Tirzah Ann's summer trip, and other sketches

by Marietta Holley

DEACON SLIMPSEY’S MOURNFUL FOREBODINGS.

Thomas Jefferson went to the school-house to meetin’ last night, and he broke out to the breakfast-table:

“Betsey Bobbet spoke in meetin’ last night, father.” He addressed the words to his father, for he knows I won’t uphold no kind of light talking about serious things.

“She said she knew she was religious, because she felt she loved the bretheren.” Then they both laughed in an idiotic manner. But I said, in a tone of cool dignity, as I passed him his 3d cup of coffee, “She meant it in a Scriptural sense, no doubt.”

“I guess you’d think she meant it in a earthly sense, if you had seen her hang on to old Slimpsey last night; she’ll marry that old man yet, if he don’t look out.”

“Oh, shaw!” says I, coolly. “She’s payin’ attention to the editor of the Gimlet.”

“She’ll never get him,” says he. “She means to be on the safe side, and get one or the other of ’em; how steady she has been to meetin’ sence Deacon Slimpsey moved into the place.”

“You shall not make light of her religeen, Thomas Jefferson,” says I, in a severe voice.

“I won’t, mother. I shouldn’t feel right to, for it is light enough now; it don’t all consist in talkin’ in meetin’, mother. I don’t believe in folks’es usin’ up all their religeen Sunday nights, and then goin’ without any all the rest of the week; it looks as shiftless in ’em as a 3-year-old hat on a female.”

Says I, in a tone of deep rebuke, “Instead of tendin’ other folks’s motes, Thomas Jefferson, you had better take care of your own beams; you’ll have plenty work enough to last you one spell.”

“And if you are through with your breakfast,” says his father, “you had better go and give the cows something to eat.”

“Can’t they come here, father?” says he, leanin’ kinder lazy over the table.

Says I, “That is pretty talk to your father, Thomas J. How do you suppose your days will be long in the land if you don’t honor your father and mother?”

“I do honor you, mother. I never see such long, wet, tedious days as they have been ever sence I have been home from school, and I lay it to honorin’ you and father so.”

Says I, “I won’t hear another light word this mornin’, Thomas Jefferson—not one.” He read earnestness in my tone; and he rose with alackrity and went to the barn, and his farther soon drew on his boots and followed him, and with a pensive brow I turned out my dish water. I hadn’t got my dishes more than half done, when, with no warnin’ of no kind, the door burst open, and in tottered Deacon Slimpsey, pale as a piece of white cotton shirt. I wildly wrung out my dish-cloth, and offered him a chair, sayin’, in a agitated tone, “What is the matter, Deacon Slimpsey?”

“Am I pursued?” says he, in a voice of low frenzy, as he sank into a wooden-bottomed chair. I cast one or two eagle glances out of the window, both ways, and replied in a voice of choked-down emotion:

“There haint nobody in sight. Has your life been attacked by burglers and incendiarys? Speak, Deacon Slimpsey, speak!”

He struggled nobly for calmness, but in vain. And then he put his hand wildly to his brow and murmured, in low and hollow accents:

“Betsey Bobbet!”

I see he was overcome by as many as seven different emotions of different anguishes, and I give him pretty near a minute to recover himself; and then, says I, as I sadly resumed my dish-cloth, “What of her, Deacon Slimpsey?”

“She’ll be the death on me,” says he, “and that haint the worst on it. My soul is jeopardied on account of her. Oh!” says he, groanin’ in an anguish, “Can you believe it, Miss Allen, that I, a deacon in an autherdox church, could be tempted to swear? Behold that wretch! I confess it, as I came through your gate, just now, I said to myself, ‘By Jupiter, I can’t stand it so much longer’; and only last night I wished I was a ghost; for I thought if I were an apperition, I could have escaped from her view. Oh!” says he, groanin’ agin, “I have got so low as to wish I was a ghost!” He paused, and in a deep and brooding silence I finished my dishes, and hung up my dish-pan. “She was rushing out of Deacon Gowdey’s, as I came by, just now, to talk to me. She don’t give me no peace—last night she would walk tight to my side all the way home, and she looked hungry at the gate as I went through, and fastened it on the inside.” Agin he paused overcome by his emotions, and I looked pityin’ly on him. He was a small boned man of about seventy summers and winters. Age, who had ploughed the wrinkles into his face, had turned the furrows deep. The cruel fingers of time, or some other female, had plucked nearly every hair from his head, and the ruthless hand of fate had also seen fit to deprive him of his eye-winkers, not one solitary winker bein’ left for a shade tree (as it were) to protect the pale pupils below, and they bein’ a light watery blue, and the lids bein’ inflamed, they looked sad indeed. Owing to afflictive providences, he was dressed up more than men generally be, for his neck bein’ badly swelled, he wore a string of yellow amber beads, and in behalf of his sore eyes he wore ear-rings. But truly outside splender and glitter won’t satisfy the mind, or bring happiness; I looked upon his mournful face, and my heart melted inside of me, almost as soft as it could, almost as soft as butter in the month of August, and I said to him in a soothin’ and encouragin’ tone:

“Mebby she’ll marry the editor of the Gimlet. She is payin’ attention to him.”

“No, she won’t,” says he, in a solemn and affectin’ tone that brought tears to my eyes, as I sat peelin’ my onions for dinner. “No, she won’t. I shall be the one, I feel it. I was always the victim; I was always down-trodden. When I was a baby, my mother had two twins both of ’em a little older than me, and they almost tore me to pieces before I got into trowsers. Mebby it would have been better for me if they had,” said he in a musin’ and mournful tone—and then heavin’ a deep sigh, he resumed; “When I went to school and we played leap-frog if there was a frog to be squashed down under all the rest, I was that frog; it has always been so, if ever there was a victim wanted, I was the victim, and Betsey Bobbet will get round me yet, and see if she don’t; women are awful perseverin’ in such things.”

“Cheer up, Deacon Slimpsey, you haint obleeged to marry her—it is a free country; folks haint obleeged to marry unless they are a mind to; it don’t take a brass band to make that legal.” I quoted these words in a light and joyous tone, hopin’ to rouse him from his despondancy—but in vain, for he only repeated in a gloomy tone:

“She’ll get around me yet, Miss Allen, I feel it,” and as the shade deepened on his eyebrow, he said, “Have you seen her verses in the last week’s Gimlet?”

“No,” says I, “I haint.”

In a silent and hopeless way he took the paper out of his pocket, and handed it to me and I read as follows:

A SONG

Composed not for the strong-minded females, who madly and indecently insist on rights, but for the retiring and delicate-minded of the sect who modestly murmur “we wont have no rights—we scorn ’em;” will some modest and bashful sister set it to music, that we may timidly, but loudly warble it, and oblige hers till death in this glorious cause.

Betsey Bobbet.

Not for strong minded wimmen

Do I now tune my liar;

Oh not for them would I kin-

dle up the sacred fire;

Oh modest bashful female

For you I tune my lay;

Although strong-minded wimmin sneer

We’ll conquer in the fray.

Chorus—Press onward, do not fear, sisters,

Press onward, do not fear,

Remember womens spear, sisters,

Remember womens spear.

Twould cause some fun if poor Miss Wade,

Should say of her boy Harry,

“I shall not give him any trade,

But bring him up to marry;”

Twould cause some fun of course, dear maids,

If Mrs. Wade’ses Harry,

Should lose his end and aim in life,

And find no chance to marry.

Chorus—Press onward, do not fear, sisters, etc.

Yes, wedlock is our only hope,

All o’er this mighty nation;

Men are brought up to other trades,

But this is our vocation.

Oh not for sense or love ask we,

We ask not to be courted;—

Our watch-word is to married be,

That we may be supported.

Chorus—Press onward, do not fear, sisters, etc.

Say not you’r strong, and love to work,

Are healthier than your brother,

Who for a blacksmith is designed,

Such feelings you must smother;

Your restless hands fold up or gripe

Your waist unto a span,

And spend your strength in looking out

To hail the coming man.

Chorus—Press onward, do not fear, sisters, etc.

Oh do not be discouraged, when

You find your hopes brought down;

And find sad and unwilling men,

Heed not their gloomy frown;

Heed not their wild despaier

We will not give no quarter;

In battle all is fair

We’ll win, for we had orter.

Chorus—Press onward, do not fear, sisters,

Press onward, do not fear,

Remember womens spear, sisters,

Remember womens spear.

“Wall,” says I in an encouragin’ tone, as I handed him the paper agin—“that haint much different from the piece she had in the Gimlet a spell ago, that was about womens spear.”

“It is that spear that is goin’ to destroy me,” says he, mournfully.

“Don’t give up so, Deacon Slimpsey. I hate to see you lookin’ so gloomy and deprested.”

“It is the awful determination these lines breathe forth that appauls me,” says he. “I have seen it in another.

“Betsey Bobbet reminds me dreadfully of another. And I don’t want to marry agin, Miss Allen. I don’t want to,” says he, lookin’ me pitifully in the face, “I didn’t want to marry the first time; I wanted to be a bachelder. I think they have the easiest time of it by half. Now there is a friend of mine that never was married, he is jest my age, or that is, he is only half an hour younger, and that haint enough difference to make any account of, is it Miss Allen?” says he in a pensive and enquirin’ tone.

“No,” says I in a reasonable accent. “No, Deacon Slimpsey, it haint.”

“Wall, that man has always been a bachelder, and you ought to see what a head of hair he has got, sound at the roots now, not a lock missing. I wanted to be one, and meant to be, but jest as I got my plans all laid, she, my late wife, come and kept house for me, and married me. I lived with her for twenty 5 years, and when she left me,” he murmured with a contented look, “I was reconciled to it. I was reconciled before it took place. I don’t want to say anything against nobody that haint here, but I lost some hair by my late wife,” says he, putting his hand to his bald head in an abstracted way. “I lost a good deal of hair by her, and I haint much left as you can see,” says he in a melancholy tone. “I don’t want to be married agin. I did want to save a lock or two, for my children to keep as a relict of me.” And again he paused overcome by his feelin’s. I knew not what to say to comfort him, and I poured onto him a few comforting adjectives, sich as,

“Mebby you are borrowin’ trouble without a cause, Deacon. With life there is hope, Deacon Slimpsey. It is always the darkest before daylight.” But in vain. He only sighed mournfully.

“She’ll get round me yet, Miss Allen—mark my words, and when the time comes you will think of what I told you.” His face was most black with gloomy apprehensions, as he repeated again—“You see if she don’t get round me,” and a tear began to flow; I turned away with instinctive delicacy, and set my pan of onions in the sink, but when I glanced at him again it was still flowing, and I said to him in a tone of two-thirds pity and one comfort. “Chirk up, Deacon Slimpsey, be a man.”

“That is the trouble,” says he, “if I wasnt a man she would give me some peace,” and he wept into his red silk handkerchief (with a yellow border) bitterly.