’ together
over the Encampment wuz a peerin’ over into my past, and a
whisperin’ it down to her. Or, in some way or other, the truth wuz a
bein’ filtered down to her comprehension through some avenue beyond our
sense or sight.

It is a curious thing, so I think, and so Josiah thinks. We talked it over
after I came out, and we wuz a wanderin’ on about the Encampment. I told
him some of the wonderful things she had told me and he didn’t believe
it. “For,” sez he, “I’ll be hanged if I can understand
and I won’t believe anything that I can’t understand!”

And I pointed with the top of my umberel at a weed growin’ by the side of
the road, and sez I, “When you tell me jest how that weed draws out of
the back ground jest the ingredients she needs to make her blue foretop, and
her green gown, then I’ll tell you all about this secret that Nater holds
back from us a spell, but will reveel to us when the time comes.”

“Oh shaw!” sez Josiah, “I guess I know all about a jimson
weed. Why they grow; that is all there is about them. They grow, dumb
’em. I guess if you’d broke your back as many times as I have a
pullin’ ’em up, yon would know all about’ em. Dumb their dumb
picters,” sez he, a scowlin’ at ’em.

It wuz the same kind of weed that growed in our onion beds. I recognized it.
Them and white daisies, our garden wuz overrun by ’em both.

But I sez, “Can you tell how the little seed of this weed goes down into
the earth and selects jest what she wants out of the great storehouse below?
She never comes out in a pink head-dress or a yellow gown. No, she always
selects what will make the blue. It shows that it has life, intelligence, or
else it couldn’t think, way down under the ground, and grope in the dark,
but always gropin’ jest right, always a thinkin’ the right thing,
never, never in the hundreds and thousands of years makin’ a mistake.
Why, you couldn’t do it, Josiah Allen, nor I couldn’t.

“And we set and see these silent mysteries a goin’ on right at our
door-step day by day, and year by year, and think nothin’ of it, because
it is so common. But if anything else, some new law, some new wonder we
don’t understand comes in our way, we are ready to reject it and say it
is a lie. But you know, Josiah Allen,” sez I, jest ready to go on
eloquent -

But I wuz interrupted jest here by my companion hollerin’ up in a loud
voice to a boy, “Here! you stop that, you young scamp! Don’t you
let me see you a doin’ that agin!”

Sez I, “What is it, Josiah Allen?”

“Why look at them young imps, a throwin’ sticks at that feeble old
woman, over there.”

I looked, and my own heart wuz rousted up with indignation. I stood where I
couldn’t see her face, but I see she wuz old, feeble, and bent, a
withered poor old creeter, and they had marked up over her, her name, Aunt
Sally.

I too wuz burnin’ indignant to see a lot of young creeters a
throwin’ sticks at her, and I cried out loud, “Do you let Sarah
be.”

They turned round and laughed in our faces, and I went on: “I’d be
ashamed of myself if I wuz in your places to be a throwin’ sticks at that
feeble old woman. Why don’t you spend your strengths a tryin’ to do
sunthin’ for her? Git her a home, and sunthin’ to eat, and a better
dress. Before I’d do what you are a doin’ now, I’d growvel in
the dust. Why, if you wuz my boys I’d give you as good a spankin’
as you ever had.”

But they jest laughed at us, the impudent Greeters. And one of the boys at that
minute took up a stick and threw it, and hit Sarah right on her poor old head.

Sez Josiah, “Don’t you hit Sarah agin.”

Sez the boys, “We will,” and two of ’em hit her at one time.
And one of ’em knocked the pipe right out of her mouth. She wuz a
smokin’, poor old creeter. I s’pose that wuz all the comfort she
took. But did them little imps care? They knocked her as if they hated the
sight of her. And my Josiah (I wuz proud of that man) jest advanced onto
’em, and took ’em one in each hand, and gin ’em sech a
shakin’, that I most expected to see their bones drop out, and sez he
between each shake, “Will you let Sarah alone now?”

I wuz proud of my Josiah, but fearful of the effect of so much voyalence onto
his constitution, and also onto the boys’ frames. And I advanced onto the
seen of carnage and besought him to be calm. Sez he, “I won’t be
calm!” sez he, “I haint the man, Samantha, to stand by and see one
of your sect throwed at, as I have seen Sarah throwed at, without
avengin’ of it.”

And agin he shook them boys with a vehemence. The pennies and marbles in their
pockets rattled and their bones seemed ready to part asunder. I wuz proud of
that noble man, my pardner. But still I knew that if their bones was shattered
my pardner would be avenged upon by incensed parents. And I sez,
“I’d let ’em go now, Josiah. I don’t believe
they’ll ever harm Sarah agin.” Sez I, “Boys, you won’t,
will you ever strike a poor feeble old woman agin?.” Sez I,
“promise me, boys, not to hurt Sarah.”

I don’t know what the effect of my words would have been, but a man came
up just then and explained to me, that Aunt Sally wuz a image that they throwed
at for one cent apiece to see if they could break her pipe.

I see how it wuz, and cooled right down, and so did Josiah. And he gin the boys
five cents apiece, and quiet rained down on the Encampment.

But I sez to the man, “I don’t like the idee of havin’ my
sect throwed at from day to day, and week to week.” Sez I, “Why
didn’t you have a man fixed up to throw at, why didn’t you have a
Uncle Sam?” Sez I, “I don’t over and above like it; it seems
to be a sort of a slight onto my sect.”

Sez the man winkin’ kind a sly at Josiah, “It won’t do to
make fun of men, men have the power in their hands and would resent it mebby.
Uncle Sam can’t be used jest like Aunt Sally.”

Sez I, “That haint the right spirit. There haint nothin’ over and
above noble in that, and manly.”

I wuz kinder rousted up about it, and so wuz Josiah. And that is I s’pose
the reasun of his bein’ so voyalent, at the next place of recreation we
halted at Josiah see the picture of the mermaid; that beautiful female, a,
settin’ on the rock and combin’ her long golden hair. And he
proposed that we should go in and see it.

Sez I, “It costs ten cents apiece, Josiah Allen. Think of the cost before
it is too late.” Sez I, “Your expenditure of money today has been
unusial.” Sez I, “The sum of ten cents has jest been raised by you
for noble principles, and I honer you for it. But still the money has
gone.” Sez I, “Do you feel able to incur the entire expense?”

Sez he, “All my life, Samantha, I have jest hankered after seein’ a
mermaid. Them beautiful creeters, a settin’ and combin’ their long
golden tresses. I feel that I must see it. I fairly long to see one of them
beautiful, lovely bein’s before I die.”

“Wall,” sez I, “if you feel like that, Josiah Allen, it is
not fur from me to balk you in your search for beauty. I too admire loveliness,
Josiah Allen, and seek after it.” And sez I, “I will faithfully
follow at your side, and together we will bask in the rays of beauty, together
will we be lifted up and inspired by the immortal spirit of loveliness.”

So payin’ our 30 cents we advanced up the steps, I expectin’ soon
to be made happy, and Josiah held up by the expectation of soon havin’
his eyes blest by that vision of enchantin’ beauty, he had so long dremp
of.

He advanced onto the pen first and before I even glanced down into the deep
where as I s’posed she set on a rock a combin’ out her long golden
hair, a singin’ her lurin’ and enchanted song, to distant mariners
she had known, and to the one who wuz a showin’ of her off, before I had
time to even glance at her, the maid, I was dumbfounded and stood aghast, at
the mighty change that came over my pardner’s linement.

He towered up in grandeur and in wrath before me. He seemed almost like a
offended male fowl when ravenin’ hawks are angerin’ of it beyond
its strength to endure. I don’t like that metafor; I don’t love to
compare my pardner to any fowl, wild or tame; but my frenzied haste to describe
the fearful seen must be my excuse, and also my agitation in recallin’ of
it.

He towered up, he fluttered so to speak majestically, and he says in loud wild
axents that must have struck terror to the soul of that mariner, “Where
is the hair-comb?”

And then he shook his fist in the face of that mariner, and cries out once
agin, “Where is them long golden tresses? Bring ’em on this
instant! Fetch on that hair-comb, in a minute’s time, or I’ll
prosecute you, and sue you, and take the law to you - !”

The mariner quailed before him and sez I, “My dear pardner, be calm! Be
calm!”

“I won’t be calm!”

Sez I mildly, but firmly, “You must, Josiah Allen; you must! or you will
break open your own chest. You must be calm.”

“And I tell you I won’t be calm. And I tell you,” says he, a
turnin’ to that destracted mariner agin “I tell you to bring on
that comb and that long hair, this instant. Do you s’pose I’m
goin’ to pay out my money to see that rack-a-bone that I wouldn’t
have a layin’ out in my barn-yard for fear of scerin’ the dumb
scere-crows out in the lot. Do you s’pose I’m goin’ to pay
out my money for seein’ that dried-up mummy of the hombliest thing ever
made on earth, the dumbdest, hombliest; with 2 or 3 horse hairs pasted onto its
yellow old shell! Do you spose I’m goin’ to be cheated by
seein’ that, into thinkin’ it is a beautiful creeter a
playin’ and combin’ her hair? Bring on that beautiful creeter a
combin’ out her long, golden hair this instant, and bring out the comb
and I’ll give you five minutes to do it in.”

He wuz hoorse with emotion, and he wuz pale round his lips as anything and leis
eyes under his forward looked glassy. I wuz fearful of the result.

Thinkses I, I will look and see what has wrecked my pardner’s happiness
and almost reasen. I looked in and I see plain that his agitation was
nothin’ to be wondered at. It did truly seem to be the hombliest,
frightfulest lookin’ little thing that wuz ever made by a benignant
Providence or a taxy-dermis. I couldn’t tell which made it. I see it all,
but I see also, so firm, sot is my reasun onto its high throne on my heart, I
see that to preserve my pardner’s sanity, I must control my reasun at the
sight that had tottered my pardner’s.

I turned to him, and tried to calm the seethin’ waters, but he loudly
called for the comb, and for the tresses, and the lookin’ glass. And,
askin’ in a wild’ sarcastic way where the song wuz that she sung to
mariners? And hollerin’ for him to bring on that rock at that minute, and
them mariners, and ordered him to set her to singin’.

The idee! of that little skeletin with her skinny lips drawed back from her
shinin’ fish teeth, a singin’. The idee on’t!

But truly, he wuz destracted and knew not what he did. The mariner in charge
looked destracted. And the bystanders a standin’ by wuz amazed, and
horrowfied by the spectacle of his actin’ and behavin’. And I knew
not how I should termonate the seen, and withdraw him away from where he wuz.

But in my destraction and agony of sole, I bethought me of one meens of
quietin’ him and as it were terrifyin’ him into silence and be the
meens of gettin’ on him to leave the seen. I begoned to Ardelia to come
forward and I sez in a whisper to her, “Take out your pencil and a piece
of paper and stand up in front of him and go to writin’ some of your
poetry,”

And then I sez agin in tender agents, “Be calm, Josiah.”

“And I tell you that I won’t be calm! And I tell you,” a
shakin’ his fist at that pale mariner, “I tell you to bring
out—“

At that very minute he turned his eyes onto Ardelia, who stood with a kind of a
fur-away look in her eyes in front of him with the paper in her hand, and sez
he to me, “What is she doin’?”

“She is composin’ some poetry onto you, Josiah Allen,” sez I,
in tremblin’ axents; for I felt that if that skeme failed, I wuz undone,
for I knew I had no ingredients there to get him a extra good meal. No, I felt
that my tried and true weepon wuz fur away, and this wuz my last hope.

But as I thought these thoughts with almost a heatlightnin’ rapidety, I
see a change in his liniment. It did not look so thick and dark; it began to
look more natural and clear.

And sez he in the same old way I have heerd him say it so many times,
“Dumb it all! What duz she want to write poetry on me for? It is time to
go home.” And so sayin’, he almost tore us from the seen.

I gin Ardelia that night 2 yards of lute-string ribbon, a light pink, and
didn’t begrech it. But I have never dast, not in his most placid and
serene moments - I have never dast, to say the word “Mermaid’ to
him.

Truly there is something that the boldest female pardner dassent do. Mermaids
is one of the things I don’ dast to bring up. No! no, fur be it from me
to say “Mermaid” to Josiah Allen.

Chapter XII.

A DRIVE TO SARATOGA LAKE.

Josiah and me took a short drive this afternoon, he hirin’ a buggy for
the occasion. He called it “goin’ in his own conveniance,”
and I didn’t say nothin’ aginst his callin’ it so. I
didn’t break it up for this reasun, thinkses I it is a conveniance for us
to ride in it, for us 2 tried and true souls to get off for a minute by
ourselves.

Wall, Josiah wuz dretful good behaved this afternoon. He helped me in a good
deal politer than usual and tucked the bright lap-robe almost tenderly round my
form.

Men do have sech spells. They are dretful good actin’ at times. Why they
act better and more subdueder and mellerer at sometimes than at others, is a
deep subject which we mortals cannot as yet fully understand. Also visey
versey, their cross, up headeder times, over bearin’ and actin’. It
is a deep subject and one freighted with a great deal of freight.

But Josiah’s goodness on this afternoon almost reached the Scripteral and
he sez, when we first sot out, and I see that the horse’s head wuz turned
towards the Lake. Sez he, “I guess we’ll go to the Lake, but where
do you want to go, Samantha? I will go anywhere you want to go.”

And he still drove almost recklessly on lakewards. And sez he, “We had
better go straight on, but say the word, and you can go jest where you want
to.” And he urged the horse on to still greater speed. And he sez agin,
“Do you want to go any particular place, Samantha?”

“Yes,” sez I, “I had jest as leves go there as not.”

“Wall, I knew there would be where you would want to go.” And he
drove on at a good jog. But no better jog than we had been a goin’ on.

Wall the weather wuz delightful. It wuz soft and balmy. And my feelin’s
towered my pardner (owin’ to his linement) wuz soft and balmy as the air.
And so we moved onwards, past the home of one who wuz true to his country, when
all round him wuz false, who governed his state wisely and well, held the lines
firm, when she wuz balky, and would have been glad to take the lines in her
teeth and run away onto ruin; past the big grand house of him who carried a
piece of our American justice way off into Egypt and carried it firm and square
too right there in the dark. I s’pose it is dark. I have always hearn
about its bein’ as dark as Egypt. Wall, anyway he is a good lookin’
man. They both on ’em are and Josiah admitted it - after some words.

Wall anon, or perhaps a little after, we came to where we could see the face of
Beautiful Saratoga Lake, layin’ a smilin’ up into the skies. A
little white cloud wuz a restin’ up on the top of the tree-covered
mountain that riz up on one side of the lake, and I felt that it might be the
shadow form of the sacred dove Saderrosseros a broodin’ down over the
waters she loved.

That she loved still, though another race wuz a bathin’ their weary
forwards in the tide. And I wondered as I looked down on it, whether the great
heart of the water wuz constant; if it ever heaved up into deep sithes a
thinkin’ of the one who had passed away, of them who once rested lightly
on her bosem, bathed their dark forwards and read the meanin’ of the
heavens, in the moon and stars reflected there.

I don’t know as she remembered ’em, and Josiah don’t. But I
know as we stood there, a lookin’ down on her, the lake seemed to give a
sort of a sithe and a shiver kind a run over her, not a cold shiver exactly,
but a sort of a shinin’, glorified shiver. I see it a comin’ from
way out on the lake and it swept and sort a shivered on clean to the shore and
melted away there at our feet. Mebby it wuz a sort o’ sithe, and mebby
agin it wuzn’t.

I guess it felt that it wuz all right, that a fairer race had brought fairer
customs and habits of thoughts, and the change wuz not a bad one. I guess she
looked forward to the time when a still grander race should look down into her
shinin’ face, a race of free men, and free wimmen; sons and daughters of
God, who should hold their birthright so grandly and nobly that they will look
back upon the people of to-day, as we look back upon the dark sons and
daughters of the forest, in pity and dolor.

I guess she thought it wuz all right. Any way she acted as if she did. She
looked real sort o’ serene and calm as we left her, and sort o’
prophetic too, and glowin’.

Wall, we went by a long first rate lookin’ sort of a tarven, I guess. It
wuz a kind of a dark red color, and dretfully flowered off in wood - red wood.
And there we see standin’ near the house, a great big round sort of a
buildin’, and my Josiah sez,

“There! that is a buildin’ I like the looks on. That is a barn I
like; built perfectly round. That is sunthin’ uneek. I’ll have a
barn like that if I live. I fairly love that barn.” And he stopped the
horse stun still to look at it.

And I sez in sort o’ cool tones, not entirely cold, but coolish:
“What under the sun do you want with a round barn? And you don’t
need another one.”

“Wall, I don’t exactly need it, Samantha, but it would be a comfert
to me to own one. I should dearly love a round barn.”

And he went on pensively, - “I wonder how much it would cost. I
wouldn’t have it quite so big as this is. I’d have it for a horse
barn, Samantha. It would look so fashionable, and genteel. Think what it would
be, Samantha, to keep our old mair in a round barn, why the mair would renew
her age.”

“She wouldn’t pay no attention to it,” sez I. “She
knows too much.” And I added in cooler, more dignifieder tones, but
dretful meanin’ ones, “The old mair, Josiah Allen, don’t run
after every new fancy she hears on. She don’t try to be fashionable, and
she haint high-headed, except,” sez I, reasenably, “when you check
her up too much.”

“Wall,” sez he, “I am bound to make some enquiries.
Hello!” says he to a bystander a comin’ by. “Have you any
idee what such a barn as that would cost? A little smaller one, I don’t
need so big a one. How many feet of lumber do you s’pose it would take
for it? I ask you,” sez he, “as between man and man.”

I nudged him there, for as I have said, I didn’t believe then, and I
don’t believe now, that he or any other man ever knew or mistrusted what
they meant by that term “as between man and man.” I think it sounds
kind o’ flat, and I always oppose Josiah’s usin’ it; he loves
it.

Wall, the man broke out a’ laughin’ and sez he, “That haint a
barn, that is a tree.”

“A tree!” sez I, a sort o’ cranin’ my neck forward in
deep amaze. And what exclamation Josiah Allen made, I will not be coaxed into
revealin’; no, it is better not.

But suffice it to say that after a long explanation my companion at last gin in
that the man wuz a tellin’ the truth, and it wuz the lower part of a
tree-trunk, that growed once near the Yo Semity valley of California. Good
land! good land!

Josiah drove on quick after the man explained it, he felt meachin’, but I
didn’t notice his linement so much, I wuz so deep in thought, and a
wonderin’ about it; a wonderin’ how the old tree felt with her feet
a restin’ here on strange soil - her withered, dry old feet a
standin’ here, as if jest ready to walk away restless like and feverish,
a wantin’ to get back by the rushin’ river that used to bathe them
feet in the spring overflow of the pure cold mountain water. It seemed to me
she felt she was a alien, as if she missed her strong sturdy grand old body,
her lofty head that used to peer up over the mountains, and as if some day she
wuz a goin’ to set off a walkin’ back, a tryin’ to find
’em.

I thought of how it had towered up, how the sun had kissed its branches, how
the birds had sung and built their nests against her green heart, hovered in
her great, outstretched arms. The birds of a century, the birds of a thousand
years. How the storms had beat upon her; the first autumn rains of a thousand
years, the first snow-flakes that had wavered down in a slantin’ line and
touched the tips of her outstretched fingers, and then had drifted about her
till her heart wuz almost frozen and she would clap her cold hands together to
warm ’em, and wail out a dretful moanin’ sound of desolation, and
pain.

But the first warm rain drops of Spring would come, the sunshine warmed her,
she swung out her grand arms in triumph agin, and joined the majestic psalm of
victory and rejoicing with all her grand sisterhood of psalmists. The stars
looked down on her, the sun lit her lofty forward, the suns and stars of a
thousand years. Strange animals, that mebby we don’t know anything about
now, roamed about her feet, birds of a different plumage and song sung to her
(mebby).

Strange faces of men and women looked up to her. What faces had looked up to
her in sorrow and in joy? I’d gin a good deal to know. I’d have
loved to see them strange faces touched with strange pains and hopes.
Tribulations and joys of a thousand years ago. What sort of tribulations wuz
they, and what sort of joys? Sunthin’ human, sunthin’ that we hold
in common, no doubt. The same pain that pained Eve as she walked down out of
Eden, the same joy that Adam enjoyed while they and the garden wuz prosperus,
wuz in their faces most probable whether their forwards wuz pinted or broad,
their faces black, copper colored or white.

And the changes, the changes of a thousand years, all these the old tree had
seen, and I respected her dry dusty old feet and wuz sorry for ’em. And I
reveryed on the subject more’n half the way home, and couldn’t help
it. Anyway my revery lasted till jest before we got to the big gate of the Race
Course.

And right there, right in front of them big ornamental doors, we see Miss G.
Washington Flamm, with about a thousand other carriages and wagons and Tally
ho’s and etcetry, and etcetry. Josiah thinks there wuz a million teams,
but I don’t. I am mejum; there wuzn’t probable over a thousand
right there in the road.

Miss Flamm recognized us and asked us if we didn’t want to go in. Wall,
Josiah wuz agreeable to the idee and said so. And then she said sunthin’
to the man that tended to the gate, probably sunthin’ in our praise, and
handed him sunthin’, it might have been a ten cent piece, for all I know.

But anyway he wuz dretful polite to us, and let us through. And my land! if it
wuzn’t a sight to behold! Of all the big roomy places I ever see all
filled with vehicles of all shapes and sizes and folks on foot and big high
platforms, all filled with men and wimmen and children! And Josiah sez to me,
“I thought the hull dumb world wuz there outside in the road, and here
there is ten times as many in here.”

And I sez, “Yes, Josiah, be careful and not lose me, for I feel like a
needle in a hay mow.”

He looked down on me and sort a smiled. I s’pose it wuz because I
compared myself to a needle, and he sez, “A cambric needle, or a
darnin’ needle?”

And I sez, “I wouldn’t laugh in such a time as this, Josiah
Allen.” Sez I, “Do jest look over there on the race course.”

And it wuz a thrillin’ seen. It wuz a place big enough for all the horses
of our land to run ’round in and from Phario’s horses down to them
of the present time. And beautiful broad smooth roads cut in the green velvet
of the grass, and horses goin’ ’round jest like lightnin’,
with little light buggys hitched to ’em, some like the quiver on sheet
lightnin’ (only different shape) and men a drivin’ ’em.

And then there wuz a broad beautiful race course with little clusters of trees
and bushes, every little while right in the road, and if you’ll believe
it, I don’t s’pose you will, but it is the livin’ truth, when
them horses, goin’ jest like a flash of light, with little boys all
dressed in gay colors a ridin’ ’em—when them horses came to
them trees instid of goin’ ’round ’em, or pushin’ in
between ’em, or goin’ back agin, they jumped right over ’em.
I don’t spose this will be believed by lots of folks in Jonesville and
Loontown, but it is the truth, for I see it with both my eyes. Josiah riz right
up in the buggy and cheered jest as the rest of ’em did, entirely
unbeknown to himself, so he said, to see it a goin’ on.

Why he got nearly rampant with excitement. And so did I, though I
wouldn’t want it known by Tirzah Ann’s husband’s folks and
others in Jonesville. They call it “steeple chasin’” so if
they should hear on’t, it wouldn’t sound so very wicked any way. I
should probable tell ’em if they said too much, “That it wuz a pity
if folks couldn’t get interested in a steeple and chase it up.” But
between you and me I didn’t see no sign of a steeple, nor meetin’
house nor nuthin’. I s’pose they gin it that name to make it seem
more righter to perfessors. I know it wuz a great comfort to me. (But I
don’t think they chased a steeple, and Josiah don’t, for we think
we should have seen it if they had.)

Wall, as I say, we wuz both dretfully interested, excited, and wrought up, I
s’pose I ort to say, when a chap accosted me and says to me
sunthin’ about buyin’ a pool. And I shook my head and sez,
“No, I don’t want to buy no pool.”

But he kep’ on a talkin’ and a urgin’, and sez,
“Won’t you buy a French pool, mom, you can make lots of money out
of it.”

“A pool,” sez I in dignified axents, and some stern, for I wuz
weary with his importunities. “What do I want a pool for? Don’t you
s’pose there’s any pools in Jonesville, and I never thought
nothin’ on ’em, I always preferred runnin’ water. But if I
wuz a goin’ to buy one, what under the sun do you s’pose I would
buy one way off here for, hundreds of miles from Jonesville?”

“I might possibly,” sez I, not wantin’ to hurt his
feelin’s and tryin’ to think of some use I could put it tot “
might if you had a good small American pool, that wuz a sellin’ cheap;
and I could have it set right in our back yard, clost to the horse barn, why I
might possibly try to make a dicker with you for it. I might use it for
raisin’ ducks and geese, though I’d rather have a runnin’
stream then. But how under the sun you think I could take a pool home on a
tower, how I could pack it, or transport it, or drive it home is a mystery to
me.”

Again he sez mechinecally, “Lots of wimmen do get ’em.”

“Wall, some wimmen,” sez I mildly, for I see he wuz a lookin’
at me perfect dumbfoundered. I see I wuz fairly stuntin’ him with my
eloquence. “Some wimmen will buy anything if it has a French name to it.
But I prefer my own country, land or water. And some wimmen,” sez I,
“will buy anything if they can get it cheap, things they don’t
need, and would be better off without, from a eliphant down to a magnificent
nothin’ to call husband. They’ll buy any worthless and troublesome
thing jest to get ’em to goin’. Now such wimmen would jest jump at
that pool. But that haint my way. No, I don’t want to purchase your
pool.”

Sez he, “You are mistaken, mom!”

“No I haint,” sez I firmly and with decesion. “No I haint. I
don’t need no pool. It wouldn’t do me no good to keep it on my
hands, and I haint no notion of settin’ up in the pool or pond business,
at my age.”

“And then,” sez I reasonably, “the canal runs jest down below
our orchard, and if we run short, we could get all the water we wanted from
there. And we have got two good cisterns and a well on the place.”

Sez he, “What I mean is, bettin’ on a horse. Do you want to bet on
which horse will go the fastest, the black one or the bay one?”

“No,” sez I, “I don’t want to bet.”

But he kep’ on a urgin’ me, and thinkin’ I had disappinted
him in sellin’ a pool, or rather pond, I thought it wouldn’t hurt
me to kinder gin in to him in this, so I sez mildly, “Bettin’ is
sunthin’ I don’t believe in, but seein’ I have disappinted
you in sellin’ your water power, I don’t know as it would be wicked
to humor you in this and say it to please you. You say the bay horse is the
best, so I’ll say for jest this once - There! I’ll bet the bay one
will go the best.”