IT IS SWEET TO FORGIVE.It is sweet to be—it is sweet to live,But sweeteh the sweet word “forgive;”If harsh, loud words should spoken be,Say “Soul be calm they come from he—When he was wild with toil and grief,When colic could not find relief;Such woe and cares should have sufficed,Then, he should not have been surprized.”When twins are well, and the world looks bright,To be surprized, is sweet and right,But when twins are sick, and the world looks sad,To be surprized is hard and bad,And when side thimbles swallowed be,How can the world look sweet to he—Who owns the twin—faih babe, heaven bless it,Who hath no own motheh to caress it.Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above,Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love.My own heart runs o’er with tenderness,But its deah father tries to do his best,But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand,Oh! how he needs a helping hand.Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown,It is sad for a deah man to be alone.
IT IS SWEET TO FORGIVE.It is sweet to be—it is sweet to live,But sweeteh the sweet word “forgive;”If harsh, loud words should spoken be,Say “Soul be calm they come from he—When he was wild with toil and grief,When colic could not find relief;Such woe and cares should have sufficed,Then, he should not have been surprized.”When twins are well, and the world looks bright,To be surprized, is sweet and right,But when twins are sick, and the world looks sad,To be surprized is hard and bad,And when side thimbles swallowed be,How can the world look sweet to he—Who owns the twin—faih babe, heaven bless it,Who hath no own motheh to caress it.Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above,Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love.My own heart runs o’er with tenderness,But its deah father tries to do his best,But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand,Oh! how he needs a helping hand.Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown,It is sad for a deah man to be alone.
IT IS SWEET TO FORGIVE.
IT IS SWEET TO FORGIVE.
It is sweet to be—it is sweet to live,But sweeteh the sweet word “forgive;”If harsh, loud words should spoken be,Say “Soul be calm they come from he—When he was wild with toil and grief,When colic could not find relief;Such woe and cares should have sufficed,Then, he should not have been surprized.”
It is sweet to be—it is sweet to live,
But sweeteh the sweet word “forgive;”
If harsh, loud words should spoken be,
Say “Soul be calm they come from he—
When he was wild with toil and grief,
When colic could not find relief;
Such woe and cares should have sufficed,
Then, he should not have been surprized.”
When twins are well, and the world looks bright,To be surprized, is sweet and right,But when twins are sick, and the world looks sad,To be surprized is hard and bad,And when side thimbles swallowed be,How can the world look sweet to he—Who owns the twin—faih babe, heaven bless it,Who hath no own motheh to caress it.
When twins are well, and the world looks bright,
To be surprized, is sweet and right,
But when twins are sick, and the world looks sad,
To be surprized is hard and bad,
And when side thimbles swallowed be,
How can the world look sweet to he—
Who owns the twin—faih babe, heaven bless it,
Who hath no own motheh to caress it.
Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above,Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love.My own heart runs o’er with tenderness,But its deah father tries to do his best,But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand,Oh! how he needs a helping hand.Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown,It is sad for a deah man to be alone.
Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above,
Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love.
My own heart runs o’er with tenderness,
But its deah father tries to do his best,
But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand,
Oh! how he needs a helping hand.
Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown,
It is sad for a deah man to be alone.
Sugerin’ time come pretty late this year, and I told Josiah, that I didn’t believe I should have a better time through the whole year, to visit his folks, and mother Smith, than I should now before we begun to make sugar, for I knew no sooner had I got that out of the way, than it would be time to clean house, and make soap. And then when the dairy work come on, I knew I never should get off. So I went. But never shall I forget the day I got back. I had been gone a week, and the childern bein’ both off to school, Josiah got along alone. I have always said, and I say still, that I had jest as lives have a roarin’ lion do my house-work, as a man. Every thing that could be bottom side up in the house, was.
I had a fortnight’s washin’ to do, the house to clean up, churnin’ to do, and bakin’; for Josiah had eat up everything slick and clean, the buttery shelves looked like the dessert of Sarah. Then I had a batch of maple sugar to do off, for the trees begun to run afterI went away and Josiah had syruped off—and some preserves to make, for his folks had gin me some pound sweets, and they was a spilein’. So it seemed as if everything come that day, besides my common house-work—and well doth the poet say—“That a woman never gets her work done up,” for she don’t.
Now when a man ploughs a field, or runs up a line of figgers, or writes a serming, or kills a beef critter, there it is done—no more to be done over. But sposen’ a woman washes up her dishes clean as a fiddle, no sooner does she wash ’em up once, than she has to, right over and over agin, three times three hundred and 65 times every year. And the same with the rest of her work, blackin’ stoves, and fillin’ lamps, and washin’ and moppin’ floors, and the same with cookin’. Why jest the idee of paradin’ out the table and tea-kettle 3 times 3 hundred and 65 times every year is enough to make a woman sweat. And then to think of all the cookin’ utensils and ingredients—why if it wuzzn’t for principle, no woman could stand the idee, let alone the labor, for it haint so much the mussle she has to lay out, as the strain on her mind.
Now last Monday, no sooner did I get my hands into the suds holt of one of Josiah’s dirty shirts, than the sugar would mount up in the kettle and sozzle over on the top of the furnace in the summer kitchen—or else the preserves would swell up and drizzle over the side of the pan on to the stove—or else thepuddin’ I was a bakin’ for dinner would show signs of scorchin’, and jest as I was in the heat of the warfare, as you may say, who should drive up but the Editor of the Agur. He was a goin’ on further, to engage a hired girl he had hearn of, and on his way back, he was goin’ to stop and read that poetry, and eat some maple sugar; and he wanted to leave the twins till he come back.
Says he, “They won’t be any trouble to you, will they?” I thought of the martyrs, and with a appearance of outward composure, I answered him in a sort of blind way; but I won’t deny that I had to keep a sayin’, ‘John Rogers! John Rogers’ over to myself all the time I was ondoin’ of ’em, or I should have said somethin’ I was sorry for afterwards. The poetry woried me the most, I won’t deny.
After the father drove off, the first dive the biggest twin made was at the clock, he crep’ up to that, and broke off the pendulum, so it haint been since, while I was a hangin’ thier cloaks in the bedroom. And while I was a puttin’ thier little oversocks under the stove to dry, the littlest one clim’ up and sot down in a pail of maple syrup, and while I was a wringin’ him out, the biggest one dove under the bed, at Josiah’s tin trunk where he keeps a lot of old papers, and come a creepin’ out, drawin’ it after him like a hand-sled. There was a gography in it, and a Fox’es book of martyrs, and a lot of other such light reading, andI let the twins have ’em to recreate themselves on, and it kep’ ’em still most a minute.
I hadn’t much more’n got my eye off’en that Fox’es book of Martyrs—when there appeared before ’em a still more mournful sight, it was Betsey Bobbet come to spend the day.
I murmured dreamily to myself “John Rogers”—But that didn’t do, I had to say to myself with firmness—“Josiah Allen’s wife, haint you ashamed of yourself, what are your sufferin’s to John Rogers’es? Think of the agony of that man—think of his 9 children follerin’ him, and the one at the breast, what are your sufferin’s compared to his’en?” Then with a brow of calm I advanced to meet her. I see she had got over bein’ mad about the surprise party, for she smiled on me once or twice, and as she looked at the twins, she smiled 2 times on each of ’em, which made 4 and says she in tender tones,
“You deah little motherless things.” Then she tried to kiss ’em. But the biggest one gripped her by her false hair, which was flax, and I should think by a careless estimate, that he pulled out about enough to make half a knot of thread. The little one didn’t do much harm, only I think he loosened her teeth a little, he hit her pretty near the mouth, and I thought as she arose she slipped ’em back in thier place. But she only said,
“Sweet! sweet little things, how ardent and impulsive they are, so like thier deah Pa.”
She took out her work, and says she, “I have come to spend the day. I saw thier deah Pa bringin’ the deah little twins in heah, and I thought maybe I could comfort the precious little motherless things some, if I should come over heah. If there is any object upon the earth, Josiah Allen’s wife, that appeals to a feelin’ heart, it is the sweet little children of widowers. I cannot remember the time when I did not want to comfort them, and thier deah Pa’s. I have always felt that it was woman’s highest speah, her only mission to soothe, to cling, to smile, to coo. I have always felt it, and for yeahs back it has been a growin’ on me. I feel that you do not feel as I do in this matter, you do not feel that it is woman’s greatest privilege, her crowning blessing, to soothe lacerations, to be a sort of a poultice to the noble, manly breast when it is torn with the cares of life.”
This was too much, in the agitated frame of mind I then was.
“Am I a poultice Betsey Bobbet, do I look like one?—am I in the condition to be one?” I cried turnin’ my face, red and drippin’ with prespiration towards her, and then attacked one of Josiah’s shirt sleeves agin. “What has my sect done,” says I, as I wildly rubbed his shirt sleeves, “That they have got to be lacerator soothers, when they have got everything else under the sun to do?” Here I stirred down the preserves that was a runnin’ over, and turned a pail fullof syrup into the sugar kettle. “Everybody says that men are stronger than women, and why should they be treated as if they was glass china, liable to break all to pieces if they haint handled careful. And if they have got to be soothed,” says I in an agitated tone, caused by my emotions (and by pumpin’ 6 pails of water to fill up the biler), “Why don’t they get men to sooth’em? They have as much agin time as wimmen have; evenin’s they don’t have anything else to do, they might jest as well be a soothin’ each other as to be a hangin’ round grocery stores, or settin’ by the fire whittlin’.”
I see I was frightenin’ her by my delerious tone and I continued more mildly, as I stirred down the strugglin’ sugar with one hand—removed a cake from the oven with the other—watched my apple preserves with a eagle vision, and listened intently to the voice of the twins, who was playin’ in the woodhouse.
“I had jest as soon soothe lacerations as not, Betsey, if I hadn’t everything else to do. I had jest as lives set down and smile at Josiah by the hour, but who would fry him nut-cakes? I could smoothe down his bald head affectionately, but who would do off this batch of sugar? I could coo at him day in and day out, but who would skim milk—wash pans—get vittles—wash and iron—and patch and scour—and darn and fry—and make and mend—and bake and bile while I was a cooin’, tell me?” says I.
Betsey spoke not, but quailed, and I continued—
“Women haint any stronger than men, naturally; thier backs and thier nerves haint made of any stouter timber; their hearts are jest as liable to ache as men’s are; so with thier heads; and after doin’ a hard day’s work when she is jest ready to drop down, a little smilin’ and cooin’ would do a woman jest as much good as a man. Not what,” I repeated in the firm tone of principle “Not but what I am willin’ to coo, if I only had time.”
A pause enshued durin’ which I bent over the wash-tub and rubbed with all my might on Josiah’s shirt sleeve. I had got one sleeve so I could see streaks of white in it, (Josiah is awful hard on his shirt sleeves), and I lifted up my face and continued in still more reesonable tones, as I took out my rice puddin’ and cleaned out the bottom of the oven, (the pudden had run over and was a scorchin’ on), and scraped the oven bottom with a knife,
“Now Josiah Allen will go out into that lot,” says I, glancein’ out of the north window “and plough right straight along, furrow after furrow, no sweat of mind about it at all; his mind is in that free calm state that he could write poetry.”
“Speaking of poetry, reminds me,” said Betsey, and I see her hand go into her pocket; I knew what was a comin’, and I went on hurriedly, wavin’ off what I knew must be, as long as I could. “Now, I, a workin’ jest as hard as he accordin’ to my strength, andhavin’ to look 40 ways to once, and 40 different strains on my mind, now tell me candidly, Betsey Bobbet, which is in the best condition for cooin’, Josiah Allen or me? but it haint expected of him,” says I in agitated tones, “I am expected to do all the smilin’ and cooin’ there is done, though you know,” says I sternly, “that I haint no time for it.”
“In this poem, Josiah Allen’s wife, is embodied my views, which are widely different from yours.”
I see it was vain to struggle against fate, she had the poetry in her hand. I rescued the twins from beneath a half a bushel of beans they had pulled over onto themselves—took off my preserves which had burnt to the pan while I was a rescuin’, and calmly listened to her, while I picked up the beans with one hand, and held off the twins with the other.
“There is one thing I want to ask your advice about, Josiah Allen’s wife. This poem is for the Jonesville Augah. You know I used always to write for the opposition papah, the Jonesville Gimlet, but as I said the othah day, since the Editah of the Augah lost his wife I feel that duty is a drawing of me that way. Now do you think that it would be any more pleasing and comforting to that deah Editah to have me sign my name Bettie Bobbet—or Betsey, as I always have?” And loosin’ herself in thought she murmured dreamily to the twins, who was a pullin’ each other’s hair on the floor at her feet—
“Sweet little mothahless things, you couldn’t tell me, could you, deahs, how your deah Pa would feel about it?”
Here the twins laid holt of each other so I had to part ’em, and as I did so I said to Betsey, “If you haint a fool you will hang on to the Betsey. You can’t find a woman nowadays that answers to her true name. I expect,” says I in a tone of cold and almost witherin’ sarcasm, “that these old ears will yet hear some young minister preach about Johnnie the Baptist, and Minnie Magdalen. Hang on to the Betsey; as for the Bobbet,” says I, lookin’ pityingly on her, “that will hang on for itself.”
I was too well bread to interrupt her further, and I pared my potatoes, pounded my beefsteak, and ground my coffee for dinner, and listened. This commenced also as if she had been havin’ a account with Love, and had come out in his debt.
OWED TO LOVE.Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife,With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life,Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be,Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?And if he have any companions lost—if they from earth have risen,Ah, I could weep tears of joy—for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en;Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties,Ah,how willinglyon the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would sacrifice.I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling,And live for love—and live to cling.Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,His smile on me—my sweet smile on he.
OWED TO LOVE.Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife,With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life,Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be,Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?And if he have any companions lost—if they from earth have risen,Ah, I could weep tears of joy—for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en;Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties,Ah,how willinglyon the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would sacrifice.I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling,And live for love—and live to cling.Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,His smile on me—my sweet smile on he.
OWED TO LOVE.
OWED TO LOVE.
Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife,With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life,Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be,Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?
Ah, when my deah future companion’s heart with grief is rife,
With his bosom’s smart, with the cares of life,
Ah, what higher, sweeter, bliss could be,
Than to be a soothing poultice unto he?
And if he have any companions lost—if they from earth have risen,Ah, I could weep tears of joy—for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en;Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties,Ah,how willinglyon the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would sacrifice.
And if he have any companions lost—if they from earth have risen,
Ah, I could weep tears of joy—for the deah bliss of wiping away his’en;
Or if he (should happen to) have any twins, or othah blessed little ties,
Ah,how willinglyon the altah of duty, B. Bobbet, herself would sacrifice.
I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling,And live for love—and live to cling.Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,His smile on me—my sweet smile on he.
I would (all the rest of) life to the cold winds fling,
And live for love—and live to cling.
Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,
His smile on me—my sweet smile on he.
There was pretty near twenty verses of ’em, and as she finished she said to me—
“What think you of my poem, Josiah Allen’s wife?”
Says I, fixin’ my sharp grey eyes upon her keenly, “I have had more experience with men than you have, Betsey;” I see a dark shadow settlin’ on her eye-brow, and I hastened to apologise—“you haint to blame for it, Betsey—we all know you haint to blame.”
She grew calm, and I proceeded, “How long do you suppose you could board a man on clear smiles, Betsey—you jest try it for a few meals and you’d find out. I have lived with Josiah Allen 14 years, and I ought to know somethin’ of the natur of man, which is about alike in all of ’em, and I say, and I contend for it, that you might jest as well try to cling to a bear as to a hungry man. After dinner, sentiment would have a chance, and you might smile on him. But then,” says I thoughtfully, “there is the dishes to wash.”
Jest at that minute the Editor of the Augur stopped at the gate, and Betsey, catchin’ up a twin on each arm, stood up to the winder, smilin’.
He jumped out, and took a great roll of poetry out from under the buggy seat—I sithed as I see it. But fate was better to me than I deserved. For Josiah was jest leadin’ the horse into the horse barn, whenthe Editor happened to look up and see Betsey. Josiah says he swore—says he “the d——!” I won’t say what it was, for I belong to the meetin’ house, but it wasn’t the Deity though it begun with a D. He jumped into the buggy agin, and says Josiah,
“You had better stay to dinner, my wife is gettin’ a awful good one—and the sugar is most done.”
Josiah says he groaned, but he only said—
“Fetch out the twins.”
Says Josiah, “You had better stay to dinner—you haint got no women folks to your house—and I know what it is to live on pancakes,” and wantin’ to have a little fun with him, says he, “Betsey Bobbet is here.”
Josiah says he swore agin, and agin says he, “fetch out the twins.” And he looked so kind o’ wild and fearful towards the door, that Josiah started off on the run.
Betsey was determined to carry one of the twins out, but jest at the door he tore every mite of hair off’en her head, and she, bein’ bald naturally, dropped him. And Josiah carried ’em out, one on each arm, and he drove off with ’em fast. Betsey wouldn’t stay to dinner all I could do and say, she acted mad. But one sweet thought filled me with such joyful emotion that I smiled as I thought of it—I shouldn’t have to listen to any more poetry that day.
The Baptists in our neighborhood have been piecen’ up a bedquilt for their minister. He has preached considerable, and held a Sunday school to our school-house, and I wasn’t goin’ to have any bedquilts done for him without havin’ my hand in it to help it along. I despise the idee of folks bein’ so sot on their own meetin’ housen. Thier is enough worldly things for neighbors to fight about, such as hens, and the school-marm, without takin’ what little religion they have got and go to peltin’ each other with it.
Sposen’ Baptists do love water better’n they do dry land? What of it? If my Baptist brethren feel any better to baptise thierselves in the Atlantic ocian, it haint none of my business. Somehow Josiah seems to be more sot onto his own meetin’ house than I do. Thomas Jefferson said when we was a arguin’ about it the mornin’ of the quiltin’, says he, “The more water the better,” says he, “it would do some of thebrethren good to put ’em asoak and let ’em lay over night.”
I shet him up pretty quick, for I will not countenance such light talk—but Josiah laughed, he encourages that boy in it, all I can do and say.
I always make a pint of goin’ to quiltin’s any way, whether I go on Methodist principle (as in this case) or not, for you can’t be backbited to your face, that is a moral certainty. I know women jest like a book, for I have been one quite a spell. I always stand up for my own sect, still I know sartin effects foller sartin causes. Such as two bricks bein’ sot up side by side, if one tumbles over on to the other, the other can’t stand up, it haint natur. If a toper holds a glass of liquor to his mouth he can’t help swallowin’ it, it haint nater. If a young man goes out slay-ridin’ with a pretty girl, and the buffalo robe slips off, he can’t help holdin’ it round her, it haint nater. And quiltin’ jest sets women to slanderin’ as easy and beautiful as any thing you ever see. I was the first one there, for reasons I have named; I always go early.
I hadn’t been there long before Mrs. Deacon Dobbins came, and then the Widder Tubbs, and then Squire Edwards’es wife and Maggie Snow, and then the Dagget girls. (We call ’emgirls, though it would be jest as proper to call mutton, lamb.)
Miss Wilkins’ baby had the mumps, and the Peedicks and Gowdey’s had unexpected company. Butwith Miss Jones where the quiltin’ was held, and her girls Mary Ann and Alzina, we made as many as could get round the quilt handy.
The quilt was made of different kinds of calico; all the women round had pieced up a block or two, and we took up a collection to get the battin’ and linin’ and the cloth to set it together with, which was turkey red, and come to quilt it, it looked well. We quilted it herrin’ bone, with a runnin’ vine round the border.
After the pathmaster was demorilized, the school-teacher tore to pieces, the party to Peedicks scandalized, Sophronia Gowdey’s charicter broke doun—and her mother’s new bunnet pronounced a perfect fright, and twenty years too young for her—and Miss Wilkins’ baby voted a unquestionable idiot, and the rest of the unrepresented neighborhood dealt with, Lucinda Dagget spoke up and says she—
“I hope the minister will like the bedquilt.” (Lucinda is the one that studies mathematics to harden her mind, and has the Roman nose.)
“It haint no ways likely he will,” says her sister Ophelia; (she is the one that frizzles her hair on top and wears spectacles.) “It haint no ways likely he will—for he is a cold man, a stun statute.”
Now you see I set my eyes by that minister, if he is of another persuasion. He is always doin’ good to somebody, besides preachin’ more like a angel than a human bein’. I can’t never forget—and I don’t wantto—how he took holt of my hand, and how his voice trembled and the tears stood in his eyes, when we thought our Tirzah Ann was a dyin’—she was in his Sunday School class. There is some lines in your life you can’t rub out, if you try to ever so hard. And I wasn’t goin’ to set still and hear him run down. It riled up the old Smith blood, and when that is riled, Josiah says he always feels that it is best to take his hat and leave, till it settles. I spoke right up and says I—
“Lucky for him he was made of stun before he was married, for common flesh and blood would have gin’ out a hundred times, chaste round by the girls as he was.” You see it was the town talk, how Ophelia Dagget acted before he was married, and she almost went into a decline, and took heaps of motherwort and fetty.
“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Allen,” says she, turnin’ red as a red brick, “I never heard of his bein’ chaste, I knew I never could bear the sight of him.”
“The distant sight,” says Alzina Jones.
Ophelia looked so mad at that, that I don’t know but she would have pricked her with her quiltin’ needle, if old Miss Dobbins hadn’t spoke up. She is a fat old lady, with a double chin, mild and lovely as Mount Vernon’s sister. She always agrees with everybody. Thomas Jefferson calls her “WoolenApron” for he says he heard her one day say to Miss Gowdy—“I don’t like woolen aprons, do you Miss Gowdy?”
“Why yes, Miss Dobbin, I do.”
“Well so do I,” says she. But good old soul, if we was all such peace makers as she is, we should be pretty sure of Heaven. Though Thomas Jefferson says, “if Satan should ask her to go to his house, she would go, rather than hurt his feelin’s.” That boy worrys me, I don’t know what he is a comin’ to.
As I said, she looked up mildly over her spectacles, and nodded her purple cap ribbons two or three times, and said “yes,” “jest so,” to both of us. And then to change the subject says she;
“Has the minister’s wife got home yet?”
“I think not,” says Maggie Snow. “I was to the village yesterday, and she hadn’t come then.”
“I suppose her mother is well off,” says the Widder Tubbs, “and as long as she stays there, she saves the minister five dollars a week, I should think she would stay all summer.” The widder is about as equinomical a woman as belongs to his meetin’ house.
“It don’t look well for her to be gone so long,” says Lucinda Dagget, “I am very much afraid it will make talk.”
“Mebby it will save the minister five dollars a week,” says Ophelia, “as extravagant as she is in dress, as many as four silk dresses she has got, andthere’s Baptist folks as good as she is that hain’t got but one—and one certain Baptist personfullas good as she is that hain’t got any.” (Ophelia’s best dress is poplin.) “It won’t take her long to run out the minister’s salary.”
“She had her silk dresses before she was married, and her folks were wealthy,” says Mrs. Squire Edwards.
“As much as we have done for them, and are still doing,” says Lucinda, “it seems ungrateful in her to wear such a bunnet as she wore last summer, a plain white straw, with a little bit of ribbon onto it, not a flower nor a feather, it looked so scrimped and stingy, I have thought she wore it on purpose to mortify us before the Methodists. Jest as if we couldn’t afford to dress our minister’s wife as well as they did theirs.”
Maggie Snow’s cheeks was a getting as red as fire, and her eyes began to shine, jest as they did that day she found some boys stonein’ her kitten. She and the minister’s wife are the greatest friends that ever was. And I see she couldn’t hold in much longer. She was jest openin’ her mouth to speak, when the door opened and in walked Betsey Bobbet.
“My! it seems to me you are late, Betsey, but walk right into the spare bedroom, and take off your things.”
“Things!” says Betsey, in a reckless tone, “whocares for things!” And she dropped into the nearest rocking chair and commenced to rock herself violently and says she “would that I had died when I was a infant babe.”
“Amen!” whispered Alzina Jones, to Maggie Snow.
Betsey didn’t hear her, and again she groaned out, “Would that I had been laid in yondeh church yard, before my eyes had got open to depravity and wickedness.”
“Do tell us what is the matter Betsey,” says Miss Jones.
“Yes do,” says Miss Deacon Dobbins.
“Matter enuff,” says she, “No wondeh there is earthquakes and jars. I heard the news jest as I came out of our gate, and it made me weak as a cat, I had to stop to every house on the way doun heah, to rest, and not a soul had heard of it, till I told ’em. Such a shock as it gave me, I shant get over it for a week, but it is just as I always told you, I always said the minister’s wife wasn’t anytoogood. It didn’t surprise me not a bit.”
“You can’t tell me one word against Mary Morton that I’ll believe,” says Maggie Snow.
“You will admit that the minister went North last Tuesday, won’t you.”
Seven wimmin spoke up at once and said: “Yes, his mother was took sick, and telegraphed for him.”
“So he said,” said Betsey Bobbet, “so he said, but I believe it is for good.”
“Oh dear,” shrieked Ophelia Dagget, “I shall faint away, ketch hold of me, somebody.”
“Ketch hold of yourself,” says I coolly, and then says I to Betsey, “I don’t believe he has run away no more than I believe that I am the next President of the United States.”
“Well, if he is not, he will wish he had, his wife come home this morning on the cars.”
Four wimmens said “Did she,” two said, “Do tell,” and three opened their mouths and looked at her speechless. Amongst these last was Miss Deacon Dobbins. But I spoke out in a collected manner, “What of it?”
Says she, “I believe the poor, deah man mistrusted it all out and run away from trouble and disgrace brought upon him by that female, his wife.”
“How dare you speak the word disgrace in connection with Mary Morton?” says Maggie Snow.
“How dare I?” says Betsey. “Ask Thomas Jefferson Allen, as it happened, I got it from his own mouth, it did not come through two or three.”
“Got what?” says I, and I continued in pretty cold tones, “If you can speak the English language, Betsey Bobbet, and have got sense enough to tell a straight story, tell it and be done with it,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson has been to Jonesville ever sense mornin’.”
THE QUILTIN’ PARTY
THE QUILTIN’ PARTY
“Yes,” says she, “and he was coming home, jest as I started for heah, and he stopped by our gate, and says he, ‘Betsey, I have got something to tell you. I want to tell it to somebody that can keep it, it ought to be kept,’ says he; and then he went on and told; says he,—‘The minister’s wife has got home, and she didn’t come alone neither.’
“Says I, what do you mean? He looked as mysterious as a white ghost, and says he, ‘I mean what I say.’ Says he, ‘I was in the men’s room at the depot this morning, and I heard the minister’s wife in the next room talking to some body she called Hugh, you know her husband’s name is Charles. I heard her tell this Hugh that she loved him, loved him better than the whole world;’ and then he made me promise not to tell, but he said he heerd not only one kiss, but fourteen or fifteen.
“Now,” says Betsey, “what do you think of that female?”
“Good Heavens!” cried Ophelia Dagget, “am I deceived? is this a phantagory of the brain? have I got ears? have I got ears?” says she wildly, glaring at me.
“You can feel and see,” says I pretty short.
“Will he live with the wretched creature?” continued Ophelia, “no he will get a divorcement from her, such a tender hearted man too, as he is, if ever a man wanted a comforter in a tryin’ time, he is the man, and to-morrow I will go and comfort him.”
“Methinks you will find him first,” says Betsey Bobbet. “And after he is found, methinks there is a certain person he would be as glad to see as he would another certain person.”
“There is some mistake,” says Maggie Snow. “Thomas Jefferson is always joking,” and her face blushed up kinder red as she spoke about Thomas J.
I don’t make no matches, nor break none, but I watch things pretty keen, if I don’t say much.
“It was a male man,” says Lucinda Dagget, “else why did she call him Hugh? You have all heerd Elder Morton say that his wife hadn’t a relative on earth, except a mother and a maiden aunt. It couldn’t have been her mother, and it couldn’t have been the maiden aunt, for her name was Martha instead of Hugh; besides,” she continued, (she had so hardened her mind with mathematics that she could grapple the hardest fact, and floor it, so to speak,) “besides, the maiden aunt died six months ago, that settles the matter conclusively, it was not the maiden aunt.”
“I have thought something was on the Elders’ mind, for quite a spell, I have spoke to sister Gowdy about it a number of times,” then she kinder rolled up her eyes just as she does in conference meetin’s, and says she, “it is an awful dispensation, but I hope he’ll turn it into a means of grace, I hope his spiritual strength will be renewed, but I have borryed a good deal oftrouble about his bein’ so handsome, I have noticed handsome ministers don’t turn out well, they most always have somethin’ happen to ’em, sooner or later, but I hope he’ll be led.”
“I never thought that Miss Morton was any too good.”
“Neither did I,” said Lucinda Dagget.
“She has turned out jest as I always thought she would,” says Ophelia, “and I think jest as much of her, as I do of them that stand up for her.” Maggie Snow spoke up then, jest as clear as a bell her voice sounded. She hain’t afraid of anybody, for she is Lawyer Snow’s only child, and has been to Boston to school. Says she “Aunt Allen,” she is a little related to me on her mother’s side. “Aunt Allen, why is it as a general rule, the worst folks are the ones to suspect other people of bein’ bad.”
Says I, “Maggy, they draw their pictures from memery, they think, ‘now ifIhad that opportunity to do wrong, I should certainly improve it—and so of coursetheydid.’ And they want to pull down other folks’es reputations, for they feel as if their own goodness is in a totterin’ condition, and if it falls, they want somethin’ for it to fall on, so as to come down easier like.”
Maggy Snow laughed, and so did Squire Edwards’ wife, and the Jones’es—but Betsey Bobbet, and the Dagget girls looked black as Erobius. And says BetseyBobbet to me, “I shouldn’t think, Josiah Allen’s wife, thatyouwould countenance such conduct.”
“I will first know that there is wrong conduct,” says I—“Miss Morton’s face is just as innocent as a baby’s, and I hain’t a goin’ to mistrust any evil out of them pretty brown eyes, till I am obleeged to.”
“Well, you will have to believe it,” says Ophelia Dagget—“and there shall be somethin’ done about it as sure as my name is Ophelia Dagget.”
“Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone,” says Miss Squire Edwards—a better Baptist women never lived than she is.
“Yes,” says I in almost piercen’ tones, “which of us is good enough to go into the stun business? Even supposin’ it was true, which I never will believe on earth, which of us could stun her on gospel grounds?—who will you find that is free from all kind of sin?” and as I spoke, remorseful thoughts almost knocked against my heart, how I had scolded Josiah the night before for goin’ in his stockin feet.
“I never see a female women yet that I thought was perfect, and yet how willin’ they are to go to handlin’ these stuns—why wimmen fling enough stuns at each other every day, to make a stun wall that would reach from pole to pole.”
Just at this minute the hired girl come in, and said supper was on the table, and we all went out to eat it. Miss Jones said there wasn’t anything on the tablefit to eat, and she was afraid we couldn’t make out—but it was a splendid supper, fit for the Zaar of Rushy.
We hadn’t more’n got up from the supper table, and got back into the parlor, when we heard a knock onto the front door, and Miss Jones went and opened it, and who of all the live world should walk in but the minister! The faces of the wimmen as he entered would have been a study for Michael Angelico, or any of them old painters. Miss Jones was that flustrated that she asked him the first thing to take his bunnet off, and then she bethought herself, and says she, ‘How’s your Ma?’ before she had sat him a chair or anything. But he looked as pleasant and composed as ever, though his eyes kinder laughed. And he thanked her and told her he left his mother the day before a good deal better, and then he turned to Maggy Snow, and says he,
“I have come after you Miss Maggy, my wife come home this mornin’ and was so anxious to see you that I told her as I had business past your house this afternoon, I would call for you as I went home, and your mother told me you were here. I think I know why she wants to see you so very much now. She is so proud of our boy, she can’t wait till——”
“Your boy,” gasped nine wimmen to once.
“Yes,” says he smilin’ more pleasant than I ever seen him. “I know you will wish me joy, we have anice little boy, little Hugh, for my wife has named him already for her father, he is a fine healthy little fellow almost two months old.”
It wouldn’t have done no good for Michael Angelico or Mr. Ruben, to have been there then, nor none of the rest of them we read about, for if they had their palates’es and easels’es all ready, they never could have done justice to the faces of the Dagget girls, and Betsey Bobbet. And as for Miss Deacon Dobbins, her spectacles fell off unnoticed and she opened her mouth so wide, it was very doubtful to me if she could ever shut it again. Maggy Snow’s face shone like a Cherubim, and as for me, I can truly say I was happy enough to sing the Te Deus.
About a couple of weeks after the quiltin’, Thomas Jefferson said to Josiah, one Saturday mornin’,
“Father, can I have the old mare to go to Jonesville to-night?”
“What do you want to go to Jonesville for?” said his father, “you come from there last night.”
“There is goin’ to be a lecture on wimmin’s rights; can I have her, father?”
“I s’pose so,” says Josiah, kinder short, and after Thomas J. went out, Josiah went on—
“Wimmin’s rights, wimmin’s rights, I wonder how many more fools are goin’ a caperin’ round the country preachin’ ’em up—I am sick of wimmin’s rights, I don’t believe in ’em.”
This riled up the old Smith blood, and says I to him with a glance that went clear through to the back side of his head—
“I know you don’t, Josiah Allen—I can tell a manthat is for wimmin’s rights as fur as I can see ’em. There is a free, easy swing to thier walk—a noble look to thier faces—thier big hearts and soles love liberty and justice, and bein’ free themselves they want everybody else to be free. These men haint jealous of a woman’s influence—haint afraid that she won’t pay him proper respect if she haint obleeged to—and they needn’t be afraid, for these are the very men that wimmin look up to, and worship,—and always will. A good, noble, true man is the best job old natur ever turned off her hands, or ever will—a man, that would wipe off a baby’s tears as soft as a woman could, or ‘die with his face to the foe.’
“They are most always big, noble-sized men, too,” says I, with another look at Josiah that pierced him like a arrow; (Josiah don’t weigh quite one hundred by the steelyards.)
“I don’t know as I am to blame, Samantha, for not bein’ a very hefty man.”
“You can let your sole grow, Josiah Allen, by thinkin’ big, noble-sized thoughts, and I believe if you did, you would weigh more by the steelyards.”
“Wall, I don’t care, Samantha, I stick to it, that I am sick of wimmin’s rights; if wimmin would take care of the rights they have got now, they would do better than they do do.”
Now I love to see folks use reason if they have got any—and I won’t stand no importations cast on to mysect—and so I says to him in a tone of cold and almost freezin’ dignity—
“What do you mean, Josiah?”
“I mean that women hain’t no business a votin’; they had better let the laws alone, and tend to thier house-work. The law loves wimmin and protects ’em.”
“If the law loves wimmin so well, why don’t he give her as much wages as men get for doin’ the same work? Why don’t he give her half as much, Josiah Allen?”
Josiah waved off my question, seemin’ly not noticin’ of it—and continued with the doggy obstinacy of his sect—
“Wimmin haint no business with the laws of the country.”
“If they haint no business with the law, the law haint no business with them,” says I warmly. “Of the three classes that haint no business with the law—lunatics, idiots, and wimmin—the lunatics and idiots have the best time of it,” says I, with a great rush of ideas into my brain that almost lifted up the border of my head-dress. “Let a idiot kill a man; ‘What of it?’ says the law; let a luny steal a sheep; again the law murmurs in a calm and gentle tone, ‘What of it? they haint no business with the law and the law haint no business with them.’ But let one of the third class, let a woman steal a sheep, does thelaw soothe her in these comfortin’ tones? No, it thunders to her, in awful accents, ‘You haint no business with the law, but the law has a good deal of business with you, vile female, start for State’s prisen; you haint nothin’ at all to do with the law, only to pay all the taxes it tells you to—embrace a license bill that is ruinin’ your husband—give up your innocent little children to a wicked father if it tells you to—and a few other little things, such as bein’ dragged off to prison by it—chained up for life, and hung, and et cetery.’”
Josiah sot motionless—and in a rapped eloquence I went on in the allegory way.
“‘Methought I once heard the words,’ sighs the female, ‘True government consists in the consent of the governed;’ did I dream them, or did the voice of a luny pour them into my ear?’
“‘Haint I told you,’ frouns the law on her, ‘that that don’t mean wimmin—have I got to explain to your weakened female comprehension again, the great fundymental truth, that wimmin haint included and mingled in the law books and statutes of the country only in a condemnin’ and punishin’ sense, as it were. Though I feel it to be bendin’ down my powerful manly dignity to elucidate the subject further, I will consent to remind you of the consolin’ fact, that though you wimmin are, from the tender softness of your natures, and the illogical weakness of your minds, unfitfrom ever havin’ any voice in makin’ the laws that govern you; you have the right, and nobody can ever deprive you of it, to be punished in a future world jest as hard as a man of the strongest intellect, and to be hung in this world jest as dead as a dead man; and what more can you ask for, you unreasonable female woman you?’
“Then groans the woman as the great fundymental truth rushes upon her—
“‘I can be hung by the political rope, but I can’t help twist it.’
“‘Jest so,’ says the law, ‘that rope takes noble and manly fingers, and fingers of principle to twist it, and not the weak unprincipled grasp of lunatics, idiots, and wimmin.’
“‘Alas!’ sithes the woman to herself, ‘would that I had the sweet rights of my wild and foolish companions, the idiots and lunys. But,’ says she, venturing with a beating heart, the timid and bashful inquiry, ‘are the laws always just, that I should obey them thus implicitly? There is old Creshus, he stole two millions, and the law cleared him triumphantly. Several men have killed various other men, and the law insistin’ they was out of their heads, (had got out of ’em for the occasion, and got into ’em agin the minute they was cleared,) let ’em off with sound necks. And I, a poor woman, have only stole a sheep, a small-sized sheep too, that my offspring might not perish withhunger—is it right to liberate in a triumphin’ way the two million stealer and the man murderer, and inkarcerate the poor sheep stealer? and my children wassohungry, and it was such a small sheep,’ says the woman in pleadin’ accents.
“‘Idiots! lunatics! and wimmin! are they goin’ to speak?’ thunders the law. ‘Can I believe my noble right ear? can I bein’ blindfolded trust my seventeen senses? I’ll have you understand that it haint no woman’s business whether the laws are just or unjust, all you have got to do is jest to obey ’em, so start off for prison, my young woman.’
“‘But my house-work,’ pleads the woman; ‘woman’s place is home: it is her duty to remain at all hazards within its holy and protectin’ precincts; how can I leave its sacred retirement to moulder in State’s prison?’
“‘House-work!’ and the law fairly yells the words, he is so filled with contempt at the idee. ‘House-work! jest as if house-work is goin’ to stand in the way of the noble administration of the law. I admit the recklessness and immorality of her leavin’ that holy haven, long enough to vote—but I guess she can leave her house-work long enough to be condemned, and hung, and so forth.’
“‘But I have got a infant,’ says the woman, ‘of tender days, how can I go?’
“‘That is nothing to the case,’ says the law in sterntones. ‘The peculiar conditions of motherhood only unfits a female woman from ridin’ to town with her husband, in a covered carriage, once a year, and layin’ her vote on a pole. I’ll have you understand it is no hindrance to her at all in a cold and naked cell, or in a public court room crowded with men.’
“‘But the indelikacy, the outrage to my womanly nature?’ says the woman.
“‘Not another word out of your head, young woman,’ says the law, ‘or I’ll fine you for contempt. I guess the law knows what is indelikacy, and what haint; where modesty comes in, and where it don’t; now start for prison bareheaded, for I levy on your bunnet for contempt of me.’
“As the young woman totters along to prison, is it any wonder that she sithes to herself, but in a low tone, that the law might not hear her, and deprive her also of her shoes for her contemptas thoughts—
“‘Would that I were a idiot; alas! is it not possible that I may become even now a luny?—then I should be respected.’”
As I finished my allegory and looked down from the side of the house, where my eyes had been fastened in the rapped eloquence of thought, I see Josiah with a contented countenance, readin’ the almanac, and I said to him in a voice before which he quailed—
“Josiah Allen, you haint heard a word I’ve said, you know you haint.”
“Yes I have,” says he, shettin’ up the almanac; “I heard you say wimmin ought to vote, and I say she hadn’t. I shall always say that she is too fraguile, too delikate, it would be too hard for her to go to the pole.”
“There is one pole you are willin’ enough I should go to, Josiah Allen,” and I stopped allegorin’, and spoke with witherin’ dignity and self respect—“and that is the hop pole.” (Josiah has sot out a new hop yard, and he proudly brags to the neighbors that I am the fastest picker in the yard.) “You are willin’ enough I should handle them poles!” He looked smit and conscience struck, but still true to the inherient principles of his sect, and thier doggy obstinacy, he murmured—
“If wimmin know when they are well off, they will let poles and ’lection boxes alone, it is too wearin for the fair sect.”
“Josiah Allen,” says I, “you think that for a woman to stand up straight on her feet, under a blazin’ sun, and lift both her arms above her head, and pick seven bushels of hops, mingled with worms and spiders, into a gigantic box, day in, and day out, is awful healthy, so strengthenin’ and stimulatin’ to wimmin, but when it comes to droppin’ a little slip of clean paper into a small seven by nine box, once a year in a shady room, you are afraid it is goin’ to break down a woman’s constitution to once.”
He was speechless, and clung to Ayer’s almanac mechanically (as it were) and I continued—
“There is another pole you are willin’ enough for me to handle, and that is our cistern pole. If you should spend some of the breath you waste—in pityin’ the poor wimmin that have got to vote—in byin’ a pump, you would raise 25 cents in my estimation, Josiah Allen. You have let me pull on that old cistern pole thirteen years, and get a ten quart pail of water on to the end of it, and I guess the political pole wouldn’t draw much harder than that does.”
“I guess I will get one, Samantha, when I sell the old critter. I have been a calculatin’ to every year, but things will kinder run along.”
“I am aware of that,” says I in a tone of dignity cold as a lump of cold ice. “I am aware of that. You may go into any neighborhood you please, and if there is a family in it, where the wife has to set up leeches, make soap, cut her own kindlin’ wood, build fires in winter, set up stove-pipes, dround kittens, hang out clothes lines, cord beds, cut up pork, skin calves, and hatchel flax with a baby lashed to her side—I haint afraid to bet you a ten cent bill, that that woman’s husband thinks that wimmin are too feeble and delicate to go the pole.”
Josiah was speechless for pretty near half a minute, and when he did speak it was words calculated to draw my attention from contemplatin’ that side of the subject. It was for reasons, I have too much respect for my husband to even hint at—odious to him, as odiouscould be—he wanted me to forget it, and in the gentle and sheepish manner men can so readily assume when they are talkin’ to females he said, as he gently fingered Ayer’s almanac, and looked pensively at the dyin’ female revivin’ at a view of the bottle—
“We men think too much of you wimmin to want you to lose your sweet, dignified, retirin’ modesty that is your chieftest charm. How long would dignity and modesty stand firm before the wild Urena of public life? You are made to be happy wives, to be guarded by the stronger sect, from the cold blast and the torrid zone. To have a fence built around you by manly strength, to keep out the cares and troubles of life. Why, if I was one of the fair sect, I would have a husband to fence me in, if I had to hire one.”
He meant this last, about hirin’ a husband, as a joke, for he smiled feebly as he said it, and in other and happier times stern duty would have compelled me to laugh at it—but not now, oh no, my breast was heavin’ with too many different sized emotions.
“You would hire one, would you? a woman don’t lose her dignity and modesty a racin’ round tryin’ to get married, does she? Oh no,” says I, as sarcastic as sarcastic could be, and then I added sternly, “If it ever does come in fashion to hire husbands by the year, I know of one that could be rented cheap, if his wife had the proceeds and avails in a pecuniary sense.”
He looked almost mortified, but still he murmur’das if mechanically. “It is wimmen’s place to marry and not to vote.”
“Josiah Allen,” says I, “Anybody would think to hear you talk that a woman couldn’t do but just one of the two things any way—marry or vote, and had got to take her choice of the two at the pint of the bayonet. And anybody would think to hear you go on, that if a women could live in any other way, she wouldn’t be married, and you couldn’t get her to.” Says I, looking at him shrewdly, “if marryin’ is such a dreadful nice thing for wimmen I don’t see what you are afraid of. You men act kinder guilty about it, and I don’t wonder at it, for take a bad husband, and thier haint no kind of slavery to be compared to wife slavery. It is jest as natural for a mean, cowardly man to want to abuse and tyranize over them that they can, them that are dependent on ’em, as for a noble and generous man to want to protect them that are weak and in their power. Figurin’ accordin’ to the closest rule of arithmetic, there are at least one-third mean, dissopated, drunken men in the world, and they most all have wives, and let them tread on these wives ever so hard, if they only tread accordin’ to law, she can’t escape. And suppose she tries to escape, blood-hounds haint half so bitter as public opinion on a women that parts with her husband, chains and handcuffs haint to be compared to her pride, and her love for her children, and so she keeps still, and suffersagony enough to make four first class martyrs. Field slaves have a few hours for rest at night, and a hope, to kinder boy them up, of gettin’ a better master. But the wife slave has no hope of a change of masters, and let him be ever so degraded and brutal is at his mercy day and night. Men seem to be awful afraid that wimmen won’t be so fierce for marryin’ anybody, for a home and a support, if they can support themselves independent, and be jest as respectable in the eyes of the world. But,” says I,
“In them days when men and wimmen are both independent—free and equal, they will marry in the only true way—from love and not from necessity. They will marry because God will join their two hearts and hands so you can’t get ’em apart no how. But to hear you talk Josiah Allen, anybody would think that there wouldn’t another woman marry on earth, if they could get rid of it, and support themselves without it.” And then I added, fixin’ my keen grey eyes upon his’en. “You act guilty about it Josiah Allen. But,” says I, “just so long as the sun shines down upon the earth and the earth answers back to it, blowin’ all out full of beauty—Jest so long as the moon looks down lovin’ly upon old ocien makin’ her heart beat the faster, jest so long will the hearts and souls God made for each other, answer to each other’s call. God’s laws can’t be repealed, Josiah Allen, they wasn’t made in Washington, D. C.”
I hardly ever see a man quail more than he did, andto tell the truth, I guess I never had been quite so eloquent in all the 14 years we had lived together—I felt so eloquent that I couldn’t stop myself and I went on.
“When did you ever see a couple that hated each other, or didn’t care for each other, but what their children, was either jest as mean as pusley—or else wilted and unhappy lookin’ like a potato sprout in a dark suller? What that potato sprout wants is sunshine, Josiah Allen. What them children wants is love. The fact is love is what makes a home—I don’t care whether its walls are white, stone, marble or bass wood. If there haint a face to the winder a waitin’ for you, when you have been off to the store, what good does all your things do you, though you have traded off ten pounds of butter? A lot of folks may get together in a big splendid house, and be called by the same name, and eat and sleep under the same roof till they die, and call it home, but if love don’t board with ’em, give me an umbrella and a stump. But the children of these marriages that I speak of, when they see such perfect harmony of mind and heart in their father and mother, when they have been brought up in such a warm, bright, happy home—they can’t no more help growin’ up sweet, and noble, and happy, than your wheat can help growin’ up straight and green when the warm rain and the sunshine falls on it. These children, Josiah Allen, are the future men and wimmens who are goin’ to put their shoulder blades to the wheel and roll this world straight into millenium.” Says Josiah,
“Wimmen are too good to vote with us men, wimmen haint much more nor less than angels any way.”
When you have been soarin’ in eloquence, it is always hard to be brought down sudden—it hurts you to light—and this speech sickened me, and says I, in a tone so cold that he shivered imperceptibly.
“Josiah Allen, there is one angel that would be glad to have a little wood got for her to get dinner with, there is one angel that cut every stick of wood she burnt yesterday, that same angel doin’ a big washin’ at the same time,” and says I, repeatin’ the words, as I glanced at the beef over the cold and chilly stove, “I should like a handful of wood Josiah Allen.”
“I would get you some this minute Samantha,” says he gettin’ up and takin’ down his plantin’ bag, “but you know jest how hurried I be with my spring’s work, can’t you pick up a little for this forenoon? you haint got much to do have you?”
“Oh no!” says I in a lofty tone of irony, “Nothin’ at all, only a big ironin’, ten pies and six loves of bread to bake, a cheese curd to run up, 3 hens to scald, churnin’ and moppin’ and dinner to get. Jest a easy mornin’s work for a angel.”
“Wall then, I guess you’ll get along, and to-morrow I’ll try to get you some.”
I said no more, but with lofty emotions surgin’ in my breast, I took my axe and started for the wood-pile.
I have been sick enough with a axident. Josiah had got his plantin’ all done, and the garden seeds was comin’ up nice as a pin, I will have a good garden. But the hens bothered me most to death, and kep’ me a chasin’ out after ’em all the time. No sooner would I get ’em off the peas, then they would be on the mush mellons, and then the cowcumbers would take it and then the string beans, and there I was rushin’ out doors bareheaded all times of day. It was worse for me than all my house work, and so I told Josiah.
One day I went out full sail after ’em, and I fell kerslap over a rail that lay in the grass, and turned my ancle jint, and I was laid up bed sick for two weeks. It makes me out of patience to think of it, for we might have a dog that is worth somethin’ if it wasn’t for Josiah, but as it is, if he haint to the house I have to do all the chasin’ there is done, for I might as well get the door step started on to the cattle, or hens, as to get our dog off of it, to go on to any thing.
And he is big as a young eliphant too, eats as muchas a cow, and of all the lazy critters I ever did see, he is the cap sheaf. Why, when Josiah sets him on to the hens, he has to take him by the collar and kinder draws him along, all the way. And as for cows and calves, he seems to be afraid of ’em, somethin’ kinder constitutionel Josiah says. I tell him he might better bark ’em off himself, especially as he is a first rate hand at it, you can’t tell him from a dog when he sets out.
One mornin’ I says to him, “Josiah Allen, what’s the use of your keepin’ that pup?”
Says he “Samantha, he is a good feller, if I will kinder run ahead of him, and keep between him and the cows, he will go on to them first rate, he seems to want encouragement.”
“Encouragement!” says I, “I should think as much.”
I didn’t say no more, and that very day the axident happened. Josiah heard me holler, and he come runnin’ from the barn—and a scairter man I never see. He took me right up, and was carryin’ of me in. I was in awful agony—and the first words I remember sayin’ was these, in a faint voice.
“I wonder if you’ll keep that pup now?”
Says he firmly, yet with pity, and with pale and anxious face.
“Mebby you didn’t encourage him enough.”
Says I deliriously, “Did you expect I was goin’ tocarry him in my arms and throw him at the hens? I tried every other way.”