Colonial dames and good wives

by Alice Morse Earle

This afternoon Antony preached at the English Presbyterian meeting. It is said that the hearers laughed at him but he was highly pleased with himself.

Antony preached at meeting. I kept engaged helping to cook the pot against master came home. He comes and goes as he pleases.

I don’t know when to pity poor Dame Marshall the most, with Antony railing in the yard and disturbing the peace of the neighbors; or Antony cursing in a Popish manner through the house; or Antony shamming sick and moaning by the fireside; or Antony violently preaching when she had gone to the quiet Quaker meeting for an hour of peace and rest.

This “runnagate rascal” was as elusive, as tricky, as malicious as a gnome; whenever he was reproved, he always contrived to invent a new method of annoyance in revenge. When chidden for not feeding the horse, he at once stripped the leaves off the growing cabbages, cut off the carrot heads, and pulled up the potatoes, and pretended and protested he did it all solely to benefit them, and thus do good to his master. When asked to milk the cow, he promptly left the Marshall domicile for a whole day.

Sent Antony in the orchard to watch the boys. As I was doubtful sometime whether if any came for apples Antony would prevent, I took a walk to the back fence, made a noise by pounding as if I would break the fence, with other noise. This convinced me Antony sat in his chair. He took no notice till my wife and old Rachel came to him, roused him, and scolded him for his neglect. His answer was that he thought it his duty to be still and not disturb them, as by so doing he should have peace in heaven and a blessing would ever attend him.

This was certainly the most sanctimonious excuse for laziness that was ever invented; and on the following day Antony supplemented his tergiversation by giving away all Mr. Marshall’s ripe apples through the fence to passers-by—neighbors, boys, soldiers, and prisoners. There may have been method in this orchard madness, for Antony loathed apple-pie, a frequent comestible in the Marshall domicile, and often refused to drink cider, and grumbling made toast-tea instead. In a triumph of euphuistic indignation, Mr. Marshall thus records the dietetic vagaries of the “most lazy impertinent talking lying fellow any family was ever troubled with:”

When we have no fresh broth he wants some; when we have it he cant sup it. When we have lean of bacon he wants the fat; when the fat he cant eat it without spreading salt over it as without it its too heavy for his stomach. If new milk he cant eat it till its sour, it curdles on his stomach; when sour or bonnyclabber it gives him the stomach-ache. Give him tea he doesn’t like such slop, its not fit for working men; if he hasn’t it when he asks for it he’s not well used. Give him apple pie above once for some days, its not suitable for him it makes him sick. If the negro woman makes his bed, she dont make it right; if she dont make it she’s a lazy black jade, &c.

In revenge upon the negro woman Dinah for not making his bed to suit his notion, he pretended to have had a dream about her, which he interpreted to such telling effect that she thought Satan was on his swift way to secure her, and fled the house in superstitious fright, in petticoat and shift, and was captured three miles out of town. On her return, Antony outdid himself with “all the vile ribaldry, papist swearing, incoherent scurrilous language, that imperious pride, vanity, and folly could invent or express”—and then went off to meeting to preach and pray. Well might the Quaker say with Juvenal, “The tongue is the worst part of a bad servant.” At last, exasperated beyond measure, his patient master vowed, “Antony, I will give thee a good whipping,” and he could do it, for he had “pacified himself with sundry stripes of the cowskin” on Dinah, the negro, when she, in emulation of Antony, was impertinent to her mistress.

The threat of a whipping brought on Antony a “fit of stillness” which descended like a blessing on the exhausted house. But “the devil is sooner raised than laid;” anon Antony was in his old lunes again, and the peace was broken by a fresh outburst of laziness, indifference, and abuse, in which we must leave this afflicted household, for at that date the Remembrancer abruptly closes.

The only truly good service rendered to those much tried souls was by a negro woman, Dinah, who, too good for this earth, died; and in her death involved them in fresh trouble, for in that war-swept town they could scarce procure her burial.