Oh, my downtrod sect! what are we a comin' to? I do git so wrought up a meditatin' on the dretful things that are a happenin' to us men nowdays, and how browbeat and how humiliated we are by our inferiors, I git so cast down and deprested that my melancholy sperit has to bust out in poetry. For some time I've had them feelin's. Now last Christmas night I had such a spell, and I had to git out of bed and put Samantha's crazy quilt round me (and it seemed as if that insane quilt made me feel more high strung and wild) and go out in the settin' room and ease my strugglin' sperit in verse.
Why, sometimes it seems if I didn't have this safety valve to my bustin', swellin' emotions it seems almost as if I should have to be hooped to keep myself together. But poetry kinder easies me a little. Now last Saturday night I writ the follerin' verses as late as leven P.M. We'd been to meetin' as usual, and had a splendid Christmas dinner. Samantha, as I have mentioned prior and before this, with all the weaknesses and shortcomin's of her inferior sect, is a masterly cook. But it is all nonsense her thinkin' I et too much; I didn't eat more'n four pieces of mince pie, and three helpin's of plum puddin', besides the turkey and vegetables and salad and such. If a strong man belongin' to a strong and superior sect can't stand that, it is a pity.
She insisted that it wuz a nightmair that sot on my chist and rid me out of bed into the settin' room that time o' night. But it wuzn't no such thing, it wuz my melancholy and deprested sperit that overcome me a thinkin' of my sect and what wuzn't to be.
It seems as if everything melancholy and cast down appeared right in front on me. Seems as if I could see old Fate a encouragin' and pompeyin' the more opposite sect, and turnin' her back and lookin' down onto me and my sect, and refusin' me and us things she might have gin us if she'd a mind to. But bein' a female we might know she'd be contrary and love to tromple on us, and on me in petickular. As I sot there in them solemn night hours, with Samantha sleepin' peacefully in the next room and the old clock tickin' away as if onmindful of the sufferin' sperit near it, it seemed as if every mean jab old Fate had ever gin me from her sharp elbows and hard knuckles riz right up before me, and I seemed to see all the agreable things she might have did for the benefit of me and my sect if she hadn't been so contrary, but as I said, what could you expect of a female? My feelin's wuz turrible; the verses I gin vent to relieved me a little some like prickin' a bile and after writin' 'em I went back to bed and slep' so sound that I never hearn Samantha buildin' a fire and gittin' breakfast till the sweet uroma of the coffee and briled chops stole on my wakened senses and I forgot for the moment the trials of me and my sect and felt better than I did feel. The verses wuz entitled:
A CHRISTMAS OWED
By Josiah Allen, Esq., P.M.S.J.C.F.
Yes Christmas has come, it got here at last,
A bringin' me memories out of the past,
And a pair of galluses, a necktie sad—
A gray night-shirt and a paper pad;
Useful presents, but nothin' gay,
Useful presents, dum 'em! I say!
I wanted some jew'lry for the brethren to see,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Ministers preach 'tis a blessed day,
And so it is in a meetin' house way;
But to me it has been a day of gloom,
Samantha I see didn't like the broom,
And mop-stick, and pair of cowhide shues,
It took me the heft of a hour to chuse;
It made me deprested, and mournfulee
I've mused on the things that wuzn't to be.
Weak females risin' on every hand
Pertendin' that they're equal to man—
Wantin' to stand right up by his side,
Instead of the place where they ort to abide
Down in the safety and peace at his feet;
Oh the dear old times, so happy so sweet,
Will never come back to my sect, nor to me,
No, it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Yes, I guess old Fate made a slip of her pen,
When fixin' the lot of the children of men,
'Twas bad for the world and for me I ween
That I wuzn't born a king or a queen;
My bald head shines out bare and cold,
Or wears a hat, oh a crown of gold
Would set it off fur agreabler to me,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Fate sets a writin' in darkness and night,
'Tain't spozeable she always gits things right;
To the poor she sends ten children or more
Crowdin' in through Famine Wolves round the door,
While for one kid the rich may vainly sigh,
But she flirts her skirts and passes 'em by;
Why hain't villains shot while the good go free?
It wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
A poet comes with his dreamy way
Right into a nest of common clay;
And in pious home a soul gits in
The size of the hole in the head of a pin;
So 'tain't so strange some feller and I
Should git mixed up on our way through the sky;
If I had to be born why not been he.
It wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Fate sort o' yanked me and throwed me down
On a Yankee hillside bare and brown;
And gin me a chance to die or live
Accordin' to labor I had to give;
I couldn't eat stuns or a burdock burr,
So I had to hustle and make things purr,
No bread-fruit round, nor no custard-tree;
No, it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Now that other feller that might have been me
By a turn of Fate's pen, oh in luxury
He lays and counts up his millions in bed,
With his crown on the bed-post over his head;
I wonder by Snum! if he thinks it straight—
For me to be small and him to be great;
When I might have been him and he might have been me,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
I'd ask how he'd like it to take off his crown
And to good hard hoein' knuckle down.
Or plantin', or hayin', or a weed pullin' bee
In onion beds, (dum 'em from A to Z!)
I bet I could work on his feelin's so deep
He'd up and divide a part of his heap,
Jest a thinkin' of how he might have been me—
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Now that feller's wife, I presoom to say
That some of the time he has his way;
He's so tarnal lucky and happy and fat,
It would be jest like him to git even that.
Oh I'd dearly love to have it to say
That once, jest once I'd had my way
When Samantha and I didn't chance to agree,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Samantha of course had to find fault with these sad but beautiful verses. And she asked me what them letters meant I had strung along after my name, showin' plain the inherient weakness of a female's brain.
Of course a man would see to once that they stood for Path Master and Salesman in the Jonesville Cheese Factory. I had talked it over with Uncle Sime and we both agreed that at this time, when the hull race of men wuz facin' complete insignificance, if not teetotal anhiliation, it behooved us to lay holt of every speck of dignity we could lay our hands on, and we both thought them letters made my name look more noble and riz up.
But Samantha didn't like the verses at all, and agin advanced the uroneous idee that it wuz my liver that ailed me instead of genius.