Chapter IV: Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

V

THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM IN GOSHEN

V

THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM IN GOSHEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Old man Middleton was sittin' on the front porch smokin' his pipe when Emmeline rode up, and he hollered out to his wife that here was Emmeline, and they both come runnin' out to meet her. You know how it is with the old folks, when a gyirl comes home to make 'em a visit after gittin' married. They're proud of her for marryin' well, but they've been missin' her and they're mighty glad to have her back in her old place. But as soon as they'd hugged her and kissed her they both said, 'Where's Henry?' and, 'Why didn't he come with you?' Emmeline said for a minute she wished she was back at home, for she knew how bad they'd feel when she told 'em what she had to tell. But she thought she might as well have it over and be done with it, and says she, 'Henry's at home, and I'm at home, too. I've left him, and I'm never goin' back to him.'

"Well, Emmeline said they both fell back on the porch steps like they'd been shot, and as soon as they could speak they both said: 'Left him! What for?' Emmeline said she felt so ashamed of Henry she'd made up her mind from the first that nobody ever should know about that little silk shirt. So she says, 'I've found out that Henry's not the man I thought he was. I've left him for good and all.' And old man Middleton says, 'Why, daughter, what's he done amiss? I've known Henry from a boy up, and there ain't a man in the county I'd rather have for a son-in-law.' And Emmeline says, 'Yes, I used to think that way myself, but I've found out different.' And the old man says, 'Has he struck you or mistreated you in any way? He's been too well brought up for that. He ain't close-fisted about money matters, I know, for I've had dealin's with him myself, and, besides, you ain't been married to him long enough to have to call on him for anything.' And Emmeline says, 'No, he's as freehanded as he can be, and I've got nothin' to complain about except that I didn't know him as well as I do now, and since I know him, why, I don't want to live with him.'

"And then her mother begun questionin', and all she could git out of Emmeline was that Henry wasn't the man she thought he was; and at last the old lady lost her patience and says she, 'In the name o' peace! Have I got a child with so little sense as to think that that's any reason for leavin' a man? Of course he ain't the man you thought he was, and you ain't the woman he thought you was. But what o' that? If husbands and wives took to partin' on that account, the world would be full o' grass-widders and grass-widderers.' Says she, 'You're welcome to stay here till Henry comes for you, and I'll give out to the neighbors that you're makin' us a visit, but back to Henry you've got to go. Gittin' married,' says she, 'is like buyin' a piece o' dress-goods at the store. As long as you haven't had it cut off the bolt, you can change your mind, but if it's once cut off, you've got to pay for it and take it home and make the best o' your bargain.' Says she, 'You had plenty o' time to find out what sort o' man Henry was, and you turned your back on two good chances whilst you waited for him, and now there's no slippin' out o' the trade. I don't propose to have any widders in my family,' says she, 'except the sort that can put up a tombstone and wear a black veil.' Says she, 'Take off your bonnet and make yourself at home till Henry comes for you.'

"And, bless your life, Henry wasn't long comin', either. Before they got the supper dishes washed up, here he come as fast as his horse could bring him. Old man Amos went out to meet him and took him around to the side o' the house and says he, 'Son, I want you to tell me what all this to-do is, anyhow. I can't git head nor tail of it from Emmeline.' And Henry says, 'Well, Father Amos, it's this way. Emmeline's been goin' through my trunk, and she found a little somethin' or other that belonged to another woman that I used to know long before I knew her, and that's what upset her.' And the old man shook his head and says he, 'You ought to 'a' destroyed all such things before you married; and that was a mighty keerless trick, leavin' your trunk unlocked, though two to one Emmeline would 'a' got into it anyway. It's my belief,' says he, 'that women carry skeleton keys to keep the run o' their husband's private affairs.' And Henry says, 'I've done all I could to pacify her; I've told her I never loved that woman like I love her and never was married to the woman and never wanted to marry her, and what more can a man say?' And the old man says, 'Well, that ought to satisfy any reasonable woman, but in matters like this women don't seem to be able to use their reason.' Says he, 'It looks like they expect a man to be jest like Adam before Eve was made for him,' and says he, 'You'll have to hoe your own row with Emmeline in this affair, and her mother and me'll help you all we can.'

"Well, all three of 'em argued with Emmeline, tryin' to persuade her to go back home, but nothin' they could say had any effect on her. And finally Henry says, 'Well, Emmeline, if you will leave me, I reckon I'll have to put up with it, but I've got jest one favor to ask of you.' Says he, 'You know how my mother and father have set their hearts on havin' you for a daughter-in-law and how anxious they are to see you. Now, all I ask of you is to let me take you to see my folks, and you make 'em a visit. If I was to write to my mother,' says he, 'that my wife had left me, I believe it would be the death of her. She's subject to spells anyway, and the doctor says any little shock'll carry her off. So you let me take you up to mother's, and you make her and father a little visit, and then I'll bring you home and try to break it to mother the best I can.'

"Emmeline thought a minute, and finally she says, 'Well, I'll go for your mother's sake, but not for yours.' So Henry, he went back home to git somebody to look after his stock while he was gone, and the next day he come for Emmeline, and they started to his mother's. It was pretty near a day's journey, and there couldn't 'a' been a nicer trip for a bride and groom, ridin' through the woods and over the hills about the middle of October, the leaves jest turnin' and the weather neither hot nor cold. I reckon, child, you don't know what it is to make a journey that way. That's one o' the things folks miss by bein' born nowadays instead of in the old times before there was any railroads. I ricollect when they begun puttin' down the track for the first railroad in this county. Uncle Jimmy Judson went to town on purpose to see what it was like, and some o' the town folks explained all about layin' the ties and the rails and showed him a picture o' the cyars and the locomotive, and Uncle Jimmy looked at it a minute or two, and then he shook his head and says he, 'None o' that sort o' travelin' for me--shut up in a wooden box with a steam-engine in front liable to blow up any minute, and nothin' but the mercy o' God to keep them wheels from runnin' off this here narrer railin'.' Says he, 'Give me a clear sky overhead, a good road underfoot, good company by my side, and my old buggy and my old mare, and I can travel from sunup to sundown and ask no odds o' the railroad.' And I reckon most old people feel pretty much like Uncle Jimmy.

"I ricollect Parson Page sayin' once that the Christian's life was a journey to heaven, and Sam Amos says, 'Yes, and generally when I start out to go to a place, I want to get there as soon as possible; but here's one time,' says he, 'when I wouldn't care if I never got to my journey's end.' And that's the way it was with me when me and Abram'd start out in our old rockaway for a day's travel through the country, goin' to see his mother or mine. No matter how much I wanted to see the folks I was goin' to, I'd feel as if I could keep on forever ridin' through the thick woods or along the open road, the wind blowin' in my face and the sun gittin' higher and higher towards noon and then night comin' on before we'd be at our journey's end.

"I've heard Emmeline laugh many a time about that ride. Her mother come out to the gate and put a basket o' lunch under the seat, and says she, 'Now, Emmeline, you be a good gyirl and don't give Henry any more trouble, and, Henry, when you two come back you take Emmeline right home with you; don't you bring her here.' And old man Amos give a big laugh and says he, 'Come back home if you want to, Emmeline. My door's always open to my own children; but if you come, Henry's got to come, too, so either way you fix it there won't be any partin'.' Emmeline said she wouldn't let Henry help her in the buggy. She got in on one side, and he got in on the other, and she set as far off from him as she could, and they started off, old lady Amos callin' after 'em: 'You jest remember, Emmeline, as long as Henry's above the sod you're Henry's wife. There's only one thing that can part you, and that's death.'

"Well, Emmeline said Henry was as nice and polite as you please all that day. He talked about the weather and the birds and the trees and the flowers, and p'inted out things along the way, but she never opened her mouth till dinner-time. They stopped by a spring to eat their dinner, and Henry watered the horse and fixed the check-rein so's he could graze, and then he set down some little distance away from her, and she opened the basket. She said of course she couldn't be mean enough to sit there and eat by herself, so she told him to come and have some dinner. And he come over and set down beside her, and she waited on him, and they drank out o' the same cup, and Emmeline said you could hear the spring drippin' and the birds and the squirrels chirpin' and chatterin' in the trees; and every now and then a pretty leaf'd come flutterin' down and fall in the spring or on her lap, and Henry talked so kind and pleasant that Emmeline said she got to thinkin' how happy she'd be if it wasn't for that little silk shirt, and she'd 'a' give anything she had if she'd jest kept out o' Henry's trunk. And when they'd got through eatin', Henry took hold of her hand and says he, 'Emmeline, can't you trust me a little bit?' And she jerked away from him and begun getherin' up the provisions and foldin' the napkins. And Henry says, 'Well, pretty soon we'll be at mother's. Maybe she can set matters right.' And they got in the buggy and started again, and Emmeline said the nearer they got to Henry's home the worse she felt, and finally she broke down and begun to cry, and she cried for three miles right straight along.

"It was about sunset, and Henry kept tellin' her to cheer up and look at the pretty clouds and the light comin' through the red-and-yeller sugar-maples and the beech-trees. She said he was mighty cheerful himself, and it made her mad to see how easy he was takin' it. When they got within sight o' the house Henry says, 'Now dry your eyes, Emmeline, or mother'll think you ain't glad to see her. She goin' to be mighty glad to see you.' Old man Sanford and his wife, honey, was a couple that thought more o' their daughters-in-law than they did o' their own children. They'd had nine sons and never had a gyirl-child, and they'd always wanted one, and the old man used to look at the boys and say, 'Well, your mother and me didn't want this many boys, but you children would be boys, and now you've got to make up for the disapp'intment you've been to your parents by bringin' us in some nice, pretty daughters-in-law.' And every time one o' the boys got married the old man, he'd say, 'Well, my daughters are comin' at last,' and the old lady used to say that her daughters-in-law paid her for all the trouble her sons had been to her.

"It was milkin'-time when they drove in at the big gate, and the old lady was jest startin' out with her quart cup and her bucket. Henry hollered, 'Howdy, mother!' and she dropped the milk things and run to meet 'em, and Emmeline said she never had such a welcome in her life. The old lady didn't take any notice o' Henry. She jest hugged and kissed Emmeline and pretty near carried her into the house. Then she took notice of how Emmeline had been cryin', and she turned around to Henry and says she, 'Henry Sanford, what have you been doin' to this poor child to make her cry? It speaks mighty poorly of you to have your wife cryin' this soon in your married life.' And Henry put his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out a little bundle and handed it to his mother and says he, 'Mother, I want you to tell Emmeline whose this is.' And the old lady opened the bundle and says she, 'Henry Sanford, what do you mean by pokin' this old shirt at me when I want to be makin' the acquaintance o' my new daughter-in-law?' And Henry says, 'If you'll tell Emmeline all about this shirt, mother, it'll stop her cryin'.' Emmeline said the old lady put on her specs and looked at 'em both as if she thought they might be losin' their senses and says she, 'Well, honey, I don't see what this old shirt has to do with your cryin', but I can mighty soon tell you about it. It's one of a half a dozen that Henry's father didn't have any better sense than to buy five or six years ago when he was layin' in a stock o' summer goods. ("Old man Sanford run a country store, child, along with his farmin'," interpolated Aunt Jane.) And,' says she, 'after they'd stayed in the store three or four seasons I took 'em and wore 'em to keep 'em from bein' a dead loss. And when Henry come out o' the army he was half naked and more'n half dead, betwixt the Yankees and the chills and fever, and I put these shirts on him to protect his chest.'

"Well, Emmeline said as soon as the old lady begun talkin', her heart got as light as a feather, and she felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of her mind. But she said she looked around at Henry, and he was watchin' to see how she'd take it, and all at once he burst out laughin', and that made her mad again, and she thought about all the trouble she'd been through, and she begun cry in' again and says she, 'Oh! why didn't you tell me that? Why didn't you tell me?' Emmeline said Henry's mother come over and put her arms around her and says she, 'Henry Sanford, what prank have you been playin' on your wife? Tell me this minute.' And Henry begun explainin' things and tryin' to smooth it over, and I reckon he thought his mother'd see the joke jest like he did, but she didn't. She looked at Henry over her spectacles mighty stern and says she, 'Henry, I've always been afeard you didn't have your full share o' punishment whilst you were growin' up, bein' the youngest child, and if it wasn't that you're a married man I'd certainly give you one o' the whippin's you missed when you were a boy.' And Henry says, 'Well, maybe I ought to be punished for not tellin' Emmeline, but I jest thought I'd play a joke on her, and if Emmeline had only had a little confidence in me it wouldn't 'a' worried her the way it did.' And old lady Sanford, she says, 'Confidence! Confidence! There's jest one person I put my confidence in, and that's Almighty God.' Says she, 'If a man's crippled in both feet, and the front door and the back door's locked, and I've got both my eyes on him, I may make out to trust him a minute or two, but that's about all.' Says she, 'Of course a woman ought to trust her husband; but that don't mean that she's got to shut her eyes and her ears and throw away her common sense.' Says she, 'Emmeline don't know as much about you as your father knows about that old roan mare he bought day before yesterday. A man's jest like a horse,' says she; 'you've got to break him in and learn all his gaits and tricks before there's any safety or pleasure travelin' with him. Here you ain't been married to Emmeline a month yet, and you talk about her havin' confidence in you!' Says she, 'I've been married to your father forty-five years this comin' January, and I've never seen cause to doubt him, but if I was to find another woman's gyarment amongst his clothes I'd leave him that quick.'

"And about this time old man Sanford come in, and when he'd shook hands with Henry and hugged and kissed Emmeline he begun to take notice of how she'd been cryin', and the old lady she told him the whole story, and, bless your life, the old man was madder'n she was. He turned around to Henry and says he, mighty stern and solemn, 'Son, I feel that you've disgraced your raisin'.' Says he, 'A man that'll cause a woman to shed an unnecessary tear is worse'n a brute, and here you've let Emmeline cry her pretty eyes out over nothin' right at the beginnin' of her married life. If you treat her this way now, how'll it be ten years from now?' And then he patted Emmeline on the shoulder and says he, 'Never mind, daughter, if Henry don't treat you right, you stay here with pappy and mammy and be their little gyirl. Henry always was the black sheep o' the flock, anyhow.'

"And at that Emmeline jumped up and run over to Henry and threw her arms around his neck and says she, 'You sha'n't talk that way about Henry. He's not a black sheep, either. He's the best man in the world, and it's all my fault and I'll never mistrust him again as long as I live.' And then Henry broke down and cried, and the old man and the old lady they cried, and they all hugged and kissed each other, and such a makin' up you never did see. And in two or three days here Henry and Emmeline come ridin' back home and lookin' like a sure-enough bride and groom. Emmeline said they went over the same road, but everything seemed different; the birds sung sweeter, the sun shone brighter, and the leaves were prettier, for you know, honey, the way a thing looks depends more on people's minds than it does on their eyes. They stopped at the same spring to eat their dinner, and Emmeline said she promised Henry she'd never mistrust him again, and he promised her he'd never play any more jokes on her. I reckon they both must 'a' kept their promise, for from that time on there never was a more peaceable, well-contented married couple than Emmeline and Henry. Emmeline used to say that she did all her cryin' durin' her honeymoon and Henry'd never caused her to shed a tear since.

"Nobody ever would 'a' known about her findin' the shirt and leavin' her husband if she hadn't told it herself, for the old folks on both sides felt so ashamed o' Henry and Emmeline for the way they'd acted that they never would 'a' told it. But Emmeline told Milly Amos and Milly told Sam, and the first thing you knew everybody in Goshen was laughin' over Emmeline leavin' her husband, and everybody was disputin' about which was in the right and which was in the wrong. I ricollect Sam Amos sayin' that any woman that went rummagin' around in a man's trunk deserved to find trouble, and his sympathies was all with Henry; and Milly said Henry ought to 'a' told Emmeline whose shirt it was and not kept her grievin' and worryin' all that time. And Sam says, 'Yes, he ought to 'a' told her, but if he had 'a' told her it wouldn't 'a' helped matters, for she wasn't in a frame o' mind to believe him.' Says he, 'You women are always suspicionin' a man, and if you come across a piece of circumstantial evidence you'll convict him on that and hang him in spite of all he can say for himself.'

"I ricollect our Mite Society got to talkin' one day about husbands and wives leavin' each other, and whether it was ever right or lawful for married folks to part and marry again. Maria Petty says, says she, 'There's some things that every woman's called on to stand, and there's some things that no woman ought to stand.' And Sally Ann says, 'Yes, and as long as you women think you have to stand things, you'll have things to stand.' And Milly Amos says, 'A husband and a wife can part when there's no children, but,' says she, 'if they've had children, you might put the husband on one side o' the world and the wife on the other and they're husband and wife still, for there's the children holdin' 'em together.' I ricollect everybody had a different opinion, and the longer we talked the further we got from any sort of agreement about it."

And as it was in Goshen so was it in Athens when Plato wrote and taught, and so it is to-day wherever human wisdom offers its varying solutions to this problem of the ages.

"What do you think about it, Aunt Jane?" I asked.

Aunt Jane was silent. Intuitively she felt the magnitude of the question. We had laughed over the comedy of her story, but its rustic scenery had shifted, and we were standing now in the tragic presence of a social sphinx, whose mystery calls for baffled silence rather than confident speech.

"Well, honey," she said at last, thoughtfully and hesitatingly, "if folks could only love each other the way me and Abram did, they'll never want to part; and of course if they love each other they'll trust each other; and if the love and the trust runs short, why, then they ought to be patient and try to bear with each other's failin's. But, as Maria Petty used to say, there's some things that no woman is called on to bear, and no man, either, for that matter, and if married folks feel that they can't stand livin' together I ain't the one to judge 'em, for I never had anything to stand, and happy folks oughtn't to judge the folks that's unhappy. It does look like to me that if the husbands and wives in Goshen could stay married anybody could, but maybe I don't know. And when a person gits all twisted and turned so's they can't tell what's right and what's wrong, why, it ain't time for passin' judgment and givin' opinions, and I reckon I'll jest have to fall back on that text o' Scripture that says all things are workin' together for good. Not some things, honey, but 'all things.' Did you ever think o' that? The things you want and the things you don't want; the things you complain about and the things you rejoice about; the things you laugh over and the things you cry over--all of 'em workin', not against each other, but together, and all workin' for good. I ricollect hearin' a sermon once on that very passage o' Scripture. The preacher said that that text was like a sea without a shore; its meanin' was as wide and as deep as the love of God, and if we could only take it in and believe it, we'd never have any fears or any misgivin's again. And then, there's that verse o' Brownin's that says God's in his heaven and everything's right with the world. So I reckon, in spite of all this marryin' and partin' and marryin' again, the world's in safe hands and movin' on in the right way."

Aunt Jane was smiling now, for on these winged words of apostle and poet her soul had risen into its native atmosphere of serene faith, casting upon the shoulders of Omnipotence the burden of world-sorrow and world-sin that only Omnipotence can lift and bear.

VI

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

VI

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

It was the time of the blooming of the wistaria. Over in fair Japan the imperial purple clusters were drooping over the roofs of the tea-gardens and the walls of the Emperor's palace, and here in Aunt Jane's garden they hung from the rickety trellis that barely supported the weight of the royal flowers.

Aunt Jane gazed at them with worshipful eyes.

"It's been fifty years this spring," she said, "since I planted that vine. It took it five years to come into bloomin', so I've seen it bloom forty-five times; and every time I see it, it looks prettier to me. I took a root of it along with me when I went to Lexin'ton to visit Henrietta, and the gyardener planted it by the front porch so's it could run up the big pillars--that's the difference betwixt my gyarden and Henrietta's. She has a gyardener to plant her flowers, and I do my own plantin'. I can't help believin' that I have more pleasure out o' my old-fashioned gyarden than she has out o' her fine new one. Flowers that somebody else plants and 'tends to are jest like children that somebody else nurses and raises. I raise my flowers like I raised my children, and I reckon that that's why I love 'em so. It's a curious thing, child, the hold that flowers and trees has on human bein's. You can move into a house and set up your furniture and live there twenty years, and as long as you don't do any plantin', you won't mind changin' your house any more'n you'd mind changin' your dress. But you jest plant a rose-bush or a honey-suckle and then start to move, and it'll look like every root o' that bush is holdin' you to the place, and if you go, you'll want to take your flowers with you jest like grandmother took her rose when she moved from old Virginia to new Kentucky."

She paused to look again at the splendor of grace and color that spring had brought to the old garden. No wonder we have patience to tread the ice-bound path through the winter when we know that things like this lie at the end. A delicate, reverent wind arose, the long, rich tassels of bloom yielded themselves to its touch and swayed to and fro like majesty acknowledging homage, while, bolder than the wind, a mob of democratic bees hummed nonchalantly in the august presence and gathered honey as if a wistaria were no more than a country clover field.