My Wayward Pardner; or, My Trials with Josiah, America, the Widow Bump, and Etcetery

by Marietta Holley

That most beautifulest and intelligentest of childern was a toddlin’ round, first up to one of ’em and then the other, with her bright eyes a dancin’, and her cheeks red as roses. You see their yard is so large and shady, and the little thing havin’ got so it can run round alone, is out in the yard a playin’ most all the time, and it is dretful good for her. And she enjoys it the best that ever was, and Tirzah Ann enjoys it, too, for after she gets her work done up, all she has to do is to set in the door and watch the little thing a playin’ round, and bein’ perfectly happy. The minute she ketched sight of the old mare and me and her grandpa, she run down to the gate as fast as her little feet could carry her. She had a little pink dress on, and pink stockin’s, and white shoes, and a white ruffled apron, with her pretty, shining hair a hangin’ down in curls over it, and she did, jest as sure as I live and breathe—she did look almost too beautiful for earth. I guess she got a pretty good kissin’ from Josiah and me, and then Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come a hurryin’ down to the gate, glad enough to see us, as they always be.

LITTLE SAMANTHA JOE.

Josiah, of course, had to take that beautiful child for a little ride, and Whitfield said he guessed he would go, too. But I got out and went in, and as we sot there on the stoop, Tirzah Ann up and told me what she and Whitfield was a goin’ to do. They was goin’ off for the summer for a rest and change. And I thought from the first minute she spoke of it that it was foolish in her. Now rests are as likely things as ever was; so are changes.

But I have said, and I say still, that I had ruther lay down to home, as the poet says, “on my own delightful feather-bed,” with a fan and a newspaper, and take a rest, than dress up and travel off 2 or 300 milds through the burnin’ sun, with achin’ body, wet with presperation and sweat, to take it. It seems to me that I would get more rest out of the former than out of the more latter course and proceedin’. Howsumever, everybody to their own mind.

Likewise with changes: I have said, and I say still, that changes are likely and respectable, if you can get holt of ’em; but how can you?

Havin’ such powerful and eloquent emotions as I have, havin’ such hefty principles a performin’ inside of my mind, enjoyin’ such idees, and faiths, and aspirations, and longin’s, and hopes, and despairs, and everything—I s’pose that is what makes me think that what is goin’ on round me, the outside of me, hain’t of so much consequence. I seem to live inside of myself (as it were) more than I do on the outside. And so it don’t seem of so much consequence what the lay of the land round me may happen to be, whether it is sort o’ hilly and mountainous or more level-like; or whether steam-cars may be a goin’ by me (on the outside of me), or boats a sailin’ round me, or milk-wagons.

You see the real change, the real rest, would have to be on the inside, and not on the outside. Nobody, no matter how much their weight may be by the steel-yards, can carry round such grand, hefty principles as I carry round without gettin’ tired; or enjoy the lofty hopes, and desires, and aspirations that I enjoy, and meditate on all the sad, and mysterious, and puzzlin’ conundrums of the old world as I meditate on ’em, without gettin’ fairly tuckered out.

Great hearts enjoy greatly and suffer greatly. And so sometimes, when heart-tired and brain-weary, if I could quell down them soarin’ emotions and make ’em lay still for a spell, and shet up my heart like a buro-draw, and hang up the key, and onscrew my head and lay it onto the manteltry-piece, then I could go off and enjoy a change that would be refreshin’ and truly delightful. But as it is, from Jonesville clear to the Antipithies, the puzzlin’ perplexities, the woes, and the cares of the old world foller right on after us tight as our shadders. Our pure and soarin’ desires, our blind mistakes, and deep despairs; our longin’s, strivin’s, memories, heartaches; all the joys and burdens of a soul, has to be carried by us up the steepest mountains or down into the lowest vallies. The same emotions that was a performin’ inside of our minds down in the Yo Semity, will be a performin’ jest the same up on the Pyramids.

The same questionin’ eyes, sort o’ glad and sort o’ sorrowful, that looked out over New York Harbor will look out over the Bay of Naples—and then beyond ’em both, out into a deeper, more mysterious ocean, the boundless sea that lays beyond everything, and before everything, and round everything, that great, misty sea of the Unknown, the Hereafter; tryin’ to see what we hain’t never seen, and wonderin’ when we shall see it, and how? and where? and wherefore? and if things be so? and why?