He kinder glared at me, in a strange and almost shocked way, and says I, in polite axents:
“You don’t know me, of course,” and then I made a handsome curchy as I says, “but I am Josiah Allen’s wife. Do tell me, how is your mother-in-law; how is the Widder Albert?” And then I wiped my heated forward, and says I,—“I am a very warm friend of hern. It takes more than the same blood to make folks related. Congenial spirits and kindred souls, are the truest relationship, and she is dretful near to me. Is the warm weather kinder wearin’ on her? It uses me right up.” I have sweat more prespiration to-day, than any day sense I was on my tower. I have told my husband, Josiah, that if it kep’ on, I didn’t know but he would have to carry me home in a pail, (or pails.)
He spoke out and says he,—“Madam, you are mistaken, I—”
He looked awful sort o’ surprised, and even angry. It probable surprised him to see such polite manners in a Yankey. I was a actin’ well and friendly, and I knew it, and I kep’ right on a appearin’. Says I:
“Josiah and I have worried about her, a sight. We read last spring, in the World, that she was enjoyin’ real poor health, and we was afraid that this weather would go hard with her; for there haint another woman on the face of the earth, that I honor and admire, more than I do the Widder Albert. She is jest about right, I think; handsome enough, and not too handsome, so’s to be vain, and envied by other wimmen; smart enough, and not too smart, so’s to be conceited and top-heavy; and sound principles, sound as anything can be sound. Her heart is in the right place, exactly, bounded on one side by sympathy and tenderness, and on the other by reason and common sense. Why shouldn’t her husband have been a happy man, settin’ in the centre of such a heart? Why shouldn’t she have brought her childern up well? She is a woman that has had her Rights, and has honored them and herself. And let any opposer and scoffer of Woman’s Rights, take a telescope and look at the Widder Albert, and then look at her 4 fathers; let ’em see whether England has prospered best under her rain, or under their rain; let ’em see who has been the most God-fearin’ and well-behaved; let ’em turn that telescope onto her public actions, and then onto theirn; and then let ’em look close and searchin’ onto the private life of them 4 old fathers, and then onto hern, and see which looks the purest and prettiest.
“And after they have done, let ’em lay that telescope down, and say that wimmen don’t know enough, and haint sound-minded enough to vote; jest let ’em say it if they dare! And wimmen, too; why! her example ort to stand up in life, before some vain, frivolous wimmen I could mention—wimmen that don’t believe in havin’ a right—jest as plain as if it was worked on a canvas sampler, with a cross stitch, and hung up in their kitchens. A young woman, crowned with all the glory and honor the world could give, devotin’ her life first to God, and then to the good of her people; carryin’ her Right jest as stiddy and level as a Right ever was carried; faithful to all her duties, public and private; her brightest crown, the crown of true motherhood; no more truly the mother of princes, than mother of England. Why, the farm she had left to her by her uncle George, is so big that the sun don’t never go down on it; larger in dimensions than we can hardly think on with our naked minds; and all over that enormous farm of hern, the flowers turn no more constant to that sun, and that sun is no more consolin’ and inspirin’ to them flowers, than is the thought of this kind, gracious lady to them that work her farm on shares. Why! her memory, the memory of a woman—who had a Right—will go down to future ages as one to be revered, and almost worshiped.”
But if you’ll believe it, after all my outlay of politeness, and good manners, that feller acted mad. What under the sun ailed him I don’t know to this day, unless it was he couldn’t git over it—my praising up his mother-in-law so. Some men are at such sword’s pints with their mother-in-laws that they can’t bear a word in their favor. But I wasn’t goin’ to encourage no such feelins in him, and I was determined to be polite myself, to the last, so I says in conclusion: “Good-bye, Mr. Lorne, give my best respects to your mother-in-law.”
He give me a look witherin’ enough to wither me, if I had been easy withered, which I wasn’t. And that was the last words I said to him. Jest that minute Josiah come in, and I told him that I hadn’t no idee the Marquis of Lorne was such a feller.
Says Josiah, “I don’t believe it was Mark, it was some tyke or other; mebby it was the Widder’s hired man.”
I wouldn’t contend with him, but I knew what I did know. I went to lookin’ at some of the other pictures. There was faces that was glad and happy, and some that had desolation wrote out on ’em. There was one picture, “War Times” that made me feel very sad feelins; an old man leanin’ on a rough stun fence, lookin’ over the lonely winter fields, and thinkin’ of his boys away on the field of death—the boys that made the old farm jubilant with their happy voices and gay young faces. You can see it all in the old man’s face—the memory, the dread, and the heartache. And then there was another one “La Rota,” by name that worked on my feelins dretfully. A mother standin’ before a foundlin’ hospital, jest about puttin’ her baby into the little turnin’ box in the winder that would turn him forever from his mother’s arms into the arms of charity, which are colder. After that one kiss on the baby face, she would never see him, never know of his fate; he would be as lost to her as if she had lost him in the crowd of heavenly childern; though in that case she would know where he was: safe forever from sin and misery, and here—how could she tell what would be the baby’s fate. Oh, how bad La Rota was a feelin’; how I did pity her.