Judith Moore; or, Fashioning a Pipe

by Joanna E. Wood

In November the Baptists held a series of revival meetings, and the Methodists commenced a weekly service of song. At New Year's the Methodists raised their pastor's salary fifty dollars a year. In February the Baptists held a memorial service, and had four ministers preach upon one Sunday. It is true, as Hester Green took occasion to remark, that two of them were only students, but the Baptist Church had vindicated the priority of its establishment, and rested on its laurels,—besides the spring work was coming on.

The speech of the Ovidians was not in any sense a dialect peculiar to themselves. There were, of course, certain words and phrases which were regular stand-bys, and from which no Ovidian speech was free. For example, when an Ovidian was out of conversational matter, he did not let the talk die away, or the argument fall to pieces whilst waiting for the tardy ideas of his friends to evolve themselves. Far from it. He simply said, in a tone suitable to the occasion, "Well, it beats all!" Closer scrutiny will reveal the resources of this phrase. Did an Ovidian attend a funeral? Then this expression formed the chief staple of his conversation, and its enunciation ran the gamut of emotion, from grief to amazement. Did an Ovidian hear a more than usually spicy piece of gossip? Then he ejaculated the same phrase in a tone of scandalized enjoyment. Was a subject upon which he could not, or would not, give a direct opinion under discussion? Then this non-committal formula answered admirably, entailing no after responsibility upon the speaker, and yet giving him a pleasant sense of conversational duty properly performed.

There were a few idioms, also, dear to the Ovidian mind. To be "ambitious" meant simply to be energetic; to be "big feeling," "stuck up," or "toney," meant to be proud (in the sense of despising one's neighbours); to "conjure," with the accent strongly upon the first syllable, meant to think over a thing.

Apart, however, from a dozen or two of these lingual idiosyncrasies, the Ovidian speech was the ordinary English of Canadian rural districts, delivered in a peculiar drawling, nasal style, with a clinging to the last syllable of a word and the last word of a sentence. The only interest Ovidians had, apart from Ovid and the dwellers therein, was in watching the progress of the world, as shown by the trend of Canadian politics; and as Ovid they had always with them, and the world only when the weekly papers came in, it was natural they should know Ovid best—and they did. Every one's pet hobby, every one's worst weakness, every one's ambition, every one's circumstances, everyone's antipathies, every one's preferences, every one's record and family record—all this was known and well known, aye, even to the third generation back.

But of all Ovidians none knew so much of his fellows' history as did old Sam Symmons. The one attribute that assured Sam a welcome wherever he went, was his knowledge of the generation passed away, the fathers of the present Ovidians: not that his stories were flattering (far from it), but they were never ill-natured, at least upon Sam's part. It was true they were illustrative of the weak points of their heroes rather than their virtues, but then Sam did not make history; he only repeated it, and he was very impartial. So where a dozen Ovidians were gathered together, there Sam would be in the midst.

There was a perilous stimulus about their anticipation. He was sure to evolve some personal reminiscence from the chaotic mass of his old memories, and each of the expectant auditors felt that his forebears might be the subject of it. When Sam did choose a victim, and plunged into some old tale about his grandfather or father, then all the others drew in their breath with swift enjoyment of the various points of the story. There was something Druidical and bard-like in this oral handing down of history, and it differed from more pretentious history in one respect. Sam's stories might be oft-repeated, but he never altered a syllable, never deepened the shading to suit some different element in his audience, never swerved from the first intent of the recital, never slurred the truth to let any one off lightly. Perhaps the reason Sam's stories preserved their identity so well was because they were tacitly copyrighted; no one ever tried to tell them but himself, and indeed they would not have sounded the same from other lips, for Sam spoke of the past as one having authority.

The loss of his old mare was quite a serious one to Sam, and he went about a shade more irresolute than he was before. Poor old Sam! He had had so many blows, big and little, from fate, that it is not to be wondered at if he did become a little haphazard in his methods of work and business.

It is hardly worth while making plans when some evil chance seems to thwart them every time; even if one works till his stiff old limbs are trembling with fatigue, it doesn't seem to make much headway against adverse circumstances; and when fate buffets down even the strongest guard, how can one poor old man fend off its blows? But if his brave old heart was shaken a little within him, Sam still turned a resolute face to the foe. The week after the mare's death, and before he had got used to the blind horse he had bought to replace her, he found his way to Hiram Green's store.

The talk turned on drinking.

"Yes," said Sam, "there's many a way of drinking"—in a reminiscent tone—"many a way! When I was young, there were three brothers with their three wives, doing settlement duty on a grant of land given one of the officers, in Bruce County. Well, they were fine big fellows, and their wives were big, strapping, healthy women. Strong, too, they were, and had good judgment. Why, one of them went one morning to the wood-pile to get some wood, and when she came back there was a wolf, lean and hungry (for it had been a bitter winter), standing over the cradle where her baby lay. Now, what did she do? Run away and yowl? Not she. Hit it a clip with a billet of wood, and killed it where it stood. Well, the lads used to drive off forty miles with an ox team for provisions, and each would bring his keg of rye back with him; but the women always drank more than their share, and it got to be that there was mostly no meals ready when the lads got back from felling the timber. So the lads hit on the plan of tying the kegs to the roof, where the women could not get at them, and they went away well pleased with themselves. But they were finely taken down when they got back, for the women shot holes in the kegs, and caught the whiskey in a washtub. Yes, yes, there's many a way of drinking. There was your wife's grand-uncle, now"—suddenly becoming personal in his memory, and addressing Hiram—"'twas when he was running for reeve the first time, and he came into Fossil's tavern, and not seeing James Lawson, the younger, and me, where we sat on the settle by the door, he went up to the bar to get a drink. He called for whiskey. He had his drink and laid down the five cents to pay for it. Now, 'twas his way to fill his glass very full, and Fossil, being a close man, was very grouty at that. So, out of the five cents, he pushed back a penny. 'Here,' says he, 'is your change, Mr. Mowbray. I don't charge as much wholesale as I do for single drinks.' Your wife's grand-uncle did not like that. 'Twas just before the polling day when he got overtaken in liquor one night at old Squire Fraser's. 'Twas a bright moonlight night, and some of the lads going home late, also, heard a noise at the village pump, which, coming at, they saw was your wife's grand-uncle, pulling at the pump-handle, and saying, with many oaths, 'Come home, Jack: come home. There will be a sore broil for thee if Mrs. Mowbray see thee. Come home, Jack: come home.' To which persuasion he put many threats and moral advisements to Jack to cease from liquor. Jack was his nephew, a quiet youth, being bred to the pulpit. Well, the boys got hold of both these tales, and when the voting came on, they would seize at anything, a tree, a post, or the fence, when your wife's grand-uncle came by, and, straining at it manfully, would beseech Jack to come home, using many moral persuasions and many oaths also, as he had done to the pump, and feigning to weep sore over the stubbornness of Jack's heart. Then they would say, 'Come home, Jack, and I'll buy thee a drink wholesale at good, generous Master Fossil's.' Yes, yes"—Sam's voice began to weaken—"yes, there's many a way of drinking."