He hadn’t no more’n got the words out of his mouth, when “Blim!” came from one side of the house, and “Blim! Blim!” came from the other side. Nobody couldn’t tell who it was, there was such a crowd. Cornelius Cork’s face turned as red as a root-a-bagy beet, and he yelled out in the awfulest tone I had ever heerd him use—and if we had all been polar bears right from the pole, he couldn’t have took a more deadly aim at us with that awful forefinger:
“Stop that blimmin’ instantly!”
His tone was so loud and awful, and his gesture so fearfully commandin’ and threatenin’, that the house was still as a mice. You could hear a clothes-pin drop in any part of it.
Here he set down, and the meetin’ begun. Elder Easy was on the affirmative, and Thomas J. on the negative, as they call it.
Elder Easy is a first-rate man, and a good provider, but awful conservative. He believes in doin’ jest as his 4 fathers did every time round. If anybody should offer to let him look at the other side of the moon, he would say gently but sweetly: “No, I thank you, my 4 fathers never see it, and so I would rather be excused from beholdin’ it if you please.” He is polite as a basket of chips, and well meanin’; I haint a doubt of it in my own mind. But he and Samantha Allen, late Smith, differs; that female loves to look on every side of a heavenly idee. I respect my 4 fathers, I think a sight of the old men. They did a good work in cuttin’ down stumps and so 4th. I honor ’em; respect their memory. But cities stand now where they had loggin’ bees. Times change, and we change with ’em. They had to rastle with stumps and brush-heaps, it was their duty; they did it, and conquered. And it is for us now, who dwell on the smooth places they cleared for us, to rastle with principle and idees. Have loggin’ bees to pile up old rusty brushwood of unjust laws and customs, and set fire to ’em and burn ’em up root and branch, and plant in their ashes the seeds of truth and right, that shall yet wave in a golden harvest, under happier skies than ourn. If we don’t, shall we be doin’ for posterity what they did for us? For we too are posterity, though mebby we don’t realize it, as we ort to.
THE AFFIRMATIVE.
But Elder Easy, although he lives in the present time, is in spirit a 4 father, (though I don’t say it in a runnin’ way at all, for I like ’em, have swapped hens with him and her, and neighbored with ’em considerable.) He was on the likker side, not that he wants to get drunk, or thinks anything particular of likker himself, but he believes in moderate drinkin’ because his 4 fathers drank moderate. He believes in licensin’ intemperance because his 4 fathers was licensed. And Shakespeare Bobbet was on his side, and old Mr. Peedick, and the Editor of the Auger, (he is a democrat and went for slavery strong, felt like death when the slaves was set free, and now he wants folks to drink all they can, goes for intemperance strong. He drinks, so they say, though I wouldn’t have it go from Josiah or me for the world.) And Solomon Cypher was on that side. He drinks. And Simon Slimpsey; howsumever, he haint of much account anyway, he has almost ruined himself with the horrors. He has ’em every day stiddy, and sometimes two and three times a day. He told a neighborin’ woman that he hadn’t been out of ’em sense the day he was married to Betsey, she was so uncommon mean to him. I told her when she was a tellin’ me about it (she is a real news-bearer, and I didn’t want to say anything she could carry back) I merely observed in a cool way: “I have always had my opinion about clingers, and wimmen that didn’t want no rights, I have kep’ my eye on ’em, I have kep’ my eye on their husbands, and my mind haint moved a inch concernin’ them from the place it stood in more formally.” I didn’t say no more, not wantin’ to run Betsey to her back, and then truly, as a deep thinker observes in one of his orations, “a dog that will fetch a bone, will carry one.”
On Thomas Jefferson’s side was himself, the Editor of the Gimlet, Lawyer Nugent, Doctor Bombus, Elder Morton, and Whitfield Minkley—six on each side. Thomas Jefferson spoke first, and he spoke well, that I know. I turned right round and give sister Minkley a proud happy look several times while Thomas J. was a talkin’; she sot right behind me. I felt well. And I hunched Josiah several times when he said his best things, and he me, for we both felt noble in mind to hear him go on.
His first speech was what they call an easy, or sunthin’ considerable like that; Josiah said when we was a goin’ home that they called it an essence, but I told him I knew better than that. He contended, and I told him I would leave it to Thomas J. but it slipped my mind. Howsumever it haint no matter; it is the thing itself that Josiah Allen’s wife looks at, and not the name of it. The easy—or sunthin’ like it,—run as follows: I believe my soul I can git the exact words down, for I listened to it with every ear I had, and upheld by the thoughts of the future generations, and the cause of Right, I kinder took it out of his overcoat pocket the next day, and read it over seven times from beginnin’ to end. I should have read it eight times, if I had had time.