Now if them folks had mistrusted that that steeple was gettin’ shaky, they could have tied it up, mebby, and kep’ it straight. And I was determined that if tyin’ up, or anything of that sort, would keep my Josiah up, he should be tied. I am speakin’ poetically, and would wish to be so understood. Ropes was not in my mind, neither tow strings.
And then as I come to think things over, and look at the subject on every side, as my way is, I felt a feelin’ that I hadn’t done as I ort. My mind had been on a perfect strain for 2 weeks on that alpacka dress, and I hadn’t kep’ watch of my pardner as pardners ort to be watched over. Men are considerable likely critters, but they are sort o’ frisky in their minds, onstiddy, waverin’ kinder. They need a stiddy bit, and a firm martingill, to drive ’em along straight in the married life, and keep their minds and affections stabled and firm sot onto their lawful pardners. I have said that there wasn’t a jealous hair in my head, not a hair. But filosify and deep reasonin’ has learnt me severe and deep lessons. Even after the fearful night I had passed, the awful words I had listened to from the lips of a sleepin’ Josiah, still filosify whispered to me that my pardner was as good as the common run of men, and I, in strainin’ my mind on store-clothes, had neglected things of far more importance; I had neglected lookin’ after my companion as men ort to be looked after. The cat, to use a poetical and figurative expression, had been away, and the mouse had gone to playin’. Or, to bring poesy down to prose, and to common comprehension, the cat had been fixin’ over a brown alpacka dress, and the mouse had got to follerin’ up a Widder Bump in his mind.
I believe when the man goes to cuttin’ up and actin’, if the female pardner, upheld by principle, would take a microscope and look over her past, she would more’n as likely as not come bunt up against some fault of her own, some neglect, some carelessness, some things she had done that she ortn’t to done, or some things she hadn’t done that she ort. She could trace back their cuttin’s up and actin’s to some little unguarded moments, when through hurry, or carelessness, or neglect, she had let the lines and martingills of tenderness and watchfulness drop out of her hand, and had let her pardner go a caperin’ off with nothin’ but a halter on, a prancin’ up and down society like a 3-year old colt that hadn’t had a bittin’ rig on. Pardners have got to be humored. They have got to be made comfortable and happy in their own homes; their companions has got to make themselves attractive to ’em, or they won’t be attracted. Viniger won’t draw flies worth a cent. And pardners have got to be watched; for this is the law and the profit.
They have got to be reined up to the post of duty, and hitched there. They are naturally balky, and love to shy off side-ways, and there haint no use denyin’ of it.
I tell you, I had deep thoughts that day as I went round the house a doin’ up my work; awful deep ones, and a sight of ’em, probable as many as 2 dozen a minute right along through the day; some solemn and affectin’ ones, about as solemn as they make, and some more hopeful like, and chirk. I tell you, my mind got fairly tuckered out by the middle of the afternoon.
But with Samantha, regret, repentance, and reformation foller right straight on after each other, jest like 3 horses hitched in front of each other drawin’ a heavy load. I see there was a duty in front of me to tackle; I see that I must not let Josiah Allen go off to Jonesville another night without his pardner. I must leave cares and store-clothes in the back-ground, and come out nobly, and make my home and myself agreeable to my pardner, and keep a keen and vigilant eye onto his proceedin’s and goin’s on.
So that evenin’ along towards night, when he spoke out in that same sort o’ strange and curious way about Jonesville, and that “after supper he guessed he’d hitch up and go.”
Then it was that I spoke up mild and firm as my soap-stun, and said, “I guessed I’d go, too.” He looked brow-beat and stunted by my remark, and says he: “I am most afraid to have you go out in such muggy weather, Samantha. I don’t believe you realize how muggy it is.”
Says I, in a brave, noble tone: “It hain’t no muggier for me than it is for you, Josiah Allen, and if you go, I go, too.”
“Wall,” says he, with that same dumb-foundered and stunted mean, “the old mare hadn’t ort to go out agin to-night; she lost a shoe off last week. I don’t believe we had better try to go.”