And then Josiah pretended not to understand my poetic and figgerative speech, and said that—Solomon bein’ so bald—I’d have a chance to give him a good singein’ and he hoped I’d blister his old skull good.
And I walked off with dignity, and wouldn’t demean myself by sayin’ another word. He had told me where the bride was, and I started off; and though memory (as well as Josiah) hunched me up to remember how hauty the “Creation Searchers” had all been as a body, and how rampant they had been that a woman shouldn’t infringe on ’em, or come in contract with ’em, still the thought that they was moulderin’ in jail made me feel for them and their weepin’ brides.
The female elements in politics would be, as you may say, justice tempered down with mercy; justice kep’ a sayin’ to me, “Solomon Cypher is in jail and he ort to be, for truly he played horse and disturbed the peace;” but mercy whispered to me in the other ear: “If he is humbled down and willin’ to do better, give him a chance.”
Punishment if it means anything means jest that; it hadn’t ort to be malicious enjoyment to the punishers; it ort to be for the reformin’ of the criminals, and makin’ of ’em better. And that is why I never could believe that chokin’ folks to death was the way to reform ’em, and make better citizens of ’em.
I found the bride a settin’ like a statute of grief on a bench, a groanin’ and weepin’ and callin’ wildly on Doodle, and sayin’ if he was alive she wouldn’t be in that perdickerment—which I couldn’t deny, and didn’t try to. But I told her firmly that this was no time to indulge in her feelins, or call on Doodle, and if she wanted a bail put onto Solomon Cypher, we must hasten to his dungeon.
So we hurried onwards, and right in the path we met Gen. Hawley; and even then, in that curious time, I thought I never did see a handsomer, well meaniner face than hisen. And now it looked better than ever for it had pity onto it, which will make even humblyness look well. That man respects me deeply; he see the mission I was a performin’ on, and the hefty principles I was a carryin’ round with me on a tower, and now as he looked at my agitated face and then at the weepin’ bride, he stopped and says in that honest good way of hisen, and with that dretful clever look to his eyes:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, you are in trouble; can I help you in any way?”
“No,” says I, “not now you can’t.” I put a awful meanin’ axent onto that ‘now,’ and says he:
“Do I understand you to say Madam that at some future time I can? You know you can command me.”
(A better dispositioned, accommodatiner, well meaniner man, never walked afoot; I knew that from the first on’t.) But duty and justice hunched me up, one on each side, and says I sadly, “My advice wasn’t took, the Sentinal was licenced, and Solomon Cypher is drunk as a fool.”