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FRONTISPIECE.

MY WAYWARD PARDNER;
OR,
MY TRIALS
WITH
Josiah, America, The Widow Bump,
AND ETCETERY.

BY

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE,

(Marietta Holley,)

Author of “My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet’s,” “Samantha at the

Centennial,” &c.

“Wimmen is my theme, and also Josiah.”

Illustrations by True W. Williams.

PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY.

HARTFORD, CONN.:

AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.

1882.

COPYRIGHT BY

MARIETTA HOLLEY.

1880.

(All rights reserved.)

TO JOSIAH AND AMERICA.

WITH THE HOPE THAT HE AND SHE BOTH WILL PUT THEIR

BEST FOOT FORWARD AND WALK OFF NOBLY IN

THE PATH OF RIGHT THIS BOOK

IS DEDICATED BY

THEIR AFFECTIONATE FRIEND AND WELL WISHER,

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE

PREFACE.

I told Josiah that I guessed I would write a book about several things—and wimmen. Says I, “My mind has been dretful agitated lately about that certain lot of female wimmen that are sufferin’ more than tongue can tell. Why,” says I, “when I think of their agony and wrongs, it fairly makes the blood bile in my veins. I love the female sect,” says I firmly, “I am one of ’em myself.”

Says he (not wantin’ me to say a word about it), “Let ’em write about it themselves.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, do you remember when you fell down through the barn and broke your limb, and most broke your other leg?”

“Yes,” says he, “but what of it?”

Says I, “What if I had stood still in the buttery winder, and hollered at you to help yourself, and if you was in pain to get out of it?”

“Well,” says he, “let ’em get some of their own folks to do the writin’ then. They haint none of your folks, nobody won’t expect nothin’ of you.” (He had reasons for not wantin’ me to tell all I knew about certain things.)

But I says in solemn tones, “Do you remember that time you fell, Josiah Allen, and I, bein’ bound down by rheumatizm, couldn’t do nothin’ but blow the dinner-horn for help, and Sam Snyder come on the run, and fetched you in, and went after the doctor?”

“Throw that leg in my face, if you want to, but what of it?”

Says I, “Them sufferin’ female wimmen are bound down fur more painfully and gauling than you wuz. I haint the strength to lift ’em up myself, but I am a goin’ to toot the horn for help. I am a goin’ to blow through it powerful breaths of principle and warnin’; and mebby another Samuel, an uncle of mine, that I honor and admire, may hear it, and start off on the run, and lift the hull of them poor female wimmen up, out of their pain and humiliatin’ situation. He can do it if he is a mind to,” says I, “as easy as Sam Snyder lifted you, and easier, for he sweat powerful, and most dropped you once or twice. And,” says I firmly, “my mind is made up, Josiah Allen, I shall holler for Samuel.”

“Wall, wall, holler away, for all I care.” He had strong reasons for not wantin’ me to speak a word about certain things, and his tone was very snappish, snappisher than it had been for over seven weeks. But such trials do great spirits no harm; no, it only lifts ’em up above their own earthly peace and happiness, and sets ’em more firmly and stiddily on their loftier spears.

I sithed, but I didn’t contend another word with him, only jest that sithe, and then I commenced to write my book.

WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT.

THE PICTURES
MR. WILLIAMS HAS MADE.

“THE TEDIOUS EVENING WANED AWAY.”

JOSIAH ALLEN GETS ASTRAY.

I have said, and said it calmly, that this is the curiousest world I ever see in my life. And I shan’t take it back. I hain’t one to whiffle round and dispute myself. I made the statement cool and firm, and shall stand by it. And truly if I never had said or thought anything of the kind, what I see with my own eyes last Friday night, and heard with my own ear before mornin’ dawned, would have convinced me that I was in the right on’t.

It’s happenin’ on a Friday, too, was strange as anything could be strange. It was on Friday that Mr. Columbus discovered the New World, and it was on a Friday (though some time after) that I discovered new regions in my pardner’s mind. Realms of mystery, full of strange inhabitents. That Christopher and me should both make such startlen and momentious discoveries on the same day of the week is a coincidence curious enough to scare anybody most to death.

Yes, this world is a curious place, very, and holler, holler as a drum. Lots of times the ground seems to lay smooth and serene under your rockin’ chair, when all the time a earthquake may be on the very p’int of busten’ it open and swollerin’ you up—chair and all. And your Josiah may be a-settin’ right on top of a volcano, unbeknown to you. But I am wanderin’ off into fields of poesy, and to resoom and proceed.

It was along the latter part of winter, pretty nigh spring, when my companion Josiah seemed to kinder get into the habit of going to Jonesville evenin’s. When I would beset him to go and get necessaries, groceries, and etcetery, he would say:

“Wall, I guess I’ll wait till evenin’, and then I’ll hitch up and go.”

He’d done it a number of times before I noticed it in particular, bein’ took up alterin’ over my brown alpacka, and bein’ short on’t for pieces and strained in my mind whether I would get out new backs without piecin’ ’em acrost the shoulder-blades. I don’t get much time to sew, bein’ held back by housework and rheumatiz, and the job had hung on, and wore on me powerfully, body and mind. Wall, every day or two he would make that curious remark, without my noticin’ of it (as it were):

“Wait till evenin’, and I’ll hitch up and go.”

And I wouldn’t say nothin’’, and he’d go, and wouldn’t get back till nine o’clock or after. Wall, as time went on, and my mind grew easier about my dress (I concluded to take the overskirt and make new backs and sleeves, and I got it cut foamin’, could have cut it profuse and lavish, if it had been my way), and my mind bein’ onstrained, and noticin’ things more, I thought it looked sort o’ peculier that Josiah should be so uncommon willin’ to go to the store evenin’s for necessaries and things, when he had always been such a case to stay to home nights; couldn’t get him out for the Doctor hardly. Collery morbeus couldn’t hardly start him, nor billerous colic.

It was on that Friday night after Josiah had started, that I, havin’ finished my dress, sot there a knittin’, and my mind bein’ sot free, it got to thinkin’ over things. Thinkin’ how I told him that mornin’ that the tea was a-runnin’ out, and I should have to have some that day, and he says:

“Wall, after supper I’ll hitch up and go.”

And I says to him sort o’ mechanically (for my mind was almost completely full of alpacka and waist patterns—I had concluded late the night before to take the overskirt):

“What has come over you, Josiah Allen? I couldn’t never use to get you out nights at all.”

He didn’t explain, nor nothin’, but says agin, in that same sort of a curious way, but firm:

“You make the tea last through the day, Samantha, and to-night I’ll hitch up and go.”

And then he beset me to have a chicken pie for dinner, and I, bein’ in such a hurry with my sewin’, didn’t feel like makin’ the effort, and he told me I must make it, for he had had a revelation that I should.

Says I, “a revelation from who?”

And he says, “From the Lord.”

And I says, “I guess not.”

But he stuck to it that he had. And I finally told him, “that if it was from the Lord he would probable get it, and if it wuzn’t, if it wuz as I thought, a revelation from his stomach and appetite, he most probable wouldn’t get it.” And I kep’ on with my sewin’. I laid out to get a good, wholesome dinner, and did. But I couldn’t fuss to make that pie, in my hurry. His revelation didn’t amount to much. But it was curious his talkin’ so—awful curious.

I got to thinkin’ it all over agin as I sot there a-knittin’, and I felt strange. But little, little did I think what was goin’ on under my rockin’-chair, unbeknown to me.

About half past 7 Josiah Allen got home. I asked him what made him come so soon, and he said sunthin’, as he took off his overcoat, about there not bein’ no meetin’ that night, and sunthin’ about the Elder bein’ most sick. And I s’posed he meant conference meetin’, and I s’posed he meant Elder Bamber. But oh! if I had only known who that Elder was, and what them meetin’s was, if I had only known the slippery height and hollerness of the volcano Josiah Allen was a-sittin’ upon, unbeknown to me! But I didn’t know nothin’ about it, and so I sot there, calm and serene in my frame, for my mind bein’ onharnessed, as I may say, speakin’ in a poeticule way, from the cares it had been a-carryin’, I felt first rate. And so I sot there a-knittin’, and Josiah sot by the stove seemin’ly a-meditatin’. I thought likely as not, he was a-thinkin’ on religious subjects, and I wouldn’t have interupted him for the world. But pretty soon he spoke out sort ’o dreamily, and says he:

“How old should you take the Widder Bump to be, Samantha?”

“Oh, about my age, or a little older, probable,” says I. “What makes you ask?”

“Oh, nothin’,” says he, and he sort o’ went to whistlin’, and I went on with my knittin’. But anon, or mebby a little before anon, he spoke out agin, and says he:

“The Widder Bump is good lookin’ for a widder, hain’t she? And a crackin’ good cook. Sometimes,” says he in a pensive way, “sometimes I have almost thought she went ahead of you on nutcakes.”

Her nutcakes was pretty fair ones, and midelin’ good shaped, and I wuzn’t goin’ to deny it, and so I says:

“What of it, Josiah? What if she duz?”

There hain’t a envious hair in my head (nor many gray ones for a woman of my age, though I say it that shouldn’t). I hain’t the woman to run down another woman’s nutcakes. My principles are like brass, as has been often remarked. If a woman can make lighter nutcakes than I can (which, give me good flour and plenty of sour cream, and eggs, and other ingregiencies, I shall never believe they can)—why, if they can, runnin’ down their nutcakes don’t make mine any higher up. There is where folks make a mistake—they think that runnin’ other folks down lifts them higher up; but it don’t, not a inch.

THE WIDDER BUMP.

So I kep’ on knittin’, cool as the heel of the sock I was knittin’ on. Pretty soon Josiah broke out agin:

“The Widder Bump hain’t got no relations, has she, Samantha, that would be a kinder hangin’ on, and livin’ on her, if she should take it into her head to marry agin?”

“I guess not,” says I. “But what makes you ask, Josiah?”

“Oh, nothin’, nothin’ in the world. I hadn’t no reason in askin’ it, not a single reason. I said it, Samantha,” says he, speakin’ in a sort of a excited, foolish way, “I said it jest to make talk.”

And agin he went to whistlin’, strange and curious whistles as I ever heard, and haulin’ a shingle out of the wood-box, he went to whittlin’ of it into as strange shapes as I ever see in my life. I looked at him pretty keen over my specks, for I thought things was goin’ on kinder curious. But I only says in a sort of a dry tone:

“I am glad you can think of sunthin’ to say, Josiah, if it hain’t nothin’ but widder. Howsumever,” says I, speakin’ in a encouragin’ tone, seein’ how dretful meachin’ he looked, and thinkin mebby I had been too hard on him, “Widder is better than no subject at all, Josiah, though I don’t call it a soarin’ one. But I can’t see,” says I, lookin’ at him uncommon keen over my specks, “I can’t see why you foller it up so awful close to-night. I can’t see why the Widder Bump is a-runnin’[a]a-runnin’] through your mind to-night, Josiah Allen.”

“Oh! she hain’t! she hain’t!” says he, speakin’ up quick, but with that dretful meachin’ and sheepish look to him.

“I am a talkin’ about her, Samantha, jest to pass away time, jest to make myself agreeable to you.”

“Wall,” says I, in a dryer tone than I had hitherto used, “don’t exert yourself too hard, Josiah, to make yourself agreeable. You may strain your mind beyond its strength. I can stand it if you don’t say nothin’ more about the Widder Bump. And time,” says I, “I guess time will pass away quick enough without your takin’ such pains to hurry it along.”

And then I launched out nobly on that solemn theme. About time, the greatest of gifts; how it come to us God-given; how we ort to use it; how we held our arms out blindly, and could feel the priceless treasure laid in ’em, close to our hearts, unbeknown to us; and how all beyond ’em was like reachin’ em out into the darkness, into a awful lonesomeness and emptiness; how the hour of what we called time was the only thing on God’s earth that we could grip holt of; how it was every mite of a standin place we could lift the ladder on for our hopes and our yearnin’s, our immortal dreams to mount heavenward; how this place, the Present, was all the spot we could stand on, to reach out our arms toward God, and eternal safety, and no knowin’ how soon that would sink under us, drop down under our feet, and let us down into the realm of Shadows, the Mysterious, the Beyond. “And still,” says I, “how recklessly this priceless treasure is held by some; how folks talk about its bein’ too long, and try to get ways to make it go quicker, and some,” says I, dreamily, “some try to make it pass off quicker by talkin’ about widders.”

AN IDEAL FAMILY.

I don’t think I had been more eloquent in over five weeks, than I was in talkin’ upon that theme. I was very eloquent and lengthy, probable from ¼ to ½ an hour. I talked beautiful on it. A minister would have said so if he had heard me, and he would have been likely to thought highly of it, and my gestures, for the waves that I waved outwards with my right hand was impressive, and very graceful. I held the sock in my right hand, as I waved it out; it was a good color, and it floated out some like a banner. I felt well, and acted well, and I knew it. And I thought at the time that Josiah knew it, and was proud of me, and felt more affectionate to me than his common run of feelin’s towards me wuz, for most the minute I got through episodin’, he broke out, and says he:

“Don’t you think you are a workin’ too hard, Samantha? Don’t you think it would be easier for you if you had some woman here a livin’ to help you? And,” says he, dreamily, “she might be a fryin’ the nutcakes while you was a brilin’ the beef-steak, and cookin’ other provisions.”

I was exceedingly affected by his tender feelin’s towards me, (as I supposed,) and says I, in affectionate axents:

“No, I can get along, Josiah.”

But oh! if I had known! If I had known what thoughts was a runnin’ through his mind, how different my axent would have been. My axent would have been so cold it would have froze him stiffer’n a mushrat, jest one axent would, it would have had that deadly icyness to it. Blind bein’ that I was, a speakin’ tender and soft to him, and knittin’ on his heel, (a double stitch, too, to make it firmer,) and he a settin’ of his own accord up on top of that volcano that was ready to bust right out, and burn up all my happiness, and swaller down and engulf my Josiah. What feelin’s I felt as I thought it all over afterwards.

Wall, I sot there a knittin’ on his heel, and occasionally makin’ eloquent and flowery speeches, and he, from time to time, a speakin out sudden and sort o’ promiscous, a praisin’ up the Widder Bump, and sort o’ mixin’ her up with religion, and seals, and revelations, and things, and anon, when I would take him to do about it, a whistlin’, and whittlin’ shingles into curious and foolish shapes, curiouser than I ever remembered to see him whittle, and whistlin’ more sort o’ vacant and excentrick whistles than I ever remembered hearin’ him whistle—dretful loud whistles, some of ’em, and then dwindlin’ down sudden and unexpected into low and dwindlin’ ones. And I a wonderin’ at it, and thinkin’ things was a goin’ on strange and curious. And then anon, or about that time, or anyway, as soon as I would have time to meditate on men’s curious and foolish demeanors at times—why I would give up that it was one of their ways, and he would get over it, knowin’ that they mostly did get over ’em.

And so the long, tejus evenin’ waned away. And Josiah locked the doors, and wound up the clock, and greased his boots, and went to bed. But oh! little did I know all the while he was a windin’ and a greasin’, and I a knittin’, and the carpet seemed to lay smooth and straight under us, all the time a earthquake was a rumblin’, and, to use a poetical and figurative expression, a snortin’ down under us, unbeknown to me.

Wall, that night my pardner, Josiah Allen, at two different times, once about midnight, and once about the time the roosters crowed—at two separate times, which I am ready to testify and make oath to, he spoke right out in his sleep, and says:

“Widder Bump!”

And that is the livin’ truth, and I have always been called truthful, and don’t expect to take up lyin’ now, at my age. How many more times he said it, while I was a sleepin’ peacefully by his side, I can’t say. But them two times I heard and counted, and my feelin’s as I lay there and heard them awful words can’t never be told nor sung; no, a tune can’t be made curious enough to sing ’em in.

Then I gin up, fully gin up, that sunthin’ was wrong. That a great mystery was hangin’ over my Josiah and the widder, or to one of ’em, or to somebody, or to sunthin’.

Oh the feelin’s that I felt, as I lay there and heard them words. I wuzn’t jealous that I will contend for; but what words them was for a affectionate, lovin’ pardner to hear from the lips of a sleepin’ Josiah.

“Widder Bump!”

I was not jealous. I would scorn to be. There wuzn’t a jealous hair in my foretop, and I knew it, or my back hair. And I knew I was better lookin’ than the widder, though she was wholesome lookin’.

MEASURED BY THE WIDDER.

She was the widder of Sampson Bump; he died with collery morbeus, and she moved to Jonesville and set up a tailoress shop, and had been called likely. Though the wimmen of Jonesville had gi’n in that their husbands never had so many clothes made in the same length of time, and a good many of the men had got scolded considerable by their wives for runnin’ through with their property, and goin’ so deep into their store-clothes. But the men had all gi’n in that ready-made clothes ripped so it was a perfect moth to buy ’em, and it was fur cheaper to hire ’em made by hand. And Josiah had started up about the middle of winter, and wanted to have her measure him for a vest, and get a new overcoat made. Josiah Allen didn’t need no vest, and I put my foot right down on it. But I had her come to the house and make the overcoat, and while she was there I run a splinter under my finger-nail, and was disabled, and I kep’ her a week to do housework.

As I say, she had always been called likely, though she seemed to be sort o’ shaky and tottlin’ in her religion. She had been most everything sense she come to Jonesville, not quite 2 years. She jined the Methodists first, then the ’Piscopals, then the Universalers, and then the Camelites. And I s’posed at this present time she was a Camel. I had hearn’ talk that she was a leanin’ towards the Mormons, but I had always made a practice of disputin’ of it, knowin’ how hard it was for good lookin’ wimmen to get along without bein’ slandered by other wimmen. I always dispised such littleness, and so I had come out openly and stood up for her, and called her a Camel. But I learnt a lesson in this very affair. I learnt to be more mejum than I had been, and I thought I knew every crook and turn in mejumness, I had always been such a master hand for it. But in dispisin’ littleness and jealousy in other wimmen, and tryin’ to rise above it, I had riz too fur. She wuzn’t a Camel! And while the other wimmen had been spiteful and envious, I had been a lyin’—though entirely unbeknown to me, and I don’t s’pose I shall ever be hurt for it.

As I have said, and proved, I wuzn’t jealous, but oh, what groans I groaned, as I heard for the second time them fearful words from the lips of my pardner—“Widder Bump!”

It was awful dark in the room, perfectly dark, but darker fur in the inside of my mind, and gloomier. How I did groan, and turn over agin and groan. And then I’d try to look on the bright side of things, right there in the dark. Thinkses I, I know I am better lookin’ than she is, and would be called so by good judges. To be sure, her heft was in her favor; her heft was a little less than mine, mebby 100 pounds or so, and she could most probable get around spryer, and act more frisky. But thinkses I, when a man loves a woman devotedly, when he carrys her in his heart, what is a few pounds more or less? Thinkses I, a hundred pounds hain’t more than a ounce to him under the circumstances; he don’t sense it at all. So I’d try my best to look on the bright side, (right there in the dark,) and I’d say to myself, my Josiah’s affections are sound, they are wrapped completely round me. And then I’d look on the dark side, and think how I had hearn that men’s affections was loose and stretchy, some like the injy rubber ribbins you get to put round papers. How it will set tight round one, and hold it seemin’ly so close that there don’t seem to be room for another single one, and then how easy it will stretch out and hold tight round another one—and another one—and et cetery—and et cetery. Seemin’ to set jest as easy round the last ones, and hold ’em jest as tight and comfortable as the first one. And then I’d groan, and turn over agin and groan. And once my groan (it was a louder one than my common run of groans, and deeper,) it waked Josiah Allen right up out of a sound sleep, and he was skairt, and riz right up in the end of the bed, and says he, in tones tremblin’ with emotion and excitement:

“What is the matter, Samantha?”

And I never let on what ailed me, but told him in tones that I tried to make calm and even, (and as lofty as I could when I knew I was talkin in a parable way) that it was a pain that was a goarin’ of me. I didn’t lie. I wuz in pain, but I didn’t feel obleeged to explain the parable to him, and tell him where the pain wuz. I didn’t tell him it was in my heart. And he thought it was in my shoulder-blades; he thought it was the rheumatiz. And he wanted to know, in affectionate tones, “if he shouldn’t rub my back, or if he shouldn’t get me the spirits of turpentine, or the camfire?”

But I told him no. I knew that turpentine was a master hand to strike in, but it couldn’t never go down deep enough to strike at the feelin’s I felt—and camfire never was made strong enough to ease off a wounded spirit, or bathe it down.

JOSIAH DREAMING.

But I held firm, and didn’t say nothin’. And Josiah lay down agin, and in ½ a minute’s time was fast asleep, and a dreamin’. What was his dream? Into what land was his mind a journeyin’? And who was his companion? Was it Widder Bump? At that fearful thought it seemed as if I should expier. I dassent groan for fear of roustin’ up my pardner, and so I had to stand it with sithin’. Sithes wouldn’t wake him up. And oh! what fearful and tremenjous sithes I sithed for the next several moments. I hain’t afraid to bet that the best judge of sithes that ever lived would have said that he never heard any that went ahead of these, nor see deeper ones, or more melancholy. Why my feelin’s was dreadful, and can’t be described upon. There it was, dark as pitch. It was jest before daylight, when it is the darkest time in the hull night. And there my companion wuz. Where wuz he? I couldn’t tell, nor nobody. His body lay there by my side. But the real Josiah, where wuz he? And who was with him where he wuz? Oh! what feelin’s I felt! what sithes I sithed!

What blind creeters we are, anyway. Our affections reach out like a wild grape-vine, layin’ hold of sunthin’, or somebody, a twistin’ and a clingin’, till death on-clinches of ’em, jest as foolish, jest as blindly. Human love is strong, but blinder than a mole.

How is that grape-vine to know what it is a clingin’ to? Blind instinct moves it to lay holt of sunthin’, and hang on till it is tore away, or sot fire to, or wrenched off by some power outside of itself, and killed, and destroyed. But how can it tell whether it is clingin’ round a live oak or a bean-pole? Round sunthin’ that is sound to the core, or holler as a pipes-tail? Round sunthin’ that will draw it along the ground, draggin’ it through mud and mire into a perfect swamp hole and bog, soilin’ its bright leaves, dwarfin’ its free growth, poisenin’ it with dark and evil shadows? Or whether it will draw it up towards the clear heavens and the sunlight, and hold it up there by its strength—a happy vine, growin’ fresh and bright, sendin’ out blessed tendrils touchin’ nothin’ less pure than God’s own sweet atmosphire.

Now I worshipped that man, Josiah Allen. And I thought he loved the very ground I walked on as devotedly as I did hisen. I thought I knew every crook and turn in that man’s mind. And now, after livin’ together over 20 years, that man had done what he had done; talked the hull evenin’ long about a certain widder, and even in his sleep had uttered them fearful and agonizin’ words—“Widder Bump!”

THOSE “AWFUL WORDS.”

And there I was, a strong woman in every way—strong in intellect and principles, strong in my love for him, strong in my heft. And here I was, powerless as a rag-babe. No more strength nor knowledge in the matter than the rag-babe would have. No more power in my hand to lift up the veil of mystery that was hangin’ round my Josiah than there would be in the babe’s, not a mite. Josiah’s mind wasn’t the strongest mind in the world—I had always known that, and had made a practice of remindin’ him of it frequent, when I see it would be for his good. But now, now there wuzn’t a intellect powerful enough on the face of the earth to foller it up and overthrow it. Out of the reach of friend or foe; beyond perswasion, ridicule, reasonin’, or entreaty; out of the reach of me, his Samantha. He had gone off a travelin’ without no change of clothin’, or railroad tickets. Settin’ off on a journey, unshackled by pardners, bundles, and umberells. A soarin’ free and calm through that wonderful land. The ring on my finger held him before earthly courts and constables, but there he was a wanderin’, a free Josiah. Was I a wanderin’ with him? Did his soul reach out to me from that realm—hold to me so close as to draw my spirit to his adown them shadowy streets, into them mysterious homes, over whose silent threshold no curious foot may pass? Was his lawful pardner with him there, where she should be? Was his thought loyal to me, where there was no law, no influence, or constraint to make him constant—or was he a cuttin’ up and a actin’, flirtin’ in spirit with the phantom thought of a Widder Bump? Here I would sithe powerful, and turn over agin, and sithe.

And so the tejus night passed away. But one great determination I made there in them fearful moments of darkness and mystery, one powerful resolve I made, and determined to keep: I would hold firm. And never let my pardner know I was a mistrustin’ anything. But every minute of the time, day and night, I would keep the eye of my spectacles open, and try to find out what was a goin’ on. But little, little did I think what it was that was a goin’ on. Little did I realize the size and heft of the earthquake that was a rumblin’ and a roarin’ under that feather-bed unbeknown to me. But more of this hereafter and anon.

The next mornin’ sunthin’ happened to me that, comin’ as it did jest at this curious and tryin’ time, was enough to scare anybody most to death. I had a sign; a mysterious warnin’. I happened to take up the last World while my dish-water was a heatin’, and the very first words the eye of my spectacles fell on—right there in broad daylight—entirely unexpected to me, I read these awful words:

A meetin’-house steeple had fell flat down the day before—fell right down into a man’s door-yard, sudden and unexpected, broke a hen-coop and five lengths of fence, and skairt ’em most to death. They thought, them folks did, that that steeple stood firm and sound. They never mistrusted it was a tottlin’. And it had stood straight and firm for year after year, probable for over 20 years. But there come along a gust of wind too strong for it, and over it went right into their door-yard; its lofty head was bowed into the dust, the hen-coop and fence was squshed down forever, and they was skairt.

I don’t believe too much in signs and wonderments, yet I don’t s’pose a man or a woman lives who hain’t got a little streak of superstition and curiousness in ’em. I s’pose livin’ as we do with another world that we don’t know nothin’ about pressin’ so close about us on every side, livin’ in such curious circumstances makes us feel sort o’ curious.

Some as Miss Arden felt, the one that Mr. Tennyson wrote about, she that was Ann Lee. When her husband Enock got lost she wouldn’t gin up that he was dead, and marry to another man, till she opened the Bible and looked for a sign. I have heard Thomas J. read it so much that Ann seems near to me, almost like one of the Smiths. But though Ann did find a sign, and was mistaken in it, or didn’t give it the right meanin’, I was determined to read mine right. I felt a feelin’ in my bones that them words was meant to me for a warnin; was gin to me as a sign to meditate on. If a meetin’ house steeple could tottle, my Josiah’s morals was liable to tottle; if that steeple fell right down flat into a man’s door-yard, breakin’ down and squshin’ what it had broke down and squshed, my Josiah was liable to fall flat down in a moral way, and sqush down all my earthly comfort and happiness; and I felt a feelin’ that if I would save him I must be up and a doin’.

Now if them folks had mistrusted that that steeple was gettin’ shaky, they could have tied it up, mebby, and kep’ it straight. And I was determined that if tyin’ up, or anything of that sort, would keep my Josiah up, he should be tied. I am speakin’ poetically, and would wish to be so understood. Ropes was not in my mind, neither tow strings.

And then as I come to think things over, and look at the subject on every side, as my way is, I felt a feelin’ that I hadn’t done as I ort. My mind had been on a perfect strain for 2 weeks on that alpacka dress, and I hadn’t kep’ watch of my pardner as pardners ort to be watched over. Men are considerable likely critters, but they are sort o’ frisky in their minds, onstiddy, waverin’ kinder. They need a stiddy bit, and a firm martingill, to drive ’em along straight in the married life, and keep their minds and affections stabled and firm sot onto their lawful pardners. I have said that there wasn’t a jealous hair in my head, not a hair. But filosify and deep reasonin’ has learnt me severe and deep lessons. Even after the fearful night I had passed, the awful words I had listened to from the lips of a sleepin’ Josiah, still filosify whispered to me that my pardner was as good as the common run of men, and I, in strainin’ my mind on store-clothes, had neglected things of far more importance; I had neglected lookin’ after my companion as men ort to be looked after. The cat, to use a poetical and figurative expression, had been away, and the mouse had gone to playin’. Or, to bring poesy down to prose, and to common comprehension, the cat had been fixin’ over a brown alpacka dress, and the mouse had got to follerin’ up a Widder Bump in his mind.

I believe when the man goes to cuttin’ up and actin’, if the female pardner, upheld by principle, would take a microscope and look over her past, she would more’n as likely as not come bunt up against some fault of her own, some neglect, some carelessness, some things she had done that she ortn’t to done, or some things she hadn’t done that she ort. She could trace back their cuttin’s up and actin’s to some little unguarded moments, when through hurry, or carelessness, or neglect, she had let the lines and martingills of tenderness and watchfulness drop out of her hand, and had let her pardner go a caperin’ off with nothin’ but a halter on, a prancin’ up and down society like a 3-year old colt that hadn’t had a bittin’ rig on. Pardners have got to be humored. They have got to be made comfortable and happy in their own homes; their companions has got to make themselves attractive to ’em, or they won’t be attracted. Viniger won’t draw flies worth a cent. And pardners have got to be watched; for this is the law and the profit.

They have got to be reined up to the post of duty, and hitched there. They are naturally balky, and love to shy off side-ways, and there haint no use denyin’ of it.

I tell you, I had deep thoughts that day as I went round the house a doin’ up my work; awful deep ones, and a sight of ’em, probable as many as 2 dozen a minute right along through the day; some solemn and affectin’ ones, about as solemn as they make, and some more hopeful like, and chirk. I tell you, my mind got fairly tuckered out by the middle of the afternoon.

But with Samantha, regret, repentance, and reformation foller right straight on after each other, jest like 3 horses hitched in front of each other drawin’ a heavy load. I see there was a duty in front of me to tackle; I see that I must not let Josiah Allen go off to Jonesville another night without his pardner. I must leave cares and store-clothes in the back-ground, and come out nobly, and make my home and myself agreeable to my pardner, and keep a keen and vigilant eye onto his proceedin’s and goin’s on.

So that evenin’ along towards night, when he spoke out in that same sort o’ strange and curious way about Jonesville, and that “after supper he guessed he’d hitch up and go.”

Then it was that I spoke up mild and firm as my soap-stun, and said, “I guessed I’d go, too.” He looked brow-beat and stunted by my remark, and says he: “I am most afraid to have you go out in such muggy weather, Samantha. I don’t believe you realize how muggy it is.”

Says I, in a brave, noble tone: “It hain’t no muggier for me than it is for you, Josiah Allen, and if you go, I go, too.”

“Wall,” says he, with that same dumb-foundered and stunted mean, “the old mare hadn’t ort to go out agin to-night; she lost a shoe off last week. I don’t believe we had better try to go.”

Says I coolly: “Do jest as you are a mind to, but if you must go, it is my duty to stand by you and go, too; if my pardner has got a hard job in front of him to tackle, it is my duty to tackle it, too.”

JOSIAH’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll go out to the barn and onharness. The old mare hadn’t ort to go out with her off shoe in such a condition.”

But as he drawed on his overhauls, I heard him mutter sunthin’ to himself about “its bein’ the last night the Elder would be there till fall.” But I overheard him, and says I:

“You know, Josiah Allen, that Elder Bamber has gin up goin’ home; his mother’s fits is broke up, and he hain’t a goin’. And there’l be meetin’s right along every night jest as there has been.”

They’ve been holdin’ protracted meetin’s to Jonesville for quite a spell, and I s’posed them was the meetin’s that Josiah meant. Ah! little, little did I know what Elder he meant, or what meetin’s. But he knew me too well to tell me. He knew well the soundness and heft of my principles. He hadn’t lived with ’em above 20 years without findin’ ’em out. But more of this hereafter and anon.

When Josiah come into the house agin, and sot down, he had that same sort o’ cross, brow-beat look to him. And he spoke out sort o’ surly like: “Hain’t it about supper-time, Samantha? And if you’ve got over bein’ in such a dreadful hurry with that dress, mebby you’ll have time to get a little sunthin’ better to eat. I declare for’t,” says he in a pitiful tone, “you have most starved me out for a week or two. And you hain’t seemed to have had time to say a word to me, nor nothin’. Your mind hain’t seemed to be on me a mite. And,” says he, with a still more depressted and melancholy look, “a cream-biscuit is sunthin’ I hain’t seen for weeks. Nothin’ but bread! bread!”

Oh! how my conscience smited me as I heard them words—it smited and smarted like a burn. Yet at the same time his words kind o’ chirked me up, they made me think what a powerful arrow I had in my hands to shoot down my sorrow with. They made me feel that it wuzn’t too late to save my pardner, and that was a sweet thought to me.

Yes, with a thankful and grateful heart, I grasped holt of that weepon that had defended me so many times before on hard battlefields of principle. I held that weepon firm and upright as a spear, and says I:

“Josiah, you shall have as good a supper as hands can get.” Says I, “Besides the common run of vittles we jenerally have for supper, cake and tarts and such stuff, what do you say, Josiah Allen, to havin’ a briled chicken, and toast, and mashed-up potatoes, and cream biscuit, and peaches?”

His mean changed in a minute. I never see a mean in my hull life look more radient than hisen did as I spoke them words. And my breast heaved with such happy and grateful emotion that it most bust off 2 buttens in front (them buttens wuzn’t what they was recommended to be; there was sunthin’ wrong about ’em in the shanks). Though the mournful and mysterious episode and Widder Bump was remembered, yet I felt a feelin’ that I should win my pardner back—I should save his sole alive.

But yet I had solemn feelin’s, I can tell you, all the while I was a mixin’ up them cream biscuit, and brilein’ that chicken, and makin’ that toast, and mashin’ up them potatoes, and puttin’ plenty of cream and butter into ’em.

I well knew I was a handlin’ my most powerful weepons. I knew if them failed, I was ondone.

I had meditated so many times and so deep onto this subject, that I knew every crook and turn in it. How a man’s conscience, his moral faculties, and his affections was connected by mighty and resistless cords to his appetite. I knew well that when his morals was tottlin’, when he was wild, balky, fractious, and oneasy, good vittles was the panaky that soothes. And when the mighty waves of temptation was tostin’ him to and fro—when scoldin’s seemed futile, and curtain lectures seemed vain, extra good vittles was the anchor that wimmin could drop down into them seethin’ waters, knowin’ that if that didn’t holt, she could, in the words of the Sammist, “give up the ship.”

Yes, as Josiah Allen see me a gettin’ that supper he grew calm, peaceful, his demeaner towards me grew sweet and lovin’, his affections seemed to be stabled and firm sot onto me. I see, and I can tell you I was a proud and happy woman as I see it, that the anchor I had throwed overboard was a grapplin’ the rock. Agin, as in days past and gone, in different crysises of my life, philosophy, principle, and Samantha conquered.

The supper was a success. The spring chicken was plump and tender, but not more tender than Josiah’s demeanor to me as he partook of that refreshment. The cream biscuit was light and warm; so was my heart as I see my happy pardner eat the 7th one. The peaches was delicious and sweet; so was my Josiah’s smile onto me, as I dipped out the 4th sass plate full and handed it to him. And after supper he sot there by my side calm and peaceful, and the Widder Bump and all other earthly cares and agonys seemed to be forgot.

But it wuzn’t till long afterwards, it wuzn’t till the 4th day of the next September, though I mistrusted, I mistrusted strong before, but it wuzn’t till then, that I knew for certain what a glorious and momentious victory I had won that day. What great and awful responsibilities was a devolvin’ onto them cream biscuit, and hangin’ round that chicken and toast and potatoes. I felt solemn feelin’s a gettin’ that supper, and curious ones a eatin’ of it. But oh, what feelin’s should I have felt if I had known what a earthquake was a rumblin’ and a roarin’ under that table unbeknown to me.

Oh, what blind creeters the fur seein’est of us are, how powerless are the most magnifyest spectacles to see the brinks that pardners are a hangin’ over unbeknown to us. But of this, more hereafter and anon.

KITTY SMITH AND CALEB COBB.

We have got a dretful pretty girl a-stayin’ with us now, one of the relation on my side, one of the Smiths. When we heard she was a comin’, Josiah kinder hung back from the idee at first. But as I see him a hangin’ back, I calmly, and with dignity, took the Widder Doodle, one of the relations on his side, and mildly yet firmly threw her in his face. It hit him jest right, the idee did, and I hain’t heard a word sense of murmurin’s or complainin’s about the Smiths.

KITTY SMITH.

I enjoy her bein’ here the best that ever was. We have took lots of comfort sense she come. Not that happiness and security has caused me to shut that open eye of my spectacle. No! that is still on the watch, vigilent and keen, and if there is anything a goin’ on, I feel that it cannot long be[be] hid from that eye. But everything has seemed calm and peaceful, Josiah is affectionate and almost tender in his mean to me. And I learn from the neighbers that the Widder Bump has gone off on a visit to her folkses. But still that eye of my speck is sleepless. Not once has it closed itself in slumber, and still I hold firm.

Kitty Smith is a pretty girl, as pretty a one as I ever see. The Smiths, as I have said to Josiah a number of times, was always pretty fair lookin’. He thinks so too, only when he is fractious. She looks a good deal as I did when I was her age; Josiah owned up to me the other night that she did. We had had a splendid good supper, and he felt well, and he said so of his own accord. And then she favors her mother considerable, a good-lookin’ woman as I ever see, and smart.

Kitty is very fair complected, smooth, as delicate as a sea-shell, with curly hair almost gold-colored, only bearin’ a little on the brown, kinder fruzzly and fluffy on top, blowin’ all over her forward when she goes out in the wind, or anything. And her forward bein’ white as snow, when the little gold rings and curls are a blowin’ all over it, they look well. She has got sort ’o pinky cheeks, and her eyes are big and dark, and kinder grey like, and all runnin’ over with fun and mischief. She is the biggest witch out. And her lips are red as two roses, and always a laughin’, them and her eyes; I don’t know which laughs the most. Her name is Kitty, and she is just as affectionate as a little kitten, and as playful.

I think a sight on her. And I love to look at her. I always did love to look at a handsome woman. There are some wimmen that it gauls to see a female handsomer than they be, but it never did me. I always loved to see handsome pictures, and a beautiful woman’s face is a picture with a soul in it.

I set a great deal of store by her, and so does Josiah and the childern; they are all a quarrelin’ now which will have her the most. But we shan’t none of us have her long, I s’pose. For she has told me in strict confidence, and if I tell, it must not go no further, for it must be kep’! She don’t want Josiah and the childern to get holt of it, knowin’ they would plague her most to death. She is engaged to be married to a awful smart-lookin’ feller. She showed me his picture—a keen-eyed, noble-lookin’ chap, I can tell you, and well off. His father owns the big manufactory where her father was overseer when he died, and where her mother keeps boarders now. His father stood out, at first, about his marryin’ a poor girl. And Kitty come off out here for a long visit; her mother wanted her to; they are both proud, and won’t force themselves into no company. But Mark—that is the young feller’s name—Mark stands firm, and the old man is a comin’ round gradual. Kitty, though she jest worships Mark, won’t go there till she is welcome, and I bear her out in it. That is why she is here on such a long tower. But she knows it is all a comin’ out right; her mother says it is; and Mark writes to her every day or two, and she is happy as a bird.

But she is a little too full of fun sometimes, and thoughtless. She don’t realize things as she ort, and as she will when she is older. Now there is a young feller here in Jonesville that has got after her, Caleb Cobb, or Kellup, as everybody calls him. And just out of pure fun she lets him foller her up. I feel bad about it, and so I have told Josiah. But he said “she didn’t mean no more hurt than a kitten did, a-playin’ with a mouse.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, hain’t it bad for the mouse?”

“Wall,” says Josiah, “it no need to have been a mouse then.”

Says I, “That is a dretful deep argument, Josiah.” Says I, “I should be afraid to be so smart, if I was in your place. I should be afraid they’d want me to Congress.”

My tone was witherin’ and dry as a fish. But Josiah didn’t feel withered up. The fact is, he hates Kellup, and loves to see him fooled, that is the truth on’t. Kellup’s father is the cabinet-maker to Jonesville, and Kellup drives the hearse, and he comes to see Kitty in it. His father does sights and sights of business out in the country all round Jonesville, and every time Kellup is called out with it, on his way home he will go milds and milds out of his way for the privilege of stoppin’ and seein’ her. And he’ll hitch that hearse to the front gate, and come in and try to court her. Why, anybody would think a pestilence had broke out in our three housen, our’n, and Tirzah Ann’s, and Thomas Jefferson’s, to see that hearse hitched in front of ’em every day or two. It works me up and gives me awful feelin’s. But Kitty jest giggles and laughs over it, and Josiah and the children encourages her in it. They hate Kellup like pisen.

And he is one of the stingiest, disagreeablest, conceitedest, self-righteousest creeters that I ever see in my life. And pretends to be religious. Why, I spose tight is no name for his tightness. Somebody made the remark that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And Thomas J. said it wasn’t nothin’ but the sheep’s hide, then, for if it had been the hull pelt he’d sell the wool offen it quicker’n a wink.

And he thinks he is so beautiful, and dangerous to wimmen. But I never could bear his looks. He has got great big black eyes, dretful shaller, no depth to ’em, some like huckleberries, only bigger, but jest about as much soul and expression into ’em as a huckleberry has. And a saller skin and low forward, with sights of hair and whiskers. The curiousest hair, and the singularest whiskers that I ever did see.

KELLUP.

They are very heavy and bushy, and he bein’ pretty well along in years, they would be as grey as two rats. But bein’ a bachelder, and wantin’ to pass off as a young man, he colors ’em. Which would be all perfectly proper and right, and no more than lots of folks do; but the peculiarity is, he is so uncommon tight that he wont buy hair dye, but makes experiments with himself, steeps up things, roots and herbs, and stuffs he can buy cheap, minerals and things, cateku, and so 4th, and pusly. And so you hardly ever see him twice with his hair and whiskers and eyebrows the same color. And I’ll be hanged if he haint some of the time the curiousest lookin’ creeter that was ever seen out side of a menagery.

If he would only settle down on one color and keep it up, it wouldn’t be so bad for him. London brown hair and whiskers wouldn’t look so awful bad after you get used to ’em, or cateku color, or madder red. But he thinks, I spose, that he will hit on sunthin’ cheaper than he has hit on; so he will keep on tamperin’ with ’em, and makin’ experiments, and you won’t no sooner get used to seein’ ’em cinneman color, than the very next thing they will be a bright pusly color, or sorrel. It jest spiles his looks, and so I have told Josiah.

And he said “It was hard spilin’ anything that was born spilt.” And I told him “That no human bein’ was ever born with pusly-colored hair and whiskers.”

And he said “He was born a dumb fool!”

And I didn’t deny it, and didn’t try to, only I scolded him powerful and severe on the “dumb.”

His hair and whiskers, as I say, are always some new and curius shade, very changeable and oncertain, as to color, but they are always greasy. He uses sights and sights of hair oil; he makes it himself out of lard, scented up high with peppermint. He uses peppermint essence on his handkerchy, too (he gathers his own peppermint and makes it, and uses it lavish). He says that is the only vain, worldly luxury he indulges in. He says he feels guilty about usin’ up his property in it, but it is such a comfort to him that he don’t feel as if he can give it up.

His clothes are always very cheap and poor lookin’, when he is dressed up the most, but he dresses very poor the most of the time, for principle, he says, to try to wean the wimmen from him as much as he can.

And take him with them clothes of hisen, and that curius lookin’ hair and whiskers all round his chin, and up the sides of his face, he is as sepulchral and singular a lookin’ a chap as I ever laid eyes on.

He is a bachelder, Kellup is, not from necessity, he says, but because he has found it so hard to select one from the surroundin’ wimmen that want him. He has told me that the two main reasons why he didn’t marry, one was, he found it so awful hard to select one out of so many, and the other, it was so tryin’ to him to hurt the feelins’ of them he would have to slight if he made a choice.

Why, he talked with me about it over two years ago. He was in to our house one day, and Josiah had been a attin’ him about his not gettin’ married, and after Josiah went out, he talked to me confidential. I s’pose it is that sort of a noble, lofty look, to my face, that makes folks confide in me so much. Says he,

“I am tender-hearted, Josiah Allen’s wife. I am too tender-hearted for my own good. There is so many wimmen that want me, and it would cut me, it would cut me like a knife to have to disapinte so many.”

He stopped here for me to say sunthin’, and I remarked, in a sort of a dry tone, that I wouldn’t worry about ’em, if I was in his place[place]

“Wall,” says he, “I shouldn’t worry, if I was like some men. I should slash right in and marry, without payin’ any attention to other wimmens feelin’s. But if I should kill half a dozen wimmen or so, Josiah Allen’s wife, I feel that I never should forgive myself.”

Here he stopped agin, and I see that he wanted me to say sunthin’; and not knowin’ exactly what to say, I said sort o’ mechanically, without really thinkin’ what I was a sayin’, that it would be a good stroke of business for his father.

“Yes,” says he, “but the profits we should make wouldn’t much more than half pay me for the feelin’s I should have a thinkin’ I was the means of their dyin’ off.

“Why,” says he, takin’ out his pocket handkerchief and wipin’ his forward, till the room smelt as strong as a peppermint sling,—“there haint a woman in Jonesville but what would jump at the chance of marryin’ of me. But they mustn’t calculate too strong on it. I wouldn’t be the one to tell ’em right out plain that there wasn’t no hopes of gettin’ me. That would be a little too heartless and cold-blooded in me. But they mustn’t build up too high castles in the air about it, for I may not marry at all.”[all.”]

“Like as not you wont,” says I, speakin’ not quite so mekanikle, but with considerable more meanin’. “I shouldn’t wonder a mite if you didn’t.”

“No,” says he, foldin’ his arms and lookin’ haughtily at a picture of a woman over the wood-box.

“No; the thing of it is I am so tender-hearted, and hate so to cause sufferin’.

“I can’t,” says he, knittin’ up his eyebrows (they was a kind of a olive green that day), “I can’t marry all the wimmen that want me. That is a settled thing. Anybody with half a mind can see that. I can’t do it. And so what would the result be if I should make a choice, and marry one. One woman made happy, and cruelty, wanton, bloody cruelty, to all other wimmen fur and near. Would that one woman’s happiness,” says he, knittin’ up his eye-brows as hard as I ever see any knit, and I have seen some considerable hard knittin’ in my day, “would that one woman’s happiness go anywhere near makin’ up for the agony that would rack the breasts of other wimmen, and tear their heart-strings all to flitters? That is the question,” says he, lookin’ gloomily into the wood-box, that is wearin’ on me night and day, and what shall I do to do right?”

THE WOMAN QUESTION.

“Wall,” says I, “I can’t advise you. I wouldn’t marry, if I thought it was a goin’ to kill ten or a dozen; and I wouldn’t marry anyway, unless I got a chance.”

“Chance!” says he haughtily. “Why, there haint a woman in the country but what would jump to have me; that is,” says he in a reasonable tone, “if they wasn’t too old to jump, or wasn’t disabled in some way, rheumatiz, or sunthin, or sprains. They all want me.”

“Why,” says I, tryin’ to chirk him up, and make him feel better, “I thought it was right the other way. I thought you had got the mitten more’n a dozen times. There was Polly Bamber”—

“Oh, well. Polly Bamber loved me to distraction. She tried to conceal it from me. She refused me, thinkin’ it would make me fiercer to marry her. But she got fooled. I only asked her three times. She was waitin’ for the fourth, and I spose she was as disapinted as a girl ever was. I was sorry for her; my heart fairly ached for her; but I had a man’s dignity to keep up, and I left her.”

“Wall, there was Betsey Gowdey.”

“Betsey would have had me in a minute, if it hadn’t been for influences that was brought to bear on her. She just as good as told me so. I s’pose she felt awfully to lose me; but she bore up under it better than I thought she would. I thought like as not she would break completely down under it.”

“Wall,” says I, tryin’ my best to chirk him up, “there was Mahala Grimshaw, and Martha Ann Snyder, and Jane Boden, and Serena Rumsey, and Serepta Mandagool.”

“Them girls was sorry enough, when it was too late. They lost me, every one of them girls did, by puttin’ on airs and pretendin’ not to want me. Pretendin’ to make fun of me, jest for an outside show. I see right through it. But I took ’em at their word, and when they said they wouldn’t have me, I jest left ’em, and paid no attention to what they suffered after I left. Sometimes I have thought that mebby I was too harsh with ’em, to punish ’em so; but I did it, and I’d do it agin if it was to do over. They no need to have been so deceitful. They might expect to suffer for it, and I am glad they did.”

“There was Nabby Ellis,” says I dreamily.

“Oh, Nabby was all right. It was envy and jealousy that broke that up. Sam Larkins jest filled her ears about me, I know he did; if he hadn’t, and hadn’t married her himself, Nabby would have gin her ears to have had me. I think she thinks more of me to day than she does of Sam; but I keep out of her way all I can; I don’t want to harrow up her feelin’s. I am a young man of principle, if there ever was one.

“Now I know of several married wimmen that I am obleeged to treat cool and distant, for their own good. What good would it do me?” says he, knittin’ up his eyebrows agin.

“What good could it do me for a lot of married wimmen to get over head and ears in love with me? They know they can’t get me. And though they may feel hurt at my coldness at the time, when they come to think it over they must know I am actin’ for their good in the long run, by bein’ cold and distant to ’em, and tryin’ my best to wean ’em from me.

“Some young men don’t seem to have no idee or care about the sufferin’ they cause on every side of ’em. They will trample right round over female hearts, as if there wusn’t no more feelin’ in ’em than in tan bark, and as if it didn’t hurt ’em and bruise ’em to tread on ’em. But it haint my way. I don’t think a young man can be too careful about such things. Why, I am so careful and conscientious that if I thought it was necessary for females’ peace of mind, and the good of surroundin’ wimmen, I would be willin’ to wear a veil over my face the hull time.”

I looked him full and keen in the face, over the top of my specks, and told him calmly that I didn’t think it was necessary.

“Wall,” says he, “I am jest that tender-hearted, that I would do it. I am too tender-hearted for my own good. I know that very well. Now I want to get married, I want to badly; but there them two reasons stand, right in front of me, headin’ me off. It haint the expense of keepin’ a wife that holds me back, for I could more than make her pay her way, doin’ the housework for father and me and five workmen. No, it is clear principle that is headin’ me off. I may get reckless after a while.”

PAYIN’ HER WAY.

Says he, with a sort of a bitter mean onto him: “I may get so carried away with some girl’s looks, and so hankerin’ after matrimony, that I shall forget my conscience and principle, and slash right in and marry her, and let the other wimmen go to wrack and ruin. But then agin when I think what the consequences would probable be, why then I tremble.”

And he kinder shook some as if he had a chill.

Says he: “When I think of Jane Sofier Burpy. When I think what my feelin’s was as I drove her hearse to the buryin’-ground. When I think how I felt durin’ that ride—why, I think I will never meddle again with any women, in any way, shape, nor manner. When I think how she wilted right down like a untimely flower cut down by the destroyer.”

“Why,” says I, “she died with a bile; that was what ailed her,—a carbuncle on her back.”

“Yes,” says he, with a unbelievin’ look on his face, “so the doctors said; so the cold world said. But I think it was sunthin’ deeper.”

HOW JANE WAS ROPED IN.

“Why,” says I, “a bile couldn’t go no deeper than her’n went. It was dreadful. It was the death of her.”

Says he: “I have always had my own idee of what ailed her. I know what that idee is, and I know what a guilty conscience is. I wuzn’t careful enough. I didn’t mean no harm to her, Heaven knows I didn’t. But I wuzn’t careful enough. I boarded two weeks with her mother the spring before she died. And I can see now where I missed it, where I did wrong. I wuzn’t offish enough to her. I treated her too friendly. I was off my guard, and didn’t notice how my attractions was bein’ too much for her.

THE DEATH BLOW.

“I paid her little attentions to the table, such as passin’ her the mashed-up potatoes and the beans. I talked with her, more or less. Once I helped her hang out the clothes-line. I brought her letters from the post-office. Twice I helped her into a wagon. I was onguarded. I think then was the time I give her her death-blow.”

And oh! what a harrowin’ and remorseful look he did cast into that wood-box, as he said this.

“She died in the fall. And my feelin’s durin’ that fall I shall never forget. If that thing should happen agin, and my feelin’s prey on me as they preyed then, I couldn’t stand it through more than seven or eight more such cases. I know I couldn’t. I have been careful since then. When I’m obliged to board now I don’t board in any house where there is a woman under seventy-five years of age. And sometimes I am most afraid it is resky then.”[then.”]

And agin he looked as gloomy at that wood-box as I ever see a box looked at. And he waited a minute or two. Mebby he waited for me to say sunthin’ but I didn’t say it, and he kep’ on:

“Several times sense that I have started up, and thought that I would marry anyway, and leave the result. But it has seemed to be broke up every time providential, and I’d make up my mind in the end not to have ’em. But after awhile agin I will start up, and almost make my mind up, that marry I will, no matter what the result may be. But there it is agin; I am too tender-hearted. That is where the stick is with me. I know jest how skurce men are, and how wimmen feel towards ’em. I know jest how they get their minds sot on ’em, and how they feel to loose ’em. I have got principle, Josiah Allen’s wife. I am principle clear to the back-bone.”

“Wall,” says I, “I don’t know but you be. I can’t dispute you, not knowin’ how it is.”

“It may end,” says he, with a bitter look at the woman over the wood-box, “it may end by my not marryin’ at all. But if I don’t marry, where will the blame lie?”

Says he, speakin’ up louder and more excited than he had spoke up:

“I have been blamed; blamed in public places; right in the grocery, and on the post-office steps; blamed by the trustees of the public school; blamed by the old man that keeps the children’s toy-store; blamed by the census man for shiftlessness, and slackness, in not increasin’ the population.

“But where does the blame rest? Is it with me, or with the wimmen that act so like furyation that it is impossible for me to make a choice amongst ’em?

“If I should tell them men that the reason I had lived along, year after year, without marryin’ was that I was so tender-hearted, they would laugh at me.”

“I hain’t a doubt of it,” says I heartily and decidedly.

“Yes, they would hoot at me, so little can they enter into such a heart as mine. But I can’t always live along in this way. Some day there may be a change. I give wimmen warnin’ that there may be.”

And so he went on for two hours, if it was a minute. Repeatin’ it over and over agin, till I was as sick as a dog of hearin’ of it. But knowin’ he was talkin’ to me in confidence, I didn’t want to come right out plain, and tell him what I thought of him. But I was glad enough when he got through and started off of his own accord.

But since Kitty come he has been to our house more than ever. He has acted crazy as a loon about her. Though true to his principle, he asked Josiah the other day, “if consumption run in her family, and if he thought it would go too hard with her if he didn’t make up his mind to marry her.”

A JUDGMENT SEAT.

Old Cobb is well off, but he and Kellup works hard, and fares hard. They stent themselves on clothes, and I don’t s’pose they allow themselves hardly enough to eat and drink. And all the literary feasts and recreations they allow themselves is to set round in stores and groceries, on dry-goods boxes and butter-tubs, a-findin’ fault with the government, spittin’ tobacco-juice at the stove, and fixin’ the doom of sinners. Kellup is harder on ’em than the old man is. Old Cobb thinks there won’t be more’n half the world saved; Kellup thinks there won’t be more than a quarter, if there is that.

They argue powerful. Have come to hands and blows frequent. And once Kellup knocked the old man down, he was so mad and out of patience to think the old man couldn’t see as he see about the Judgment. You know there is sights and sights said on that subject now and wrote on it; and Kellup and the old man will borrow books and papers that are wrote on it, some on one side and some on the other, and then they’ll quarrel agin over them. And they’ve tried to draw me into their arguments time and agin. But I have told ’em that I was a master hand to work where I was needed most, and I didn’t seem to be needed so much a judgin’ the world, and settlin’ on jest how many was a goin’ to be saved or lost, as I did a mindin’ my own business, and tryin’ to read my own title clear to mansions in the skies. Says I: “I find it a tuckerin’ job to take care of one sinner as she ort to be took care of, and it would make me ravin’ crazy if I had to take care of the hull universe.”

It fairly makes me out of patience, when there is so much work our Master sot for us to do for His sake, it fairly makes me mad to see folks refuse to do a mite of that work, but tackle jobs they hain’t sot to tackle. Why, the Lord don’t, like a good many human bein’s, ask impossibilities of us. He only wants us to do the best we can with what we have got to do with, and He will help us. He never refused help to a earnest, strugglin’ soul yet. But He don’t calculate nor expect us to judge the world, I know He don’t. Why, our Saviour said, in that hour when it seemed as if the God and the man was both speakin’ from a heart full of a human longin’ for love and a divine pity and tenderness for sorrowful humanity,—He said, “If you love me, feed my sheep.” He said it twice over, earnest and impressive. He meant to have it heard and understood. And once He said, seemin’ly so afraid the childern wouldn’t be took care of, “Feed my lambs.” That is a good plain business, tryin’ to feed them every way, doin’ our best to satisfy all their hunger, soul and body. That is the work He wants us to do, but He never gave a hint that He wanted us to judge the world. But He said out plain and square more’n once, “Judge not.” Then what makes folks try to do it? What makes ’em pass right by flocks and flocks of sheeps needy and perishin’ every way, pass right by these little lambs of Christ, hungry and naked, stumblin’ right over ’em without pickin’ of ’em up? Why, they might fall right over quantities of dead sheeps and dyin’ lambs, and not know it, they are so rampent and determined on tacklin’ jobs they hain’t sot to tackle, crazy and sot on judgin’ the world.

Why, everybody says they never did see such a time as it is now for arguin’ and fightin’ back and forth on that subject. Why, the papers are full of it. “Is there a Hell?” And “How deep is it?” And “How many are a goin’ there?” And “How long are they a goin’ to stay?” Books are wrote on it, and lectures are lectured, and sermons are preached on both sides of the Atlantic; and Kellup and his father are by no means the only ones who get mad as hornets if anybody disputes ’em in their views of the Judgment.

But I am glad enough that I don’t feel that way, for it would make me crazy as a loon if I thought I was sot to judge one soul, let alone the universe.

Why, how under the sun would I go to work to judge that one soul, and do it right? I could see some of the outward acts, ketch glimpses of the outside self. But how could I unlock that secret door that shuts in the real person,—how could I get inside that door that the nearest and the dearest never peeked through, that God only holds the key to—the secret recesses of the immortal soul—and behold the unspeakable, the soarin’ desires, and yearnin’s, and divine aspirations—the good and true intentions—the dreams and visions of immortal beauty, and purity, and goodness—and the secret thoughts that are sin—the unfolded scarlet buds of wrong, and the white folded buds of purity and holynesses, each waiting for the breath of circumstance, of change, and what we call chance, to unfold and blossom into beauty or hejusness? How could my eyes see if I should put on ’em the very strongest spectacles earthly wisdom could make—how could they behold all the passion and the glory, the despair and the rapture, the wingéd hopes and faiths, the groveling, petty fears and cares, the human and the divine, the eternal wonder and mystery of a soul?

And if I could once ketch a glimpse of this—that I never shall see, nor nobody else—if I could once get inside the mystery of a mind, how could I judge it right? How could I go to work at it? How could I tackle it? Good land, it makes me sweat jest to think on’t. How could I test the strength of that mighty network of resistless influences that draws that soul by a million links up toward Goodness and down toward Evil—binds it to the outside world, and the spiritual and divine? How could I get a glimpse of that unseen yet terrible chain of circumstances, the inevitable, that wraps that soul almost completely round? How could I ever weigh, or get the right heft if I could weigh ’em, of all the individual tendencies, inherited traits, sins, and goodnesses that press down upon that soul? How could I tell how the affections, powerful critters as I ever see, was a drawin’ it one way, and where? and how fur? And ambitions and worldly desires, how they was a hawlin’ it another way, and where to? and when? How true, noble aims and holy desires was pushin’ it one way, and ignoble impulses, petty aims and littleness, self-seekin’, and vainglory was givin’ it a shove the other way? Good land! if I could see all these, and see ’em plain—which no one ever can or will—but if I could, how could I ever sort ’em out, and mark ’em with their right name and heft, and calculate how far they was a drawin’ and a influencin’ that soul, and how fur it had power to resist? How could the eyes of my spectacles ever see jest how fur down into the depths of that soul shone the Divine Ideal, the holy, stainless image of what we pray to be,—and jest how fur the mists that rise up from our earthly soil darken and blind that light? Good land! I couldn’t do it, nor Josiah, nor nobody.

We are blind creeters, the fur-seein’est of us; weak creeters, when we think we are the strong-mindedest. Now, when we hear of a crime, it is easy to say that the one who committed that wrong stepped flat off from goodness into sin, and should be hung. It is so awful easy and sort o’ satisfactory to condemn other folks’es faults that we don’t stop to think that it may be that evil was fell into through the weakness and blindness of a mistake. Jest as folks fall down suller lots of times a gropin’ round in the dark tryin’ to find the outside door, and can’t. Doin’ their best to get out where it is lighter, out into the free air of Heaven, and first they know, entirely unbeknown to them, they open the wrong door, and there they are down suller, dark as pitch, and mebby with a sore and broken head.

And if a wrong is done wilfully, with a purpose, it is easy to think of nothin’ but the wrong, and not give a thought to what influences stood behind that soul, a pushin’ it off into sin. Early influences, sinful teachin’s drunk down eagerly before the mind could seperate the evil from the good. Criminal inheritances of depraved tastes, and wayward and distorted intellect, wretched, depressing surroundings, lack of all comfort, hope, faith in God or man, ignorance, blind despair, all a standin’ behind that soul pushin’ it forward into a crime. And then when we read of some noble, splendid act of generosity, our souls burn within us, and it is easy to say, the one who did that glorious deed should be throned and crowned with honor—not thinkin’ how, mebby unbeknown to us, that act was the costly and glitterin’ varnish coverin’ up a whited sepulchre. That deed was restin’ on self-seekin’, ambitious littleness.

Yes, we are blind creeters. And there is but One who holds the key to the terror, the glory, and the mystery of a soul. He, only, can see and judge. He whose age is ageless, and who can therefore alone judge of the mighty flood of influences that pour down upon the soul from that ageless past, swayin’ it with mysterious power. He whose life fills that boundless future—Eternity—He alone knows the strength of those mighty forces drawin’ us thither. He who sees the unseen—whose eyes can alone pierce the clouds that close so dark about us, and behold the host of shadowy forms that surround us on every side, angels and demons, things present, things to come, life, and death, and every other creature—He only knows their power over us. He who alone knows the meaning of life, the mystery of our creation. And all that keeps me from bein’ ravin’ distracted in even meditatin’ on this is to calm myself down on this thought, that there is One who knows all. And He alone can judge of what He alone can see. He, the just and loving One, will do right with the souls He made.

Why, if I didn’t lean up against that thought, and lean heavy, I should tottle and wobble round to that extent that I should fall to pieces—be a perfect wrack and ruin in no time. And another thought that gives me sights of comfort is, He don’t need none of my help in judgin’ the world. And if I was ever glad of anything in my life, I am glad of that. Why, in my opinion, it is irreverent, the very height of audacity, to dare to affirm what shall be the doom of a single soul.

Then to think of the countless millions on earth, and who sleep in its bosom—and the countless, countless worlds that fill endless and boundless space, the unnumbered hosts of the ageless past, and the endless future—the Eternity—and jest to speak that word almost takes away my breath—and then to think of us, poor, blind little aunts, on a aunt-hill, deciding on this mighty mystery, writin’ books, preachin’ sermons, givin’ lectures, one way and another, judgin’ the fate of these souls, and where they are goin’ to, and quarrelin’ over it. In my opinion it would be better for us to spend some of the breath we waste in this way in prayer to Him who is Mighty, for help in right living. Or, if we can’t do any better with it, let us spend a very little of it, mebby ½ of it, in coolin’ porridge for the starvin’ ones right round us; that would be better than to spend it as we do do, in beatin’ the air, quarrelin’ on who is goin’ to be saved, and how many. Them’s my idees, but, howsomever, everybody to their own mind. But good land! I am a eppisodin’, and a eppisodin’, beyond the patience of anybody. And to resoom and proceed:

As I was a sayin’ of Kellup and his father, I s’pose there’s lots of things said about ’em that there hain’t no truth in. Now I don’t believe that they chaw spruce-gum for dinner, and eat snow and icicles in the time of ’em—not to make a stiddy practice of it. Why, they couldn’t stand it, not for any length of time. But you know when anybody gets their name up for any particular thing, it is dretful easy—don’t take hardly a mite of strength—to histe it up a little higher. But I see this myself, with my own eye.

Last Thanksgivin’ I was in the meat-shop to Jonesville, a buyin’ a turkey, and some lamb, and oysters, and things. I was goin’ to have the childern home to dinner. And Kellup come in, and said his father thought it was such hard times they wouldn’t try to keep Thanksgivin’ this year. But he told his father it showed a ungrateful heart for all the mercies and benefits that had been bestowed on ’em durin’ the year, and it was settin’ a bad example to sinners round ’em to not celebrate it; so he had carried the day, and they was goin’ to swing right out, and buy half a pound of fresh beef, and celebrate.

And he bought it, and beat the butcher half a cent on that. I think myself that he is as tight as the bark to a tree, but I don’t believe he is any tighter. But they say he is as tight agin.

SWINGIN’ OUT.

Like myself and Josiah, Kellup is a member of the Methodist meetin’-house. And he is a dretful case to exhort other folks. And jest like them that don’t do nothin’ themselves, that never did a noble, generous act in their lives, he is a great case to talk about other folks’es duty. And jest like them that are too stingy to draw a long breath for fear of wearin’ out their lungs, he is a great case to talk about other folks’es givin’.

If anybody has decent clothes and vittles, he is always talkin’ about their extravagance, and how much they could do for the sufferin’ poor round ’em with the money. And a man could starve to death right on the road in front of him, and all he would do would be to stop that hearse, and exhort him from the top of it. Not a cent would he give if the man died right there in under the hearse. I despise such Christians, and I always shall; and there are lots of ’em all round us, who are always talkin’ about workin’ for Christ, and all the work they do is with their tongues. I say such religion is vain; empty as tinglin’ brass, and soundin’ thimbles.

A COB(B) WITHOUT CORN.

From the time he wore roundabouts, Kellup’s father promised him that jest as quick as he got big enough he should drive that hearse, and it has lifted him up, that hearse has, and always made him feel above the other boys. He has always seemed to think that was the highest station in life he could get up onto. We all think that the reason he comes to see Kitty on it, is he thinks he looks more stately and imposin’ on it than he would walkin’ afoot. And when the childern, the little Jonesvillians, hoot at him, and make all manner of fun of him, he thinks they envy him, and it makes him act haughtier than ever, and more proud-spirited, and stiff-necked.

As I say, I feel bad, and I take Kitty to do about it every time I see her a’most. And she’ll say:

“Oh, Auntie! it is too rich!”

KITTY’S KISS.

And she’ll laugh, and kiss me, and coax me not to be cross about it, till she makes most as big a fool of me as she does of Kellup, and I tell her so.

But I stand firm, and try to make her feel a realizin’ sense how it looks to have a hearse standin’ round promiscous every few days, hitched to our front gate. It is a solemn thing to me. And would be to anybody who looked at things serious and solemn. Most every subject has several sides to it, and some has more’n 20. And folks ort to tutor themselves to hold a subject right up in their hands, and look on every side of it. But Kitty don’t try to. The humorous side of things is the side she meditates on. And she thinks that Kellup’s travelin’ round after her on that hearse has a funny side to it. But I can’t see it. It is a solemn thing to me to see it drive up to our gate any time o’ day, and be hitched there, while he comes in and tries to court her. Why, it looks fairly wicked to me, and I tell her so. And then she’ll giggle and laugh, and make a perfect fool of Kellup. Or, that is, improve on the job; for truly Nater helped her powerful at his birth. Nater did a good job in that line—in the fool line. Though you couldn’t make him think he was most a fool, or leanin’ heavy that way, not if you should drive the fact into his head with a hammer. It is one of the hardest things in the world to make folks believe. They’ll own up to bein’ a fool twice as quick.

But as I say, it worries me most to death. And there is only jest one thing that keeps me from comin’ right out and puttin’ a stop to it, and tellin’ Kellup she is a foolin’ of him. I have meditated on it powerful. And sometimes I have thought that he needs such a affliction. Sometimes I have thought that, bein’ so overbearin’, and haughty, and big-feelin’, that such a takin’ down is what he needs to lift him up (morally).

But though that principle holds up my spirit, it is a hard trial to my spirit, and to the eye of my spectacles. And I’ll say to Josiah, every time I see him drive up, and groan loud as I say it: “I should think he’d know better than to go a courtin’ with a hearse.”

But he says: “Keep still; it don’t hurt you any, does it?”

That man enjoys it. He has wicked streaks, and I tell him so. And says I:

“Josiah Allen, you don’t seem to know what solemnity is, or what wickedness is.”

And he says: “I know what a dumb fool is.”

And that is all the help I can get. And I s’pose I shall have to let it go on. But I feel like death about it. When he comes here, and Kitty don’t happen to be here, he will always begin to exhort me on religion. He is the disagreeablest, self-righteousest creeter I ever see, and that I won’t deny.

“Oh,” says he to me yesterday—there had been a funeral up by here, and when he came back he hitched the hearse, and come in. And he began to exhort me, and says he: “I have been a thinkin’ of it all day,—how glad I am that salvation is free.”

I felt wore out with him, and says I: “Well you may be glad. For if it wasn’t free, you wouldn’t have any—not a mite. You wouldn’t either if you had to pay a cent for it.”

Before he could say anything, Kitty come in. She had been out to the barn with Josiah to feed the sheep. She looked like a blush-rose; her eyes a dancin’ and a sparklin’. And Kellup acted spoonier than any spoon I have got on my buttery shelves.

JOSIAH GOES INTO BUSINESS.

Josiah Allen has got a sort of a natural hankerin’ after makin’ money easy. A sort of a speculatin’ turn to his mind, which most men have. But not havin’ the other ingregiences that go with it to make it a success, his speculations turn out awful, 2 episodes of which I will relate and set down. One pleasant evenin’ Josiah had jest got back from carryin’ Kitty Smith to Tirzah Ann’s. Tirzah Ann had sent for her to stay a spell with her. And Josiah had got back and put the horses out, and sot by the fire a meditatin’ to all outward appearance. When all of a sudden he broke out and says:

“Samantha, I love to make money easy.”

“Do you?” says I, in a mechanicle way, for I was bindin’ off the heel of a sock of hisen, and my mind was sort o’ drawed out by that heel, and strained.

“Yes,” says he, crossin’ his legs, and lookin’ dretful wise at me, “Yes, I love to, like a dog. I love to kinder speculate.”