Chapter VI: Part 6

I jest glanced round at Josiah, and then instinctively I looked away agin. His countenance was perfectly awful. Truly, the higher we are up the worse it hurts us to fall down. Bein’ lifted up on such a height of vanity and vain-glory, and fallin’ down from it so sudden, it most broke his neck (speakin’ in a poetical and figurative way). I, myself, havin’ had doubts of her all the time, didn’t feel nigh so worked up and curious, it more sort o’ madded me, it kind o’ operated in that way on me. And so, when she begun agin to run Josiah and me down to the lowest notch, called us all to naught, made out we wuzn’t hardly fit to live, and was most fools, and then says agin:

“I wouldn’t say a word aginst ’em for the world if I wuzn’t such a friend to ’em—”

Then I riz right up, and stood in the open window; and it come up in front of me some like a pulpit, and I s’pose my mean looked considerable like a preacher’s when they get carried away with the subject, and almost by the side of themselves.

Alzina Ann quailed the minute she sot her eyes on me, as much or more than any minister ever made a congregation quail, and, says she, in tremblin’ tones:

“You know anybody will take liberties with a friend that they wouldn’t with anybody else.”

Says I, in deep, awful tones, “I never believed in knockin’ folks down to show off that we are intimate with ’em.”

“Wall,” says she, “you know I do think everything in the world of you. You know I shouldn’t have said a word aginst you if I wuzn’t such a warm friend of yourn.”

“Friend!” says I, in awful axents, “friend! Alzina Ann Rickerson, you don’t know no more about that word than if you never see a dictionary. You don’t know the true meanin’ of that word no more than a African babe knows about slidin’ down hill.”

Says I, “The Bible gives a pretty good idee of what it means: it speaks of a man layin’ down his life for his friend. Dearer to him than his own life. Do you s’pose such a friendship as that would be a mistrustin’ round, a tryin’ to rake up every little fault they could lay holt of, and talk ’em over with everybody? Do you s’pose it would creep round under windows and backbite and slander a Josiah?”

I entirely forgot for the moment that she had been a talkin’ about me, for truly abuse heaped upon my pardner seems ten times as hard to bear up under as if it was heaped upon me.

Josiah whispered to me: “That is right, Samantha! give it to her!” and, upheld by duty and that dear man, I went on, and says I:

“My friends, those I love and who love me, are sacred to me. Their well-being and their interest is as dear to me as my own. I love to have others praise them, prize them as I do; and I should jest as soon think of goin’ round tryin’ to rake and scrape sunthin’ to say aginst myself as aginst them.”

Agin I paused for breath, and agin Josiah whispered:

“That is right, Samantha! give it to her!”

Worshipin’ that man as I do, his words was far more inspirin’ and stimulatin’ to me than root beer. Agin I went on, and says I:

“Maybe it hain’t exactly accordin’ to Scripture, but there is somethin’ respectable in open enmity—in beginnin’ your remarks about anybody honestly, in this way: ‘Now I detest and despise that man, and I am goin’ to try to relieve my mind by talkin’ about him jest as bad as I can;’ and then proceed and tear him to pieces in a straightforward, manly way. I don’t s’pose such a course would be upheld by the ’postles. But there is a element of boldness and courage in it amountin’ almost to grandeur, when compared to this kind of talk: ‘I think everything in the world of that man. I think he is jest as good as he can be, and he hain’t got a better friend in the world than I am;’ and then go on, and say all you can to injure him.

“Why, a pirate runs up his skeleton and cross-bars when he is goin’ to rob and pillage. I think, Alzina Ann, if I was in your place I would make a great effort, and try and be as noble and magnanimous as a pirate.”

Alzina Ann looked like a white hollyhawk that had been withered by a untimely frost. But Cassandra looked tickled (she hadn’t forgot her sufferin’s, and the sufferin’s of Nathan Spooner). And my Josiah looked proud and triumphant in mean. And he told me in confidence, a goin’ home (and I wouldn’t wish it spoke of agin, for folks might think it was foolish in me to tell such little admirin’ speeches that a companion will make in moments of harmony and confidence). But he said that he hadn’t seen me look so good to him as I did when I stood there in the winder, not for much as thirteen years. Says he:

“Samantha, you looked almost perfectly beautiful.”

That man worships the ground I walk on, and I do hisen.

THE LORDS OF CREATION.

Josiah Allen is awful tickled to think he is a man. He has said so to me, time and agin. And I don’t wonder a mite at it. Men are first-rate creeters, and considerable good-lookin’. I have always said so. And they have such glorious chances to be noble and grand, and to _work_ for the true and the right, that I don’t wonder a mite that Josiah feels just as he duz feel.

And when Josiah tells me how highly tickled he is he is a man—when he says it in a sort of a pensive and dreamy way, kinder miselanious like—I don’t resent it in him but on the contrary approve of it in him, highly. But once in a while he will get to feelin’ kind o’ cross and uppish, and say it to me in a sort of a twittin’ way, and boastin’.

Mebby he will begin by readin’ out loud to me sunthin’ against wimmen’s rights, in the _World_ or almanac, or some other high-toned periodical; sometimes it will be awful cuttin’ arguments aginst wimmen. And after he gets through readin’ it he will speak out in such a sort of a humiliatin’ way about how awful tickled he is, he is a man, so he can vote, and help keep the glorious old state of New York on its firm basis of nobility, morality, and wise economy.

Why, says he to me the other afternoon (feelin’ fractious was the cause of his sayin’ it at the time), says he: “Wimmen are dretful simple creeters; gossipin’, weak, weak-minded, frivolous bein’s; extravagant, given to foolish display. They don’t mind the cost of things if they can only make a big show. So different from men, they be. Why,” says he proudly and boastfully, “you never in your life ketched a man gossipin’ over their neighbors’ affairs. You never see ’em meddlin’ the least mite with scandal and evil talkin’. Men are economical, sound-minded. They spend only jest what they need, what is useful—nothin’ more, not a cent more. Why,” says he, “take it with wimmen’s foolish extravagance and love of display, what would the glorious old state of New York come to if it was sot under her rain? And they are so weak, too,—wimmen be. Why, old Error would take ’em by the nose” (Josiah, I think, is a practicin’ allegory. He uses flowery rhetoricks and simelys as much agin as he used to use ’em.) And he repeated agin, with a haughty look: “Old Error would take ’em by the nose, as it were, and lead ’em into all sorts of indiscretions, and weakness, and wickedness, before they knew it.

“Why, if we men of New York state had a woman’s incapability of grapplin’ with wrong, and overthrowin’ of it: if we had her love of scandal and gossip; if we had her extravagance and love of display, where would the glorious old state of New York be to-day? Where would her morals be? Where would her finankle and money affairs be?”

And Josiah leaned back in his chair, and crossed his legs over each other, as satisfied and contented a crossin’ as I ever see, and says agin:

“If I was ever proud and tickled about anything in my life, Samantha Allen, I am tickled to think I am a man.”

He had been readin’ a witherin’ piece out of the almanac to me—an awful deep, skareful piece aginst wimmen’s suffrage. And feelin’ cross and fractious, he did look so awful overbearin’ and humiliatin’ onto me, on account of my bein’ a woman, that I sprunted right up and freed my mind to him. I am very close-mouthed naturally, and say but very little, but I can’t stand everything.

While he was talkin’ I had been a fixin’ a new tow mop that I had been a spinnin’ into my patented mop-stick, and had jest got it done. And I riz right up and pinted with it at a picture of the new capitol at Albany that hung over the sink. It was a noble and commandin’ gesture (though hard to the wrist). It impressed him dretfully, I could see it did. I had that sort of a lofty way with me as I gestured, and went on in awful tones to say:

“When you look at that buildin’, Josiah Allen, no wonder you talk about wimmen’s extravagance and foolish love of display, and the econimy and firm common sense of the male voters of the state of New York, and their wise expenditure of public money. When you and a passel of other men get together and vote to build a house costin’ nine or ten millions of dollars to make laws in so small that wimmen might well be excused for thinkin’ they was made in a wood-shed or behind a barn-door.”

Says I, lowerin’ down my mop-stick, for truly my arm was weary—gesturin’ in eloquence with a mop-stick is awful fatiguin’—says I, “As long as that monument of man’s wisdom and econimy stands there, no man need to be afraid that a woman will ever dast to speak about wantin’ to have any voice in public affairs, any voice in the expenditure of her own property and income tax. No, she won’t dast to do it, for man’s thrifty, prudent common sense and superior econimy has been shown in that buildin’ to a extent that is fairly skareful.”

It is a damper onto anybody when they have been a talkin’ sarcastical and ironical, to have to come out and explain what you are a doin’. But I see that I had got to, for ever sense I had lowered my mop-stick and axent, Josiah had looked chirker and chirker, and now he sot there, lookin’ down at his almanac, as satisfied and important as a gander walkin’ along in front of nineteen new goslin’s. He thought I was a praisin’ men. And says I, comin’ out plain, “Look up here, Josiah Allen, and let me wither you with my glance! I am a talkin’ sarcastical, and would wish to be so understood!”

But I was so excited that before I had fairly got out of that ironical tone, I fell into it agin deeper than ever (though entirely unbeknown to me), and says I:

“As to woman’s love of gossip and scandal, and man’s utter aversion to it, let your mind fall back four years, Josiah Allen, if you think it is strong enough to bear the fall.”

And I went on in a still more ironicler tone. I don’t know as I ever see a more ironicler axent in my hull life than mine was as I went on, and says:

“How sweet it must be for men to look back and reflect on it, that while wimmen gloated over the details of that scandalous gossip, not a man throughout the nation ever gave it a thought. And while female wimmen, crazy and eager-eyed, stood in knots at their clubs and on street corners holdin’ each other by the bunnet-strings a talkin’ it over, and rushed eagerly to the post-office to try to get the latest details, how sweet to think that the manly editor all over the land stood up in man’s noble strength and purity, and with a firm eye on the public morals and the welfare of the young and innocent, and happily ignorant, refused to gratify woman’s rampent curiosity, and said nothing of the matter, not a word, in editorial or news column; but all through those long months filled up their pages with little moral essays, and cuttin’ articles on their hatred of gossip and scandal. And when, with unsatisfied, itchin’ ears, wives would question their husbands concernin’ the chief actors in the drama, their pure-minded husbands would rebuke them and say, ‘Cease, woman, to trouble me. We know them not. We have as yet spake no word upon the subject, and we will not be led into speakin’ of it by any woman, not even the wife of our youth’”

Josiah looked meachener and meachener, till, as I got through, it seemed as if he had got to the very bounds of meach. He knew well how many times that old mare had gone to Jonesville for the last _World_, long before its time, so in hopes it would be a little ahead of its time, so he could get the latest gossip and scandal, and get ahead of old Gowdey, who took the _Times_, and old Cypher, who took the _Sun_. He knew jest how that post-office was fairly blocked up with men, pantin’ and sweaty with runnin’, every time the other mails come in. And he knew well, Josiah Allen did, how he and seven or eight other old Methodist brethren got to talkin’ about it so engaged out under the meetin’-house shed, one day, that they forgot themselves, and never come into meetin’ at all. And we wimmen sisters had to go out there to find ’em, after the meetin’ was over. He remembered it, Josiah Allen did, I see that by his mean.

He didn’t say a word, but sot there smit and conscience-struck. And then I dropped my ironical tone, and took up my awful one, that I use a talkin’ on principle. I took up my very heaviest and awfulest one, as I resumed and continued on.

“I would talk if I was in your place, Josiah Allen, about wimmen’s ruinin’ old New York State if they voted. I would soar off into simelys if I was in your place, and talk about their bein’ led by the nose into wickedness—and grow eloquent over their weakness and inability to grapple with error—when ten hundred thousand male voters of the state stand with their hands in their pockets, or whittlin’ shingles, or tradin’ jack-knives, or readin’ almanacs, and etcetery, and let an evil go right on in their midst that would have disgraced old Sodom.

“Why, it is a wonder to me that the pure waters of old Oneida don’t fairly groan as they wash up on the shores that they can’t cleanse from this impurity, but would if they could, I know. She don’t approve of it, that old lake don’t—she don’t approve of anything of that kind, no more than I do. She and I and the other wimmen of the state would make short work of such iniquities if we had our say.

“But there them ten hundred thousand male voters stand, calm and happy, all round the Community, in rows and clusters; porin’ over almanacs, and whistlin’ new and various whistles (Josiah had broke out into a very curious whistle) and contemplate the sin with composure and contentment.

“And superintendents of Sabbath-schools and Young Men’s Christian Associations will make excursions to admire them and their iniquity, to imbibe bad thoughts and principles unconsciously, but certainly, as one inevitably must when they behold a crime masked in beauty, in garments of peace and order and industry. And railroad managers will carry the young, the easily-impressed, and the innocent at half price, so eager, seemin’ly, that they should behold sin wreathin’ itself in flowers, guilt arrayin’ itself in festal robes to lure the unwary footsteps.”

“Wall,” says Josiah, “I guess I’ll go out and milk.”

And I told him he had better.

AN EXERTION AFTER PLEASURE.

Wall, the very next mornin’ Josiah got up with a new idee in his head. And he broached it to me to the breakfast table. They have been havin’ sights of pleasure exertions here to Jonesville lately. Every week a’most they would go off on a exertion after pleasure, and Josiah was all up on end to go too.

That man is a well-principled man as I ever see, but if he had his head he would be worse than any young man I ever see to foller up picnics and 4th of Julys and camp-meetin’s and all pleasure exertions. But I don’t encourage him in it. I have said to him time and again: “There is a time for everything, Josiah Allen, and after anybody has lost all their teeth and every mite of hair on the top of their head, it is time for ’em to stop goin’ to pleasure exertions.”

But good land! I might jest as well talk to the wind! If that man should get to be as old as Mr. Methusler, and be goin’ on a thousand years old, he would prick up his ears if he should hear of a exertion. All summer long that man has beset me to go to ’em, for he wouldn’t go without me. Old Bunker Hill himself hain’t any sounder in principle than Josiah Allen, and I have had to work head-work to make excuses and quell him down. But last week they was goin’ to have one out on the lake, on a island, and that man sot his foot down that go he would.

We was to the breakfast-table a talkin’ it over, and says I:

“I shan’t go, for I am afraid of big water, anyway.”

Says Josiah: “You are jest as liable to be killed in one place as another.”

Says I, with a almost frigid air, as I passed him his coffee: “Mebby I shall be drounded on dry land, Josiah Allen, but I don’t believe it.”

Says he, in a complainin’ tone: “I can’t get you started onto a exertion for pleasure any way.”

Says I, in a almost eloquent way: “I don’t believe in makin’ such exertions after pleasure. As I have told you time and agin, I don’t believe in chasin’ of her up. Let her come of her own free will. You can’t ketch her by chasin’ after her no more than you can fetch up a shower in a drowth by goin’ out doors and runnin’ after a cloud up in the heavens above you. Sit down and be patient, and when it gets ready the refreshin’ rain-drops will begin to fall without none of your help. And it is jest so with pleasure, Josiah Allen; you may chase her up over all the oceans and big mountains of the earth, and she will keep ahead of you all the time; but set down and not fatigue yourself a thinkin’ about her, and like as not she will come right into your house unbeknown to you.”

“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll have another griddle-cake, Samantha.”

And as he took it, and poured the maple-syrup over it, he added gently, but firmly:

“I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have you present at it, because it seems jest to me as if I should fall overboard durin’ the day.”

Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin’ could stir me up like that one speech. For though I hain’t no hand to coo, and don’t encourage him in bein’ spoony at all, he knows that I am wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.

Wall, the day before the exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a errant, and I asked him if he was goin’ to the exertion; and he said he would like to go, but he dassent.

“Dassent!” says I. “Why dassent you?”

“Why,” says he, “how would the rest of the wimmen round Jonesville feel if I should pick out one woman and wait on her?” Says he bitterly: “I hain’t perfect, but I hain’t such a cold-blooded rascal as not to have any regard for wimmen’s feelin’s. I hain’t no heart to spile all the comfort of the day for ten or a dozen wimmen.”

“Why,” says I, in a dry tone, “one woman would be happy accordin’ to your tell.”

“Yes, one woman happy, and ten or fifteen gauled—bruised in the tenderest place.”

“On their heads?” says I enquirin’ly.

“No,” says he, “their hearts. All the girls have probable had more or less hopes that I would invite ’em—make a choice of ’em. But when the blow was struck, when I had passed ’em by and invited some other, some happier woman, how would them slighted ones feel? How do you s’pose they would enjoy the day, seein’ me with another woman, and they droopin’ round without me? That is the reason, Josiah Allen’s wife, that I dassen’t go. It hain’t the keepin’ of my horse through the day that stops me. For I could carry a quart of oats and a little jag of hay in the bottom of the buggy. If I had concluded to pick out a girl and go, I had got it all fixed out in my mind how I would manage. I had thought it over, while I was ondecided, and duty was a strugglin’ with me. But I was made to see where the right way for me lay, and I am goin’ to foller it. Joe Purday is goin’ to have my horse, and give me seven shillin’s for the use of it and its keepin’. He come to hire it just before I made up my mind that I hadn’t ort to go.

“Of course it is a cross to me. But I am willin’ to bear crosses for the fair sect. Why,” says he, a comin’ out in a open, generous way, “I would be willin’, if necessary for the general good of the fair sect—I would be willin’ to sacrifice ten cents for ’em, or pretty nigh that, I wish so well to ’em. I _hain’t_ that enemy to ’em that they think I am. I can’t marry ’em all, Heaven knows I can’t, but I wish ’em well.”

“Wall,” says I, “I guess my dish-water is hot; it must be pretty near bilin’ by this time.”

And he took the hint and started off. I see it wouldn’t do no good to argue with him, that wimmen didn’t worship him. For when a feller once gets it into his head that female wimmen are all after him, you might jest as well dispute the wind as argue with him. You can’t convince him nor the wind—neither of ’em—so what’s the use of wastin’ breath on ’em. And I didn’t want to spend a extra breath that day, anyway, knowin’ I had such a hard day’s work in front of me, a finishin’ cookin’ up provisions for the exertion, and gettin’ things done up in the house so I could leave ’em for all day.

We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was 15 miles from Jonesville, and the old mare bein’ so slow, we had got to start an hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first on’t, that I had jest as lives set up all night, as to be routed out at two o’clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin’ that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that we would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did. So we went to bed the sun an hour high. And I was truly tired enough to lay down, for I had worked dretful hard that day, almost beyond my strength. But we hadn’t more’n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop at the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin’. Elder Bamber and his family, and Deacon Dobbins’es folks.

Josiah vowed that he wouldn’t stir one step out of that bed that night. But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin’ on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I hain’t deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on, before they came in, I wouldn’t tell ’em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn’t took my night-cap off. They looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin’. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin’. But when Josiah come out of the bedroom with what little hair he has got standin’ out in every direction, no two hairs a layin’ the same way, and one of his galluses a hangin’ most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told ’em. I thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’es folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’; so they never went home till after ten o’clock.

It was most eleven when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin’ into a drowse, I heerd the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that rousted Josiah up, and he thought he heerd the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a marchin’ round most all night.

And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin’, and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated, and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that Josiah was a drowndin’, and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin’ for him. It started me so, that I jist ketched holt of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, “What does ail you, Samantha? I haint been asleep before, to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is.”

And then he got out of bed again, and went and looked at the clock. It was half past one, and he said “He didn’t believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn’t miss that for nothin’.”

“Exertion!” says I, in a awful cold tone. “I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell.”

But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a goin’ to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black gingham and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up. So, jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.

And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons I had been a makin’ for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin’ up a milatary company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red stripe down the sides—a kind of a uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to ’em, and says he:

“I will wear ’em, Samantha; they look so dressy.”

Says I: “They hain’t hardly done. I was goin’ to stitch that red stripe on the left leg on again. They hain’t finished as they ort to be, and I would not wear ’em. It looks vain in you.”

Says he: “I will wear ’em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once.”

I didn’t contend with him. Thinks I: we are makin’ fools of ourselves by goin’ at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself, by wearin’ them blue pantaloons, I won’t stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto ’em, so I felt that I had got to wash ’em, anyway, before Thomas J. took ’em to wear. So he put ’em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of ’em. The basket wouldn’t hold ’em all, so Josiah had to put a bottle of red ross-berry jell into the pocket of his dress-coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons and knives and forks, in his pantaloons and breast-pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land! he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him to, he felt so neat about goin’, and boasted so on what a splendid exertion it was goin’ to be.

We got to the lake about eight o’clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep’ a comin’, and before ten o’clock we all got there.

The young folks made up their minds they would stay and eat their dinner in a grove on the mainland. But the majority of the old folks thought it was best to go and set our tables where we laid out to in the first place. Josiah seemed to be the most rampant of any of the company about goin’. He said he shouldn’t eat a mouthful if he didn’t eat it on that island. He said, what was the use of goin’ to a pleasure exertion at all if you didn’t try to take all the pleasure you could. So about twenty old fools of us sot sail for the island.

I had made up my mind from the first on’t to face trouble, so it didn’t put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins, in gettin’ into the boat, stepped onto my new lawn dress, and tore a hole in it as big as my two hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin’ felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when, jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off and blew it away out onto the lake. He had made up his mind to look so pretty that day that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat down onto him; and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have seemed more shady.

But I did the best I could by him. I stood by him and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin’ it on, I see there was sunthin’ more than mortification ailed him. The lake was rough and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginnin’ to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad, too. Oh! the wretchedness of that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness in so short a time as I did on that pleasure exertion to that island. I s’pose our bein’ up all night a’most made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.

I sot right down on a stun and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After a while I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little. Though it was tejus work to walk, anyway, for we had landed on a sand-bar, and the sand was so deep it was all we could do to wade through it, and it was as hot as hot ashes ever was.

Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The butter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies and tarts and delicate cake and cookies looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of the company’s did.

But we did the best we could, and the chicken and cold meat bein’ more solid had held together quite well, so there was some pieces of it considerable hull, though it was all very wet and soppy. But we separated ’em out as well as we could, and begun to make preparations to eat. We didn’t feel so animated about eatin’ as we should if we hadn’t been so sick to our stomachs. But we felt as if we must hurry, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the way the sun scalded.

There wasn’t a man or a woman there but what the presperation and sweat jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy-lookin’ set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn’t one of us but what had the rheumatiz more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.

After we got the fire started, I histed a umberell and sot down under it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.

Wall, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, where is Josiah? I hadn’t seen him since we had got there. I riz up and asked the company almost wildly if they had seen my companion, Josiah.

They said, “no, they hadn’t.”

But Celestine Wilkin’s little girl, who had come with her grandpa and grandma Gowdy, spoke up, and says she:

“I seen him goin’ off towards the woods. He acted dretful strange, too; he seemed to be a walkin’ off sideways.”

“Had the sufferin’s he had undergone made him delerious?” says I to myself; and then I started off on the run towards the woods, and old Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdy, and Sister Bamber, and Deacon Dobbins’es wife all rushed after me.

Oh, the agony of them two or three minutes! my mind so distracted with fourbodin’s, and the presperation and sweat a pourin’ down. But all of a sudden, on the edge of the woods, we found him. Miss Gowdy weighin’ a little less than me, mebby 100 pounds or so, had got a little ahead of me. He sot backed up against a tree, in a awful cramped position, with his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable. But when Miss Gowdy hollered out:

“Oh, here you be. We have been skairt about you. What is the matter?”

He smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he:

“Oh, I thought I would come out here and meditate a spell. It was always a real treat to me to meditate.”

Just then I come up a pantin’ for breath, and as the wimmen all turned to face me, Josiah scowled at me, and shook his fist at them four wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions of his hands towards ’em. But the minute they turned round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin’.

Says I, “What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you off here for?”

“I am a meditatin’, Samantha.”

Says I, “Do you come down and jine the company this minute, Josiah Allen. You was in a awful takin’ to come with ’em, and what will they think to see you act so?”

The wimmen happened to be a lookin’ the other way for a minute, and he looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest motions towards ’em; but the minute they looked at him he would pretend to smile, that deathly smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, we’re goin’ to get dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain.”

“Oh, wall,” says he, “a little rain, more or less, hain’t a goin’ to hender a man from meditatin’.”

I was wore out, and says I, “Do you stop meditatin’ this minute, Josiah Allen!”

Says he, “I won’t stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain’t a goin’ to break it up.”

Jest at that minute they called to me from the shore to come that minute to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But oh! the gloom of my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions and looks of Josiah wore on me. Had the sufferin’s of the night, added to the trials of the day, made him crazy? I thought more’n as likely as not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days.

And then, oh how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the smoke so into my face that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And then a perfect swarm of yellow wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick as we laid ’em down, so you couldn’t touch a thing without runnin’ a chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time! the distress of that pleasure exertion! But I kep’ to work, and when we had got dinner most ready, I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there, and her Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would try to dig one to give him. So we started up the hill again. He set in the same position, all huddled up, with his leg under him, as uncomfortable a lookin’ creeter as I ever see. But when we both stood in front of him, he pretended to look careless and happy, and smiled that sick smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, dinner is ready.”

“Oh! I hain’t hungry,” says he. “The table will probable be full. I had jest as lieves wait.”

“Table full!” says I. “You know jest as well as I do that we are eatin’ on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute.”

“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet, “we can’t get along without you.”

“Oh!” says he, with that ghastly smile, a pretendin’ to joke, “I have got plenty to eat here—I can eat muskeeters.”

The air was black with ’em, I couldn’t deny it.

“The muskeeters will eat you, more likely,” says I. “Look at your face and hands; they are all covered with ’em.”

“Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don’t begrech ’em. I hain’t small enough, nor mean enough, I hope, to begrech ’em one good meal.”

Miss Bobbet started off in search of her wild turnip, and after she had got out of sight Josiah whispered to me with a savage look, and a tone sharp as a sharp axe:

“Can’t you bring forty or fifty more wimmen up here? You couldn’t come here a minute, could you, without a lot of other wimmen tight to your heels?”

I begun to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet had got her wild turnip and some spignut, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then Josiah told me all about why he had gone off by himself alone, and why he had been a settin’ in such a curious a position all the time since we had come in sight of him.

It seems he had sot down on that bottle of rass-berry jell. That red stripe on the side wasn’t hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn’t fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin’ at ’em to try to wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein’ sewed on a machine, that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he had walked off sideways towards the woods for. But Josiah Allen’s wife hain’t one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned ’em up as well as I could, and I didn’t say a word to hurt his feelin’s, only I jest said this to him, as I was a fixin’ em: I fastened my grey eye firmly and almost sternly onto him, and says I:

“Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?” Says I, “You was determined to come.”

“Throw that in my face agin, will you? What if I was? There goes a pin into my leg! I should think I had suffered enough without your stabbin’ of me with pins.”

“Wall then, stand still, and not be a caperin’ round so. How do you s’pose I can do anything with you a tousin’ round so?”

“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”

I fixed ’em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and there they was all covered with jell, too. What to do I didn’t know. But finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up corner-ways as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind, and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he wouldn’t, and I told him if he wouldn’t that he must make his own excuses to the company about wearin’ the shawl. So he told ’em he always loved to wear summer shawls; he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink all the time he was a sayin’ it. They all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin’ as if he had stole sheep—and meachin’er—and he never took a minute’s comfort, nor I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the shore, and so was I. And jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain began to pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time. My lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bonnet. And I says to Josiah:

“This bonnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy some new ones.”

“Wall! wall! who said you wouldn’t?” he snapped out.

But it wore on him. Oh! how the rain poured down. Josiah havin’ nothin’ but a handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a apron to put on a gettin’ dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on his head. But says he, firmly:

“I hain’t proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin’ out with a pink apron on for a hat.”

“Wall then,” says I, “get as wet as sop if you had ruther.”

I didn’t say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down; the wind howled at us; the old mare went slow; the rheumatiz laid holt of both of us; and the thought of the new bonnet and dress was a wearin’ on Josiah, I knew.

There wasn’t a house for the first seven miles, and after we got there I thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had got to get home to milk, anyway, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as thirteen miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward, with the rain drippin’ offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his blue pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:

“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”

He give the old mare a awful cut, and says he: “I’d like to know what you want to be so agrevatin’ for.”

I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud-puddle, I says to him:

“Mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”

And I’ll bet he will. I hain’t afraid to bet a ten cent bill that that man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a pleasure exertion.

A VISIT TO THE CHILDREN.

It was a fair and lovely forenoon, and I thought we would go and spend the day with the childern. Kitty Smith had gone the day before to visit a aunt on her mother’s side to Log London. She was a layin’ out to stay 3 or 4 weeks, and I declare, it seemed lonesome as a dog—and lonesomer. And I told Josiah that I guessed we would go to Jonesville and visit the childern, for we hadn’t been there to stay all day with ’em for a number of weeks. He sort o’ hung back, and said he didn’t know how to spend the time. But I only says, decided like and firm, and in a solemn and warnin’ way:

“You can do as you are a mind to, Josiah Allen, and as your conscience will let you. But croup is round, that I know, and I worried last night a good deal about little Samantha Joe.”

Says he: “I will hitch up the old mare this minute, Samantha, and do you throw your things on as quick as you can.” And he started for the barn almost on the run.

My natural nature is very truthful and transparent,—almost like rain-water,—and little figurative expressions like these are painful to me—very. But every woman who has a man to deal with for above twenty years will know that they _have_ to use ’em in order to move men as men ort to be moved.

I won’t come right out and lie for nobody—man or beast. Croup _was_ round promiscus in Jonesville, and I _had_ worried about little Samantha Joe. But my conscience told me, as I tied up my back hair, and hooked up my dress, that I had talked in a sort of a parable way. And it smote me; not so hard as it had smote; but hardish.

And if there ever was a old tyrant on the face of the earth, my conscience is one. It won’t let me do nothin’ the least mite out of the way without poundin’ me almost to death. Sometimes I get fairly tuckered out with it.

Wall, I had jest finished hookin’ up my dress, and was a pinnin’ on my collar at the lookin’-glass, when, happenin’ to throw one of the eyes of my spectacles out of the window, I see Kellup Cobb a drivin’ up; and he hitched the hearse to the front gate, and come in.

He looked quite well for him. His hair and whiskers was a good, dark, tan color, bearin’ a little on the orange. Quite a becomin’ color to him, he bein’ so saller.

He inquired where Kitty was. And then he wanted to know most the first thing he said, and his mean looked anxious as he said it, “If her health was a keepin’ up?”

“Why, yes,” says I, “why shouldn’t it?”

“Wall,” says he, “I was obleeged to go away on business, and couldn’t get here last week, and I didn’t know how she would take it. I should have wrote to her,” says he, “but not havin’ quite made up my mind whether I would marry her or not, I thought it would be cruel to her to pay her such a close attention as a letter would be. It wuzn’t the postage that I minded. Three cents wouldn’t have stood in the way of my writin’ to her, if I had made up my mind full and complete.

“But,” says he, a knittin’ up his forward hard, “them two old reasons that did stand in the way of my marryin’ stands there now—stands there a headin’ of me off. It hain’t so much because she is a poor girl that I hesitate. No, that wouldn’t influence me much, for she is sound and healthy, good to work, and would pay her way. No, it is them wimmen! What will be done with the rest of the wimmen that I shall have to disapinte?

“But,” says he, lookin’ gloomy into the oven, “I have jest about made up my mind that I will marry her, whether or no, and leave the event to Providence. If I do, they’ll have to stand it somehow. They hadn’t ort to expect, and if they used a mite of reason they wouldn’t expect, that a man would sacrifice himself always, and keep single forever, ruther than hurt their feelin’s.”

Says he, lookin’ as bitter and gloomy into that oven as a oven was ever looked into, “Even if ten or a dozen of ’em die off, the law can’t touch me for it, for if ever a man has been careful, I have been. Look at my clothes, now,” says he, lookin’ down on himself with a sort of a self-righteous, admirin’ sort of a look, “I wore these old clothes to-day jest out of solid principle and goodness towards wimmen. It wuzn’t to be savin’, and because it looked like rain. No, I knew I had got to be round amongst wimmen a good deal, to-day, a settlin’ up accounts, and so I wore this old overcoat of father’s. I have got a brand new one, but I wouldn’t wear it round amongst ’em.

“I am on my guard, and they can’t come back on me for damages. They have only got themselves to blame if they are ondone. They might have realized that they couldn’t all have got me. And I have jest about made up my mind that I will run the resk and marry her. She is to Log London, you say. It happens jest right,” says he, a brightenin’ up.

“There is a funeral down that way, to-morrow, not more than thirteen or fourteen miles from there, and I will go round that way on my way back, and call and see her.”

I declare his talk sickened me so that I was fairly sick to my stomach. It was worse than thoroughwort or lobelia, and so I told Josiah afterwards. But I didn’t say a word back to him, for I knew I might jest as well try to convince the wind right in a whirlwind that it hadn’t better blow, as to convince him that he was a fool.

But, as he got up to go, I told him that I had a little mite of business of my own with him. You see our new minister, Elder Bamber, is a likely feller as ever drawed the breath of life, and hard-workin’—couldn’t get a cent of his pay from the meetin’-house. They had got into a kind of a quarrel, the men had, and wouldn’t pay what they had signed. And I proposed to the women, the female sisters, that we should try to get him up a present of 50 dollars to last ’em through the storm—the meetin’-house storm. For they was fairly sufferin’ for provisions, and clothes, and stuff. And as Kellup was a member of the same meetin’-house, and talked and sung powerful in conference meetin’s, I thought it wouldn’t be no more than right for me to tackle him, and get him to pay a little sunthin’ towards it. So I tackled him.

“Wall, Sister Allen,” says he, in that hypocritical, sneakin’ way of hisen (he was always powerful at repeatin’ Scriptural texts), “I can say with Peter, ‘Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I will give unto thee.’”

“Wall, what is it?” says I. “What are you goin’ to give?”

Says he, “I will work for the cause. If religion is worth anything,” says he, a rollin’ up the whites of his eyes, “it is worth workin’ for—it is worth makin’ sacrifices for.”

“So I think,” says I, in a very dry tone. “And I want a half a dollar out of you.”