CHAPTER VII
For about two years there has been great doin’s in Hamen Smith’s family, owin’ to Tamer Ann’s wantin’ to make Anna marry a young old chap who come down from New York village to look at some grave-stuns in the buryin’ ground by the old Dutch Reform Church up in Zoar.
There wuz some dretful aged stuns there with old Dutch names on ’em, and the young old feller wuz in hopes he would find some ancestors there. He had piles and piles of ’em before he begun to hunt there, enough for comfort and more, too, but he wanted some more, so sure it is that the more you have the more you want.
And so he come down a purpose. He didn’t find any ancestors, but he found Anna. And he jest stayed along and stayed along. He had only got board at the tarven for two days, but he stayed seven weeks that time and come down agin frequent after that, and the next summer spent the hull of his summer there.
Anna wuz engaged to Tom Willis, a good lookin’ and good actin’ young chap, and Tamer Ann had never lifted her finger or said a word to stop their intimacy or engagement. But when this old young feller come she jest commanded Anna to not think of Tom Willis any more, and ordered her to be polite and sociable with this young old man. Curious how some mothers can act, ain’t it now?
I liked Tom Willis. He wuz studyin’ law under Thomas Jefferson, he had been under him for several years now, and Thomas J. thought everything of him, and said he wuz bound to make his mark in the world. Yes, I liked Tom and Tom liked me. But I had never seen the old young man till the day we went there a-visitin’, bein’ invited special by Tamer.
It wuz a pleasant drive over there, and I got up middlin’ early and got a good breakfast, a very good one, knowin’ that my Josiah’s demeanor for the day depended a good deal on it. And I wanted his liniment to be smooth and placid, for nothin’ gauls a woman more than to have her companion kinder snappish to her when she takes him out in company. She knows the wimmen are all comparin’ his liniment with their own husband’s liniments, and she wants him to show off to good advantage. She has a pride in it.
So I cooked, in addition to my other vittles, a young tender chicken, briled it, and had some nice warm biscuit, and some coffee, rich, yellow, and fragrant, with lots of good cream in it. And I had other good things accordin’. I did well, and Josiah’s liniment paid me; all the way to Hamenses his mean wuz like a babes for softness and reposeful sweetness. He twice murmured words of affection into my right ear, he sez, “Dear Samantha,” twice, such wuz the stimulatin’ and softenin’ effects of that coffee and broiled fowl. Oh! if female wimmen would only heed these words of warnin’ and caution from their sincere friend and well wisher. If they would only spend the strength they take to try to convince their pardners that it is onmanly to snap ’em up and be fraxious and puggecky to ’em, especially before folks and other wimmen, if they would only spend this time in preparin’ food, if they would only accept the great fact that men’s naters are made jest as they be, and the effect of food on their naters is jest what it is, if they would only accept these two great philosofical facts, and not argue and contend and try to understand why it is so, or how, or is it reasonable that it should be so, or anything about it. Simply accept it, dear married sisters, and guide them gently on by this safe and assured way. It will not fail you, no, Samantha has tried it in the balances and has never yet found it wantin, for twenty years and more that has been my safe weepon and my refuge in times of trouble.