I see he was overcome by as many as seven different emotions of different anguishes, and I give him pretty near a minute to recover himself; and then, says I, as I sadly resumed my dish-cloth, “What of her, Deacon Slimpsey?”
“She’ll be the death on me,” says he, “and that haint the worst on it. My soul is jeopardied on account of her. Oh!” says he, groanin’ in an anguish, “Can you believe it, Miss Allen, that I, a deacon in an autherdox church, could be tempted to swear? Behold that wretch! I confess it, as I came through your gate, just now, I said to myself, ‘By Jupiter, I can’t stand it so much longer’; and only last night I wished I was a ghost; for I thought if I were an apperition, I could have escaped from her view. Oh!” says he, groanin’ agin, “I have got so low as to wish I was a ghost!” He paused, and in a deep and brooding silence I finished my dishes, and hung up my dish-pan. “She was rushing out of Deacon Gowdey’s, as I came by, just now, to talk to me. She don’t give me no peace—last night she would walk tight to my side all the way home, and she looked hungry at the gate as I went through, and fastened it on the inside.” Agin he paused overcome by his emotions, and I looked pityin’ly on him. He was a small boned man of about seventy summers and winters. Age, who had ploughed the wrinkles into his face, had turned the furrows deep. The cruel fingers of time, or some other female, had plucked nearly every hair from his head, and the ruthless hand of fate had also seen fit to deprive him of his eye-winkers, not one solitary winker bein’ left for a shade tree (as it were) to protect the pale pupils below, and they bein’ a light watery blue, and the lids bein’ inflamed, they looked sad indeed. Owing to afflictive providences, he was dressed up more than men generally be, for his neck bein’ badly swelled, he wore a string of yellow amber beads, and in behalf of his sore eyes he wore ear-rings. But truly outside splender and glitter won’t satisfy the mind, or bring happiness; I looked upon his mournful face, and my heart melted inside of me, almost as soft as it could, almost as soft as butter in the month of August, and I said to him in a soothin’ and encouragin’ tone:
“Mebby she’ll marry the editor of the Gimlet. She is payin’ attention to him.”
“No, she won’t,” says he, in a solemn and affectin’ tone that brought tears to my eyes, as I sat peelin’ my onions for dinner. “No, she won’t. I shall be the one, I feel it. I was always the victim; I was always down-trodden. When I was a baby, my mother had two twins both of ’em a little older than me, and they almost tore me to pieces before I got into trowsers. Mebby it would have been better for me if they had,” said he in a musin’ and mournful tone—and then heavin’ a deep sigh, he resumed; “When I went to school and we played leap-frog if there was a frog to be squashed down under all the rest, I was that frog; it has always been so, if ever there was a victim wanted, I was the victim, and Betsey Bobbet will get round me yet, and see if she don’t; women are awful perseverin’ in such things.”
“Cheer up, Deacon Slimpsey, you haint obleeged to marry her—it is a free country; folks haint obleeged to marry unless they are a mind to; it don’t take a brass band to make that legal.” I quoted these words in a light and joyous tone, hopin’ to rouse him from his despondancy—but in vain, for he only repeated in a gloomy tone:
“She’ll get around me yet, Miss Allen, I feel it,” and as the shade deepened on his eyebrow, he said, “Have you seen her verses in the last week’s Gimlet?”
“No,” says I, “I haint.”
In a silent and hopeless way he took the paper out of his pocket, and handed it to me and I read as follows:
A SONG
Composed not for the strong-minded females, who madly and indecently insist on rights, but for the retiring and delicate-minded of the sect who modestly murmur “we wont have no rights—we scorn ’em;” will some modest and bashful sister set it to music, that we may timidly, but loudly warble it, and oblige hers till death in this glorious cause.