Never havin’ laid holt of her tow curls and other ornaments, as they was bein’ sold, I don’t tell it for certain truth, but only what I have hearn; but that they have a dretful hard time on’t to git along, that I know.
Besides poverty, the horrors lay holt of Slimpsey the worst kind. They shake him as a dog shakes a chipmunk. When he lived with his first wife he didn’t have ’em more’n a few times a month, or so; but now he has ’em every day, stiddy, right along. He yells at Betsey; goes to bed with his boots on; throws his hat at her, hollers, and keeps a actin’. He drinks, too, when he can git anything to drink. He says he drinks to forget his trouble; but what a simple move that is, for when he gits over it, there his trouble is, right before his eyes. There Betsey stands. Trouble is as black and troublesome again looked at through the glass, and topers find that it is; for they have the old trouble, all the same, besides shame and disgrace, and bodily ruination.
ALAS! POOR BETSEY.
Considerin’ what a dretful hard time Betsey has, it would seem to a bystander to calmly think on’t, that she didn’t git much of any comfort from her marriage, except the dignity she told me of the other night, with her own tongue as she was goin’ home from washin’, at Miss Gowdey’s. (Miss Gowdey had a felon and was disabled.) She had on a old hood, and one of her husband’s old coats with brass buttons—for it was a rainin’ and she didn’t care for looks. She was all drabbled up, and looked tired enough to sink. She had a piece of pork to pay her for her washin’, and a piller-case about half full of the second sort of flour a carryin’ along, that Miss Gowdey had give her; and as I happened to be a standin’ in the front door a lookin’ for my companion, Josiah,—who had gone to Jonesville to mill—we got to talkin’ about one thing and another, and she up and told me that she wouldn’t part with the dignity she got by marryin’, for 25 cents, much as she needed money. Though she said it was a worse trial than anybody had any idee of, for her to give up writin’ poetry.
So, as I was a sayin’, bein’ the only literary woman of any account in Jonesville, they made a great handlin’ of havin’ me present at their meetin’s, or at least, some of ’em did. Though as I will state and explain, the great question of my takin’ part in ’em, rent Jonesville almost to its very twain. Some folks hate to see a woman set up high and honored; they hate to, like a dog. It was gallin’ to some men’s pride, to see themselves passed by, and a female woman invited to take a part in the great “Creation Searchin’ Society,” or “Jonesville Lyceum.” I sometimes call it Debatin’-school, jest as I used to; but the childern have labored with me; they call it Lyceum, and so does Maggy Snow, and our son-in-law, Whitfield Minkley; (he and Tirzah Ann are married, and it is very agreeable to me and to Josiah, and to Brother and Sister Minkley; very!) Tirzah Ann told me it worked her up, to see me so old-fashioned as to call it Debatin’-school.
But says I calmly,—“Work up or not, I shall call it so when I forget the other name.”
And Thomas Jefferson labored with me, and jest as his way is, he went down into the reason and philosophy of things, knowin’ well what a case his mother is for divin’ deep into reason and first causes. That boy is dretful deep; he is comin’ up awful well. He is a ornament to Jonesville, as Lawyer Snow—Maggy’s father—told me, last fall. (That haint come off yet; but we are perfectly willin’ and agreeable on both sides, and it will probable take place before long. Thomas J. fairly worships the ground she walks on, and so she does hisen.)
Says Thomas J. to me, says he, “I haint a word to say ag’inst your callin’ it Debatin’-school, only I know you are so kinder scientific and philosophical, that I hate to see you usin’ a word that haint got science to back it up. Now this word Lyceum,” says he, “is derived from the dead languages, and from them that is most dead. It is from the Greek and Injun; a kind of a half-breed. Ly, is from the Greek, and signifies and means a big story, or, in other words, a falsehood; and ce-um is from the Injun; and it all means, ‘see ’em lie.’”
That boy is dretful deep; admired as he is by everybody, there is but few indeed that realize what a mind he has got. He convinced me right on the spot, and I make a practice of callin’ it so, every time I think of it. But as I told Tirzah Ann—work up or not, if they was mortified black as a coal, both of ’em, when I forgot that name I should call it by the old one.