PREPARIN’ FOR OUR TOWER.
It was on a fair and lovely mornin’, though middlin’ cool, that I told my Josiah that if he and I was a goin’ to see the Sentinal it was time for us to be makin’ some preparations. Thomas J. haint a goin’ till bime-by. He wants to go in company with Maggy Snow and her father, and I don’t blame him a mite—I was young once myself. The Squire is laid up now with rheumatiz, can’t step a step on his left foot. I was out on the back stoop, a shakin’ my table cloth and Josiah was out there a grindin’ his jack knife on the grindstun, and I says to him, again:
“Josiah Allen it is time for us to prepare.”
Says he, “I thought mebby you’d want to give up goin’, Samantha.”
“I want to give up goin’!” says I, in a almost mekanical tone, but very cold.
“Yes,” says he in a sickly and almost foolish tone. “I didn’t know but you’d want to wait till the next one; I didn’t know but you’d drather.”
“Drather!” I repeated still more icily. “I would wait if I was in your place Josiah Allen, till we are as old as the hills; if we was alive we’d be carried there in a side show, and you know it;” and I folded up my table cloth almost severely.
“Well,” says he, tryin’ the age of the knife with his fingers, “I don’t think I shall go anyway.”
“IT HAINT ALWAYS BEST TO TELL REASONS.”
Says I layin’ the table cloth over my left arm, and foldin’ my right and left arm, tryin’ hard to keep some composed (on the outside):
“What are your reasons, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh,” says he in a kind of a blind way—goin’ to grindin’ again,—“I have my reasons, but it haint always best to tell reasons to everybody.”
And jest so he kep’ a grindin’ and a hangin’ back and a actin’. It was a curious time, very. I a standin’ there erect and firm on the stoop, with my table cloth on my left arm and earnestness on my eyebrow, and he half bent, a grindin’ away on that old jack knife, with obstinacy on his brow, a tellin’ me in a blind mysterious way that he had his reasons and wouldn’t tell ’em. Oh! how offish and strange men will act. Truly, truly, doth the poet observe, “that men are wild, and have their spells.”
There Josiah Allen had acted to the Debatin’-school all up in arms about goin’. He knew the nation would expect me to be present. He knew well what a gloom it would cast over the Sentinal if I wasn’t there, a shadder that would spread (as you may say) from pole to pole. Josiah Allen knew all about it; he knew well how I had lotted on makin’ a martyr of myself in the cause of Right and Wimmen, and here he had to baulk in the harness. Truly, men are as contrary creeters as the earth affords, when they are a mind to be. Every married woman will join with me in sayin’, that there are moments in married life, when mules seem to be patterns of yieldin’ sweetness and obligin’ness compared with lawful pardners.
But here, in this tryin’ moment was where mind stepped in to the relief of matter and Samantha. Some wimmen when they see their pardners act so strange and curious, would have give up. Not so Samantha. Here was where the deep and arduous study of her life-time into the heights and depths of the manly mind soared up and triumphed. I didn’t act skairt at all by him, neither did I show out that I was mad—though I was inwardly—to see him act so offish and obstinate. No! I looked down on him a grindin’, and a actin’, with a almost marble calm; and with a resolution nearly cast-iron I concealed my opinion of him and kep’ my tongue in my head, and with a slow, even, and almost majestic tread I turned round and went back into the house, laid my table-cloth on the buttery shelf, and begun my preparations to conquer and to triumph. At jest noon, I called him into the house to as good a dinner as Jonesville ever offered to man or beast.
Again science, philosophy and Samantha conquered. Josiah had got through with the turkey and vegetables of all kinds, and there was a sweet smile on his face as I brought on the cherry puddin’, and a tender, affectionate look to his eyes as he looked up at me when I sot the bowl of sweet sass to eat on it in front of him. Then I knew the time had come, the hour was ripe, and I boldly and confidently tackled him as to what his reasons was. And without a struggle or a murmur he says in gentle axents:
“Samantha, my pantaloons haint suitable to wear to the Sentimental, they are all frayed out round the bottoms, and you can see your face in the knees, they are so shiny, they are as good as lookin’ glasses.”
I felt dretful well to think I had come off conqueror, and awful relieved to think my pardner’s reasons was them I could grapple with and overthrow. I see that my mission could be preformed about, my tower gone off on. And then my companion’s affectionate mean endeared him to me dretfully for the time bein’, and take it altogether I felt so dretful eloquent, I soared right up in half a minute to a height of happiness and eloquence that I hadn’t sot on for days and days, and I broke right out in a noble oriterin’ tone, and as affectionate as they make:
“Josiah Allen that pure and heavenly blossom of True Love never floated down from Eden bowers into this troublesome world, without its whiteness makin’ the soul whiter that it lighted down on. It never warmed the heart with a breath of the heavenly climate it was born in without inspirin’ that heart with a desire and a inspiration to help the beloved object.” Says I firmly, “Store clothes are not a goin’ to part my companion and happiness;” and I added—in still more lofty tones for I felt noble in spirit as I said it—“take the last churnin’ of butter Josiah Allen, and go to Jonesville and git the cloth for a new pair of pantaloons, and I will make them for you or perish on the press board.”
“Well,” says he sweetly, as he helped himself to the sweet sass, “then we will go to the Sentimental.”
(I have give up tryin’ to have Josiah call it anything but Sentimental, because I see plain after arguin’ for several weeks on it, that argument was wasted, and breath spent in vain. He says he has spelt the word over time and again, and studied on it a sight, and he knows it is as near that as anything, and he will call it Sentimental.)
Well, the very day I finished his trowsers, he broached a new idee to me. We had been a layin’ out to go on the cars, but Josiah says to me, says he:
“What do you say Samantha to goin’ with the old mare, and kinder visitin’ along the road; we have got lots of relations that live all along the way, some on my side, and some on yourn. They’ve all visited us time and again, and we haint never been nigh ’em to visit ’em. What do you say Samantha, to goin’ in our own conveniance.”
“You mean conveyance,” says I firmly.
“Well I said so didn’t I; what do you say to it, Samantha?”
Says I, “I haint a goin’ in that old buggy of ourn.”
Says he, “That buggy was high-toned enough for father, and for grandfather, and it ort to be for us.”
Says I, “It is dangerous Josiah Allen and you know it. Have you forgot,” says I, “how sister Minkley went right down through the bottom the other day when you was a helpin’ her in?” Says I, “It skairt you Josiah Allen, and you know it; the minute you leggo of her, to have her go right down through the bottom, and set down on the ex. It was enough to start anybody.”
“Well, what business has a woman to weigh more’n a ton? I’ve mended it.”
Says I, “Truly in the matter of heft Josiah Allen, let everybody be fully perswaded in their own mind. And she don’t weigh near a ton, she don’t weigh more’n three hundred and fifty.”
“The buggy was good enough for father and grandfather,” he kep’ a arguin’.
“But,” says I in reasonable axents, “them two old men never sot out on towers of Principle. They never sot out as Promiscous Advisors in the cause of Right; if they had, they would have wanted to feel free and promiscous in their minds. They wouldn’t have wanted to feel liable in the loftiest moments of their high mission, to break through and come down acrost a ex. They would have felt that a top buggy was none too high-toned to bear ’em onwards.”
Says he, “It will make talk, Samantha. The neighbors will think we are too loose-principled, and hauty.”
Says I, “The neighbors say now we are too tight to git a new one. I had jest as lives be called too loose, as too tight. And you know,”—says I in reasonable tones, “you know Josiah Allen, that we have got to be called sunthin’ by ’em, anyway. We have got money out at interest, and we are goin’ down the hill of life, and if we can go down any easier in a top buggy, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it to go in.”
So finally after considerable urgin’, I got Josiah headed towards Jonesville after a top buggy. And I and the Widder Doodle kep’ watch to the winder all day, expectin’ to see the new buggy a comin’ home with Josiah; but he come back at night empty-handed but all worked up with another new idee, and says he:
“What do you say Samantha to buyin’ a phantom,—a pony phantom. The man says they are easier ridin’, easier to get into, and he thought you would like it better than a top buggy. And he said they was all the fashion too.”
But I answered him calmly. “Fashion, or no fashion, I shant ride no phantom Josiah Allen. I shant go to the Sentinal on my lofty mission, a ridin’ a phantom. Though,” says I more mildly, “phantoms may be willin’ critters to go, and easy ridin’, but I don’t seem to have no drawin’ towards ’em. A top buggy is my theme.”
So I held firm, and finally Josiah bought one. It was a second-handed one, and fair lookin’, big and roomy. In shape it wasn’t the height of fashion, bein’ kind o’ bowin’ up at the back, and sort o’ spread out like in front; a curious shape. I never see none exactly like it, before nor sense. They said the man that built it, made up the pattern in his own head, and there hadn’t nobody ever follered it. He died a few weeks after he made it; Thomas Jefferson said he guessed it killed him, the shape was so curious that it skairt the man to death. But it wasn’t no such thing; he had the billerous colic.
Josiah was so perfectly delighted with it that he would go out to the barn and look at it for hours, and I was most afraid he was settin’ his heart too much on it; and I told Thomas Jefferson so, but he told me not to worry; says he, “it wouldn’t be a mite wicked for father to worship it.”
Says I, “Thomas Jefferson do you realize what you are a talkin’ about?” says I, “it scares me to hear you talk so wicked when I brought you up in such a Bible way.”
Says he, “There is where I got it, mother. I got it out of the Bible; you know it says you shall not worship anything that is in the shape of anything on earth, or in the heavens, or in the waters under the earth. And that is why it would be perfectly safe for father to worship the buggy.”
I see through it in a minute; though I never should have thought on it myself. What a mind that boy has got; he grows deep every day.
Josiah said he couldn’t leave the colt to home, as the old mare would be liable to turn right round in the road with us any time, and start back for home; but I told him that when anybody sot off on a tower as a martyr and a Promiscous Advisor, a few colts more or less wasn’t a goin’ to overthrow ’em and their principles. Says I, we will hitch the colt to the old mare, Josiah Allen, and march onwards nobly in the cause of Right.
But still there was a kind of a straggler of a thought hangin’ round the age of my mind, to worry me a very little; and I says to my Josiah dreamily:
“I wonder if they’ll be glad to see us. Anything but bringin’ trouble onto folks, because they are unfortunate enough to be born cousins to you, unbeknown to them.”
“But,” says Josiah, “we owe a visit to every one on ’em, and some on ’em two or three.”
And so we did. They had all of ’em visited us years ago, more or less on ’em out of every family. There was Zebulin Coffin’ses wife and four of his boys; Philander Spicer’ses wife and Philander—they all made us long visits; and Serepta Simmons—she that was Serepta Smith—made it her home with mother and me for years before she was married—we helped to bring her up on a bottle. And then there was Delila, Melankton Spicer’ses wife had visited us with Philander’ses folks when they was first married; she was Philander’s wife’s sister. We had promised to pay their visits back, and laid out to, but it hadn’t seemed to come right, somehow. But now, everything seemed to promise fair for a first-rate time for us and them. We would be journeyin’ onwards towards the Sentinal, and the cause of Right. Our clothes (now Josiah had got some new pantaloons and I a new dress) would look well, and almost foamin’. We had a beautiful top buggy, and take it altogether, it did truly seem almost as Josiah said, that we was havin’ our good things all on earth. But anon, or a very little after, a new question come up; what should we do with the Widder Doodle; she didn’t want to go, and she didn’t want to stay. And so, what should we do with her to do right?
I am sot on doin’ by the Widder as I would wish to be done by if I should come onto the town and have to be took in and done for; and so day and night this deep and wearin’ thought kep’ a hauntin’ me—though I tried to keep cool on the outside—“she don’t want to go, and she don’t want to stay; and so what shall I do with the Widder Doodle?”
