And then Zebulin Coffin ungripped his hands from under his coat tails, and shook hands first with Josiah and then with me. But it was done in such a way that takin’ the clammy feelin’ of his hand, and the cold icy look of his eye, and his name bein’ Coffin, and all, I declare I felt jest as if I was at a funeral, and was one of the first mourners.
A prettier girl than Molly Coffin I don’t want to see! Nater is likely and well behaved,—does lots of work too; but sometimes through havin’ so much on her mind, I s’pose the old gal gits frisky and cuts up curious capers. And if she had made a rosebud spring up and blow out in a dark suller bottom, it wouldn’t have been a mite curiouser caper than for such a blossom of a girl to blow out of such a soil as the Deacon’s soil.
Pretty, and patient, and tender-hearted, and sad, and hopeless, and half broken hearted, I could see that too; and the minute we was introduced, I jest laid holt of her and kissed her as if she had been my own girl. And Josiah kissed her too, and I was glad on it. I haint one of the jealous kind, and I know my companion is one man out of a thousand. He has perfect confidence in my behavior day and night, and I have in hisen; and oh! what a consolin’ comfort that is. Confidence is the anchor of the heart; if it holds fast and firm, what safety and rest it gives; but if the anchor wont hold, if it is waverin’ and goes a driftin’ back and forth, a draggin’ the ropes of your affections that try to grip holt of it—through the mud and the mire, oh, how wearin’ it is to the rope and to the heart. But my trust in Josiah is like a cast-iron anchor that grapples the rock every time; no shock of the waves of change and chance and other wimmen can unhitch it; for truly I know that though Josiah Allen is a short man, his morals are as high and towerin’ as a meetin’ house steeple; but I am a episodin’.
MOLLY CONSOLIN’ TOM PITKINS.
Molly had baked potatoes and cold meat, besides pie and cake and preserves, and such stuff; and as we had gone in entirely unexpected, I knew that Molly was a good housekeeper, for her vittles was good enough for the very best of company. But the Deacon didn’t seem to be satisfied with a thing she did. His eyes, as cold as the middle of last winter, follered her all the time chuck full of disapproval. Her big sorrowful eyes watched his face anxiously and sort o’ fearful like, every time he spoke, for she was one of them gentle, lovin’ ones, that a harsh word or a cold look stabs like a blow; and I know it was them words and looks added to sorrow and Tom Pitkins, that had made her pretty cheeks so thin and white, and give that wistful, frightened, sorrowful look to her big brown eyes. There she sot not darin’ to say a word, and there my companion sot lookin’ as if he had stole a sheep.
The Deacon asked a blessin’, remindin’ the Lord how awful good a Christian he was, and asked him for mercy’s sake to pity the sinners assembled round his board. It was about as long as one chapter of Pollock’s Course of Time. Josiah thought when we was a talkin’ it over afterwards, that it was as long as the hull book, the hull course of time itself, but it wasn’t. We stood it first-rate, only his words was so condemnin’ to us, and frigid, and he did it in such a freezin’ way that I was most afraid it would make the potatoes cold as snow-balls. I am a great case for potatoes; the poet made a mistake as fur as I am concerned, for truly to me potatoes are “the staff of life”—or staffs I suppose would be more grammarius.
And as I see that man set at the head of the table almost completely wrapped up in dignity—like a great self-righteous damper a shettin’ off all the warmth and brightness of life from the hull on us, and a feelin’ so uncommon big over it—I declare, duty and principle kep’ a hunchin’ me so, and puttin’ me up to tackle him, that I couldn’t hardly eat. I knew the hour drew near for me to set fire to myself as a martyr, and as a Promiscous Advisor to tackle him in the cause of Right and Molly.
Most all the while we was a eatin’, the Deacon kep’ a hintin’ and a preachin’ about the wickedness and depravity of wimmen dressin’ themselves up; and every time he would say anything, he would look at Molly as if he was determined to freeze her as stiff as a poker. When we got up from the table, and sot out in the settin’-room, I see what his talk meant.
It seemed she was a makin’ a white dress for herself out of muslin—jest a finishin’ it off with some modest lookin’ lace on the neck and sleeves, and a small—a very small and reasonable amount of puckers; she could make the hull on it in a day and a half at the outside, and I could see she would look as pretty in it as a pink. When the old Deacon went to set down, he took the skirt of the dress that happened to be a layin’ over his chair, and handlin’ it with considerable the countenance he would a checkered adder, he broke out colder and frigider than ever: