Well, I took a resolution, and I stuck to it firm; for when I once set up my ebenezer, I am just like a mountain. I stuck to it along pretty well into January, when I had to go to singing school. I must go to singing school, for I was leader in treble, and there was no carrying on the parts without me. But this was nothing, if it hadn’t fell to my lot to go home with Hannah Peabody, four times running. Politeness before everything. Well, she kept growing prettier and prettier every time, but I only grit my teeth and held on the harder.
By and by, Sabbath-day night came round, and I felt a sort of uneasy, moping about home; and, says I, this resolution will never set well on my stomach without air and exercise; and before I had done thinking of this, I was more than half way to Captain Peabody’s. It was about daylight down as I was passing by the kitchen; but hearing a sort of snickering inside, I slipped up and peeped into the window, just out of curiosity.
There was no candle burning, for Mrs. Peabody is saving of tallow, but I could see Hannah and Pol Partridge, the help, telling fortunes in the ashes by firelight. I turned round to go off, and run right against Jack Robinson. Jack was come to sit up with the help, and would insist upon it, I should go in and see Hannah—“She hasn’t had a spark this month,” says he, “and in you shall go, or I’ll lick ye.”
Well, there was no dodging here, and all I had to do was to grin and bear it. So in I went, and once in, good bye to resolution. The short and the long of it, I was soon as deep in the mud as I had been in the mire. But I had another guess chap to deal with than Sally Jones now. And here was now the difference between them. Where you got a slap in the chops from Sal, Hannah kep ye off with a scowl and a cock up of the nose. And Madam couldn’t bear handling. With her, it was talk is talk, but hands off, Mister.
But I rather guess I had cut my eye-teeth by this time. If I hadn’t learnt something about the nature of the women, the kicks I had taken from all quarters fell upon barren ground. There is no way to deal with them but to coax and flatter; you gain nothing, let me tell ye, by saving of soft soap; and you must be sly about it. It is no way to catch a wicked devil of a colt, in a pasture, to march right up, bridle in hand; you must sort of sidle along as if you was going past, and whistle, and pretend to be looking tother way; and so round and round, till at last you corner him up; then jump and clench him by the forelock. O! I’m not so great a fool as I might be.
But it was a long tedious business before Hannah and I could come to any sort of understanding. There was old Captain Peabody was a stump in my way. He was a man that had no regard for politeness; he travelled rough-shod through the town, carrying a high head and a stiff upper lip, as much as to say: “I owes nobody nothing, by ——.” He had been a skipper and sailed his schooner all along ashore, till he had got forehanded; then went back, up country, and set down to farming. But I never tuckle to man, if he’s as big as all out-doors. And after he poked his fist in my face, one ’lection, we never hitched horses together.
Well, as I was afeard to go to the house, and court Hannah in the regular way, I had to carry on the war just when and where I could; sometimes of a dark night, I could steal into the kitchen. But my safest plan was, to track her to the neighbour’s house, where she went to spend the evenings; skulk about till she started home, then waylay her on the road. Pretty poor chance this, you’ll say. But if this wasn’t enough, Hannah herself must join in to plague me half to death.
You see I wanted to let her know what I was after in a sort of a delicate under-hand way, and keep myself on the safe side of the fence all the time, if there was to be any kicking. But Hannah had no notion of riddles; she would not understand any sort of plain English. I hinted plagy suspicions about true love, and Cupid’s darts, and all that. Then I would breathe a long sithe, and say: “What does that mean, Hannah?” But no, she couldn’t see, poor soul; she looked as simple an’ innocent all the while as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
She was plaguy close, too, as to her goings and comings; and if she happened any time by accident to let drop the least word that show’d me where to find her next time, she was so mad with herself that she was ready to bite her tongue off.
One day she was going to her Aunt Molly’s to spend the evening, and she went all the way round to Dr. Dingley’s to tell Mrs. Dingley not to tell me. “For,” says she, “I don’t want him to be dodging me about everywhere.” Well, Mrs. Dingley, she promised to keep dark, but she told the Doctor, and what does the Doctor do, but comes right straight over and tells me, “Gone all stark alone,” says he, “but it’s none of my business.”