“I spoze you think Tom Willis is one of them heroes,” sez Tamer coldly, cold as a ice-suckle.
“Yes, seein’ you’ve asked, I’ll tell you plain I do think so, and I lay out to look on him now with the same pair of eyes I would when he got his name writ down on the pillow of fame; he needs my sympathy now—he wouldn’t then, if I wuz livin’ to give it to him. It would be a good thing for these heroes and for our own souls if we put a few of the flowers we put on the monuments of dead heroes into the empty hands, the poor, tired, scarred hands of our live heroes to-day. If a few of the smiles and hurrahs we keep for onanswerin’ eyes and ears was spent on our live heroes who are fightin’ life’s battles jest as General Grant fought his, straight on the line, with no manoovers or false movements, straightforward and simple and manly——”
“You are thinkin’ of Tom Willis agin,” sez Tamer Ann sarcastickally.
“Yes, I am,” sez I firmly. “Tom Willis has got genius, perseverance, good common sense and a lovin’ heart, and that is jest the stuff heroes are made of. Genius alone is flighty and takes a man offen his feet, swingin’ him up above the housetops; common sense alone is too heavy, weightin’ a chap down; but take both together, with perseverin’ industry and a lovin’ heart, they will take a boy right straight towards a monument, and that is jest where Tom Willis is goin’. He is goin’ away from the jealous eyes and persecutions and tribulations; whether we help or hender, he is bound for a newer, grander country, a prosperous future where he will cast anchor bimeby; his sails are sot for it, he will git to it, and whether he carries into it a happy or a achin’ heart depends on you, Tamer Ann Smith.”
“Oh, shaw!” sez she.
Sez I mildly, “Shawin’ never did any good in the past, Tamer Ann, nor I have no reason to think it will in the future.”
Nor any hurt, I sez to myself reasonable, for I had faith to think that it would all come out right in the end, dark as it looked now, for Anna wouldn’t marry without her ma’s consent, and it looked like obtaining sweet milk from a soapstun to git a consent from Tamer Ann. But I kep’ my faith, and would say to myself time and agin, Hain’t it as big as a mustard seed? Can’t I git up faith as big as a pinhead? I ort to, and then I would try.
That very day, whilst Tamer and I wuz visitin’, word come that her mother on her own side wuz took away with a fit and the funeral wuz to be to the house next day but one.
Hamen’s wife felt quite bad, she shed a number of tears that I see, and mebby some I didn’t see, I shouldn’t wonder, for a mother is a mother as long as her skin and bones hold her heart. Of course for years Ma Bodley had been failin’ and runnin’ down, but watched over good by Tamer’s old maid sister, Alzina.