Tirzah Ann's summer trip, and other sketches

by Marietta Holley

Wall, they started the same day, and went to the same place the Skidmores did—a fashionable summer resort—and put up to the same tavern, to rest and recreate. But Mrs. Skidmore bein’ a healthy, raw-boned woman, could stand as much agin rest as Tirzah Ann could. Why, Tirzah Ann says the rest wus enough to wear out a leather wemen, and how she stood it for two weeks wus more than she could tell. You see she wusn’t used to hard work. I had always favored her and gone ahead with the work myself, and Whitfield had been as careful of her, and as good as a woman to help her, and this rest came tough on it; it wus dretful hard on her to be put through so.

You see she had to dress up two or three times a day, and keep the babe dressed up slick. And she had to promenade down to the waterin’-place, and drink jist such a time, and it went against her stomach, and almost upset her every time. And she had to go a-ridin’, and out on the water in boats and yots, and that made her sick, too, and had to play crokey, and be up till midnight to parties. You see she had to do all this, ruther than let Mrs. Skidmore get in ahead on her, and do more than she did, and be more genteel than she wus, and rest more.

And then the town bein’ full, and runnin’ over, they wus cooped up in a little mite of a room up three flights of stairs; that, in itself, wus enough to wear Tirzah Ann out; she never could climb stairs worth a cent. And their room wus very small, and the air close, nearly tight, and hot as an oven; they wus used to great, cool, airy rooms to hum; and the babe couldn’t stand the hotness and the tightness, and she began to enjoy poor health, and cried most all the time, and that wore on Tirzah Ann; and to hum, the babe could play round in the yard all day a’most, but here she hung right on to her ma.

And then the rooms on one side of ’em wus occupied by a young man a-learnin’ to play on the flute; he had been disappointed in love, and he would try to make up tunes as he went along sort o’ tragedy style, and dirge-like, the most unearthly and woe-begone sounds, they say, that they ever heard or heard on. They say it wus enough to make anybody’s blood run cold in their veins to hear ’em; he kept his room most of the time, and played day and night. He had ruther be alone day times and play, than go into company, and nights he couldn’t sleep, so he would set up and play. They wus sorry for him, they said they wus; they knew his mind must be in a awful state, and his sufferin’s intense, or he couldn’t harrow up anybody’s feelin’s so. But that didn’t make it more the easier for them.

Tirzah Ann and Whitfield both says that tongue can’t never tell the sufferin’s they underwent from that flute, and their feelin’s for that young man; they expected every day to hear he had made way with himself, his agony seemed so great, and he would groan and rithe so fearful, when he wasn’t playin’.

And the room on the other side of ’em wus occupied by a young woman who owned a melodien; she went into company a good deal, and her spells of playin’ and singin’ would come on after she had got home from parties. She had a good many bo’s, and wus happy dispositioned naturally; and they said some nights, it would seem as if there wouldn’t be no end to her playin’ and singin’ love songs, and performin’ quiet pieces, polkys, and waltzes, and such. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield are both good-hearted as they can be, and they said they didn’t want to throw no shade over young hearts; they had been young themselves not much more than two years ago; they knew by experience what it wus to be sentimental, and they felt to sympathize with the gladness and highlarity of a young heart, and they didn’t want to do nothin’ to break it up. But still it came tough on ’em—dretful. I s’pose the sufferin’s couldn’t be told that they suffered from them two musicianers. And the babe not bein’ used to such rackets, nights, would get skairt, and almost go into hysterick fits. And two or three nights, Tirzah Ann had ’em, too—the hystericks. I don’t know what kept Whitfield up; he says no mony would tempt him to go through it agin; I s’pose she almost tore him to pieces; but she wasn’t to blame, she didn’t know what she was a-doin’.

It hain’t no use to blame Tirzah Ann now, after it is all over with; but she sees it plain enough now, and she’s a-sufferin’ from the effects of it, her tryin’ to keep up with Mrs. Skidmore, and do all she done. And there is where her morals get all run down, and Whitfield’s, too.

To think of them two, she that was Tirzah Ann Allan, and Whitfield Minkley! to think of them two! brought up as they had been, with such parents and step-parents as they had, settin’ under such a preacher as they had always set under! to think of them two a-dancin’!

Why, if anybody else had told me, if it had come through two or three, I would have despised the idee of believin’ it. But it didn’t come through anybody; she owned it up to me herself; I couldn’t hardly believe my ear when she told me, but I had to. They had parties there every evenin’ in the parlor, and Mrs. Skidmore and her husband went to ’em, and they danced. I didn’t say nothin’ to hurt her feelin’s, her mean looked so dretful, and I see she was a-gettin’ her pay for her sinfulness, but I groaned loud and frequent, while she wus a-tellin’ me of this, (entirely unbeknown to me).

Here was where Whitfield got so lame. He never had danced a step before in his life, nor Tirzah Ann nuther. But Skidmore and his wife danced every night, and Tirzah Ann, bein’ so ambitius, was determined that she and Whitfield should dance as much as they did, if they fell down a-doin’ of it; and not bein’ used to it, it almost killed ’em, besides loosening their mussels, so that it will be weeks and weeks before they get as strong and as firm as they wus before, and I don’t know as they ever will. When mussels get to totterin’, it is almost impossible to get ’em as firm as they wus before. But truely they got their pay, Whitfield bein’ so tuckered out with the rest and recreation he had been a-havin’, it lamed him awfully, rheumatiz set in, and he wus most bed-rid. And then a base ball hit him, when he was a-playin’; a base ball hit him on the elbo’, right on the crazy-bone; I s’pose he wus most crazy, the pain wus terrible, but the doctor says, with care, he may get over it, and use his arm agin. At present, it is in a sling.