MELANKTON SPICER AND HIS FAMILY.
Philander Spicer told Josiah and me that he did wish we would stop and visit his brother Lank, seein’ we had to pass right by his house. Melankton Spicer, Philander’s twin brother, married Mahala’s sister Delila Ann, makin’ ’em double and twisted relations, as you may say. And we told him that seein’ it was right on our way we would stop a few minutes, but I guessed we wouldn’t stay long for we wasn’t much acquainted with ’em, though she had visited me years ago, and we had seen ’em to Father Allen’s once or twice.
Philander told us mebby we hadn’t better stay long, for they had hard work to git along; he said Delila Ann wasn’t a mite such a turn as Mahala, for whereas Mahala, havin’ a husband that was well off, would work and scrub every minute with no need on it, Delila Ann, havin’ married a poor man who needed help, wouldn’t work a mite; hadn’t been no help to him at all sense they was married, only by puttin’ on appearances, and havin’ seven girls and they bein’ growed up, and their ma not allowin’ ’em to do a speck of work only to dress up to catch a bo. Lank had to work from mornin’ till night in the store where he was a clerk, and then set up half the night to copy papers for a lawyer, to try to pay their milliner bills and the hired girls; but he couldn’t, he was in debt to everybody. And he didn’t git no rest and peace to home, for they was a teasin’ him the hull time for gold bracelets and silk dresses and things; he said they lived poor, and their morals was all run down.
Lank hadn’t ever been able to git enough ahead to buy a Bible; he hadn’t nothin’ but the Pokrafy, and a part of the Old Testament that had fell to him from his grandfather, fell so fur that the ’postles and all the old prophets—except Malachi—had got tore to pieces, and he was battered considerable. Philander said Lank told him it was hard work to bring up a family right, with nothin’ but the Pokrafy to go by, and he wanted to git a Bible the worst way; and when he got his last month’s wages he did mean to git enough ahead to buy one, and a sack of flour; but when he got his pay, his wife said she was sufferin’ for a new gauze head-dress, and the seven girls had got to have some bobinet neck-ties, and some new ear-rings; that after they had got these necessarys, then, if there was anything left, they would git a sack of flour and a Bible. But there wasn’t, and so they had to git along with the Pokrafy, and without the sack of flour; and he said that workin’ so hard, and farin’ so awful bad, Lank was a most used up; he said Lank wasn’t more’n two or three moments older than he was, but he looked as if he was seventy-five years old, and he was afraid he wouldn’t stand it more than several months longer if things went on so.
I said to myself, when Philander was tellin’ us this, here is mebby another chance for me to burn myself up and brile myself on a gridiron (as it were) in the cause of Right. I felt a feelin’ that mebby I could win a victory, and advise Delila Ann for her good. And so I spoke up mildly, but with a firm noble mean on me, and says to him: “Philander, we will stop there an hour or two.”
When we got to the village where Lank lived, Josiah said he guessed he would go right down to the store where Lank worked and see him, and I might go in and call on Delila Ann. A small white-headed boy with tow breeches held up by one lonely gallus told me he would show me the way—the same boy offerin’ to hitch the mare.
“THAT DOOR WANTS MENDIN’ BAD.”
It had been a number of years sense I had seen Delila Ann, and I didn’t s’pose I should know her if I should see her in my porridge dish, Philander said she had changed so. He said she had that sort of anxious, haggard, dissatisfied, kinder sheepish, and kinder bold look—a mean that folks always git by puttin’ on appearances; I’ve heerd, and I believe, that is jest about as wearin’ a job as anybody can git into to foller from year to year. There didn’t seem to be anything hull and sound about the front door, except the key-hole; but it had a new brass plate on it, with a bell kinder fixed in it, and the plate bore Lank’s name in bold noble letters which I s’pose was a comfort to the family, and rose ’em up above the small afflictions of the snow and rain that entered at will, and when they was a mind to.