“Hand in hand we’ll goAnd we’ll sleep together at the foot.”
“Hand in hand we’ll goAnd we’ll sleep together at the foot.”
“Hand in hand we’ll goAnd we’ll sleep together at the foot.”
“Hand in hand we’ll go
And we’ll sleep together at the foot.”
knowing that beyond them shadders is the sunshine of God’s Great Mornin’.
As I said, I don’t make a practice of wearin’ bows, and this bein’ fire red, I should have felt a awful backslidin’ feelin’ about wearin’ it, if I hadn’t felt that principle was upholdin’ me.
Then I drawed out the table, and put on a clean white table-cloth, and begun to set it. I had some good bread and butter, I had baked that day, and my bread was white as snow, and light as day, some canned peaches, and some thin slices of ham as pink as a rose, and a strawberry pie,—one of my cans had bustthat day, and I made ’em up into pies. And then I brought up some of my very best cake, such as I keep for company—fruit cake, and delicate cake. And then after I had put on a great piece of white honey in a glass dish, and some cheese that was like cream for richness, the table looked well.
I had got the table all set, and had jest opened the door to see if he was a comin’, when lo! and behold! there he stood on the doorstep—he had come and put his horses out before I see him. He looked awful depressted, and before he got the snow half off’en his boots, says he:
“That new whip I bought the other day is gone Samantha. Some feller stole it while I was gettin’ my grist ground.”
Says I, “Josiah I have been a mewsin’ on the onstiddiness, and wickedness of the world all day, and now that whip is gone. What is the world a comin’ to, Josiah Allen?”
Josiah is a man that don’t say much, but things wear on him. His face looked several inches longer than it usially did, and he answered in a awful depressted tone:
“I don’t know, Samantha, but I do know, that I am as hungry as a bear.”
“Wall,” says I, soothingly, “I thought you would be, supper’s all on the table.”
He stepped in, and the very minute that man ketched sight of that cheerful room, and that supper table, that man smiled. And it wasn’t a sickly, deathly smile either, it was a smile of deep inward joy and contentment. And says he in a sweet tone, “it seems to me you have got a awful good supper to-night, Samantha.”
As I see that smile, and looked into that honest beamin’ face, I jest turned out them gloomy forebodin’s about him, out of my heart, the whole caboodle of ’em, and shet the door in their faces. But I controlled my voice, till it sounded like a perfect stranger to me, and says I:
“Don’t I always get good suppers, Josiah Allen?”
“Yes,” says he, “and good dinners and breakfess’es, too. I will say this for you, Samantha, there haint a better cook in Jonesville, than you be, nor a woman that makes a pleasanter home.” And he went on placidly, as he stood there with his back to the fire a warmin’ him, a lookin’ serenely round that bright warm room, and ont’ that supper table.
“There haint no place quite so good as home, is there, Samantha? haint supper about ready?”
THE PLEASANT SUPPER
THE PLEASANT SUPPER
Says I, firmly, “The Cause of Right, and the Good of the Human Race will ever be dear to the soul of her who was formally Samantha Smith. But at the same time that don’t hender me from thinkin’ a sight of my home, and from gettin’ good suppers. It will be ready, Josiah, jest as quick as the tea is steeped, I didn’t want to make it till you come, for bilein’ jest spiles that last tea you got,” and I went on in tones as firm as Plymouth Rock, yet as tender as a spring chicken.
“As I have said more’n a hundred times, if it is spelt right there haint another such a word as home in the English language. The French can’t spell it at all, and in my opinion that is jest what makes ’em so light minded and onstiddy. If it is spelt wrong, as in the case of Bobbet and Slimpsey, it means the horrors, and the very worst kinds of discomfort and misery. In fact love is the only school-master, that can put out that word worth a cent. And if it is put out by him, and spelt, for instance, by a couple who have loved each other for goin’ on fifteen years, with a firm and almost cast iron affection, why it stands for peace and rest and comfort, and is the plainest picture God has give us below, kinder as we put painted pictures in children’s story books, of that great Home above, where the colors won’t never rub off of the picture, and the peace and the rest are everlasting.”
I had been real eloquent, I knew it, and Josiah knew it, for that man looked awful kinder earnest and serene like. He was silent for mebby half or three quarters of a minute, and then he said in calm, gentle tones:
“I guess I’ll carry the grist up stairs before supper, Samantha, and have it done with.”
There haint a lazy hair in that man’s head, and for that matter there haint many of any kind, either smart or shiftless, he grows bald every day, not that I blame him for it.
He came down stairs, and we sot down to the table, happy as a king and queen, for all the old world was a caperin’ and cuttin’ up as if it would go crazy. The little blackslidin’ feelin’ about wearin’ that fire red bow died away too, as ever and anon, and I don’t know but oftener, I would look up and ketch the eye of my companion Josiah bent on me in a pleasant and sort of a admirin’ way. That bow was becomin’ to me I knew. For as Josiah passed me his cup for his second cup of tea, (no dishwatery stuff, I can tell you) he says:[1]
“I don’t see what makes you look so young and handsome, to-night, Samantha, I believe I shall have to go to courtin’ you over agin.”
And I answered him in the same aggreable accents, “I don’t know as the law could touch you for it Josiah if you did.”
[1]SeeFrontispiece.
[1]SeeFrontispiece.
[1]SeeFrontispiece.
THE END.