“Thank you, Evangeline,” sez I, as I slowly backed out of the democrat and alighted down. But my soul wildly questioned me, “Where, where shall we nestle down?” For I couldn’t see any place. And after we got our things off and wuz visitin’ my soul still kep’ up this questionin’, “When, when shall I nestle down? And where?” For the outside of the house wuzn’t a circumstance to the inside; everything that could be out of place wuz, and everything that could be dirty lived up to its full privileges in that respect. The hired girl, a shiftless critter, I could see, wuz sick with nooraligy, but appeared with a mussy, faded out, calico wrapper and a yeller flannel tied round her face, and inquired what she should git for supper. Evangeline wuz at that minute describing to me a statute she had in her mind to sculp, but she left off and gin the girl some orders, and then kep’ on with her talk.
She sez, “My mind revels in the heroic, the romantic, it spreads its wings and flies away from the Present and the Real into the Beautiful, the Ideal.”
And I thought to myself I didn’t blame the soul for wantin’ to git away somewhere, but knew that it ort to be right there up and a-doin’ sunthin’ to make matters different.
Well, after a long interval we wuz called out to the supper table. There wuz a crumpled, soiled tablecloth hangin’ onevenly on a broken legged table, propped up by a book on one side. I looked at the book, and I see that it wuz “The Search for the Beautiful,” and I knowed that it could never find it there. Some showy decorated dishes, nicked and cracked, held our repast—thick slices of heavy indigestible bread; some cake fallen as flat as Babylon (you know the him states “Babylon is fallen to rise no more”), some dyspeptic lookin’, watery potatoes and cold livid slices of tough beef; some canned berries that had worked, the only stiddy workers I judged that had been round; some tea made with luke-warm water. Such wuz our fare enlivened by the presence of three of the worst actin’, worst lookin’ children I ever see in my life, clamberin’, disputin’, sassy little demons, reachin’ acrost the table for everything they wanted, sassin’ their Ma and makin’ up faces at us sarahuptishously, but I ketched ’em at it. The girl with the nooraligy waited on the table; her dress hadn’t been changed, but a mussy lookin’ muslin cap wuz perched on top of the yeller flannel and a equally crumpled, soiled, white muslin apron surmounted her dress, but, style bein’ maintained by these two objects, Evangeline seemed to be content.
She wuz the only serene, happy one at the table, and she led the conversation upward into fields of Poesy with a fine disregard to her surroundin’s that wuz wonderful in the extreme. Her talk wuz beautiful and inspirin’, and in spite of myself I found myself anon or oftener led up some distance into happier spears of fancy and imagination. But a howl from some of the little demons would bring me down agin, and a look at my dear pardner’s face of agony would plunge me, too, into gloom. Eat he could not; I myself, such is woman’s heroism and self-sacrifice, and feelin’ that I must make up for his arrearages, eat more than wuz for my good, which I paid for dearly afterwards, and knowed I must; dyspepsia claimed me for its victim, and I suffered turribly, but of this more anon and bimeby.
After supper we returned into the parlor, the children with variegated faces and hands, caused by berry juice and butter, swarmin’ over us and everything in the room, so I see plain the reason that every single thing wuz nasty and broken in the house and outside. They wuz oncomfortable as could be, every one on ’em had the stomach ache; and why shouldn’t they! The acid in their veins made ’em demoniac in their ways. Not one mouthful had they eat that wuz proper for children to eat, nor for any one else unless their stomach wuz made of iron or gutty-perchy. And I didn’t believe they ever took a bath unless they fell into the water, which they often did. The girl had gin their face and hands a hasty wipe with a wet towel, and their hair, which wuz shingled, wuz as frowsy and onclean as shingles would admit of.
Evangeline wuz good natered, and she had the faculty, Heaven knows how she could exercise it, of bein’ perfectly oblivious to her surroundin’s, and soarin’ up to the pure Heavens, whilst her body wuz down in a state worse than savages. Yes, so I calmly admitted to myself, for savages roamed the free wild forest, and clean spots could be found amongst the wild green woods, but here in vain would you seek for one. Her poems and statutes wuz beautiful, and she had piles on ’em, some done, some only jest begun; she wuz workin’ now on a statute of Sikey, beautiful as a poem in marble could be, and as we wuz lookin’ at it she sez, liftin’ her large, fine eyes heavenward:
“Oh, to create, to be a creator of beauty in poem or picture or statute, it seems to make one a partner with the Deity.”
“Yes,” sez I, “there is a good deal of sense in that, and I fully appreciate beauty wherever I see it.”
But, bein’ gored by Duty, sez I, “How would it work to make your own children, of which you are the author, works of art and beauty, care for them, work at them some as you do at your own stun figgers, cuttin’ off the rough edges, prunin’ and cuttin’ so the soul will show through the human, and they havin’ the advantage over your statutes that the good work you expend on them is liable to go on to the end of time, carryin’ out your lofty ideals in other lives—how would it work, Evangeline, and makin’ your own home as nigh as you can like the ideal one you dote on—wouldn’t it be better for you?”