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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9445-h.zip b/9445-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..75ff44c --- /dev/null +++ b/9445-h.zip diff --git a/9445-h/9445-h.htm b/9445-h/9445-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2080474 --- /dev/null +++ b/9445-h/9445-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2123 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 3.</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + PRE { font-family: Times; font-size: 97%; margin-left: 15%;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3</h1> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3. +by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3. + +Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br><br><hr><br><br> + +<center> +<img alt="002.jpg (24K)" src="images/002.jpg" height="663" width="550"> +<br><br> +<img alt="001.jpg (118K)" src="images/001.jpg" height="912" width="711"> +</center> +<br><br> +<center> +<h1>SAMANTHA +<br><br> +AMONG THE BRETHREN.</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + + +<h3>"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"</h3> +<br><br> +<h2>(MARIETTA HOLLEY).</h2> +<br><br><br><br> +<h3><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</i></h3>. +<br><br> +<h2>1890</h2> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<h3>Part 3.</h3> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<h3> +TO</h3> +<br> +<h3>All Women</h3> + +<p>WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES</p> + +<p>THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A</p> + +<p>BETTER COUNTRY,</p> + +<p><i>THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED</i>.</p> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p> +Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah +Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, +and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' +room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me:</p> + +<p>"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"</p> + +<p>And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal +Justice, Josiah Allen."</p> + +<p>"Anythin' else?" sez he, lookin' sort o' oneasy at me. (That man +realizes his shortcomin's, I believe, a good deal of the time, he duz.)</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez I, "I lay out in petickuler to tackle the Meetin' House. She +is in the wrong on't, and I want to set her right."</p> + +<p>Josiah looked sort o' relieved like, but he sez out, in a kind of a pert +way, es he set there a-shellin corn for the hens:</p> + +<p>"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she—it is a he."</p> + +<p>And sez I, "How do you know?"</p> + +<p>And he sez, "Because it stands to reason it is. And I'd like to know +what you have got to say about him any way?"</p> + +<p>Sez I, "That 'him' don't sound right, Josiah Allen. It sounds more right +and nateral to call it 'she.' Why," sez I, "hain't we always hearn about +the Mother Church, and don't the Bible tell about the Church bein' +arrayed like a bride for her husband? I never in my life hearn it called +a 'he' before."</p> + +<p>"Oh, wall, there has always got to be a first time. And I say it sounds +better. But what have you got to say about the Meetin' House, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"I have got this to say, Josiah Allen. The Meetin' House hain't a-actin' +right about wimmen. The Founder of the Church wuz born of woman. It wuz +on a woman's heart that His head wuz pillowed first and last. While +others slept she watched over His baby slumbers and His last sleep. A +woman wuz His last thought and care. Before dawn she wuz at the door of +the tomb, lookin' for His comin'. So she has stood ever sense—waitin', +watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for +His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men—fallen men +and fallen wimmen—workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good +in the hearts of a sinful world—weepin' pale-faced over its +crucefixion—lookin' for its reserection. Oh how she has worked all +through the ages!"</p> + +<p>"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy +work and back combs."</p> + +<p>I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez, +reasonable:</p> + +<p>"Yes, there are such wimmen, Josiah, but think of the sweet and saintly +souls that have given all their lives, and hopes, and thoughts to the +Meetin' House—think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of +the Sanctuary—there are five wimmen to one man, I believe, in all the +meetin' houses to-day a-workin' in His name. True Daughters of the King, +no matter what their creed may be—Catholic or Protestant.</p> + +<p>"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the +Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."</p> + +<p>"Wall, hain't <i>he</i>?" sez Josiah.</p> + +<p>"No, <i>she</i> hain't," sez I.</p> + +<p>"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has <i>he</i> done lately to +rile you up?"</p> + +<p>Sez I, "<i>She</i> wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the +Conference."</p> + +<p>"Wall, I say <i>he</i> wuz right," sez Josiah. "<i>He</i> knew, and I knew, that +wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."</p> + +<p>"Why," sez I, "it don't take so much strength to set as it duz to stand +up. And after workin' as hard as wimmen have for the Meetin' House, she +ort to have the priveledge of settin'. And I am goin' to write out jest +what I think about it."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't +be too severe with the Meetin' House."</p> + +<p>And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head +in and sez:</p> + +<p>"Don't be too hard on <i>him</i>"</p> + +<p>And then he shet the door quick, before I could say a word. But good +land! I didn't care. I knew I could say what I wanted to with my +faithful pen—and I am bound to say it.</p> + +<p><br> JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE, + Bonny View,<br> + near Adams, New York,<br> + Oct. 14th, 1890.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<h2> +CONTENTS.</h2> +<br> + + + + + + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p><a href="#c7">CHAPTER VII.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c8">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c9">CHAPTER IX.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c10">CHAPTER X.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c11">CHAPTER XI.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c12">CHAPTER XII.</a></p> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + +<a name="c7"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="035c7.jpg (100K)" src="images/035c7.jpg" height="718" width="585"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER VII.</p> + +<p> +But along about the middle of the fifth week I see a change. Lodema +had been uncommon exasperatin', and I expected she would set Josiah to +goin', and I groaned in spirit, to think what a job wuz ahead of me, to +part their two tongues—when all of a sudden I see a curius change come +over my pardner's face.</p> + +<p>I remember jest the date that the change in his mean wuz visible, and +made known to me—for it wuz the very mornin' that we got the invitation +to old Mr. and Miss Pressley's silver weddin'. And that wuz the +fifteenth day of the month along about the middle of the forenoon.</p> + +<p>And it wuz not half an hour after Elnathen Pressley came to the door and +give us the invitations, that I see the change in his mean.</p> + +<p>And when I asked him about it afterwards, what that strange and curius +look meant, he never hung back a mite from tellin' me, but sez right out +plain:</p> + +<p>"Mebby, Samantha, I hain't done exactly as I ort to by cousin Lodema, +and I have made up my mind to make her a happy surprise before she goes +away."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, "so do."</p> + +<p>I thought he wuz goin' to get her a new dress. She had been a-hintin' +to him dretful strong to that effect. She wanted a parmetty, or a +balzereen, or a circassien, which wuz in voge in her young days. But I +wuz in hopes he would get her a cashmere, and told him so, plain.</p> + +<p>But I couldn't get him to tell what the surprise wuz. He only sez, sez +he:</p> + +<p>"I am goin' to make her a happy surprise."</p> + +<p>And the thought that he wuz a-goin' to branch out and make a change, wuz +considerable of a comfort to me. And I needed comfort—yes, indeed I +did—I needed it bad. For not one single thing did I do for her that I +done right, though I tried my best to do well by her.</p> + +<p>But she found fault with my vittles from mornin' till night, though I am +called a excellent cook all over Jonesville, and all round the adjoining +country, out as far as Loontown, and Zoar. It has come straight back to +me by them that wouldn't lie. But it hain't made me vain.</p> + +<p>But I never cooked a thing that suited Lodema, not a single thing. Most +of my vittles wuz too fresh, and then if I braced up and salted 'em +extra so as to be sure to please her, why then they wuz briny, and hurt +her mouth.</p> + +<p>Why, if you'll believe it, I give her a shawl, made her a present of it; +it had even checks black and white, jest as many threads in the black +stripes as there wuz in the white, for I counted 'em.</p> + +<p>And she told me, after she had looked it all over and said it wuz kinder +thin and slazy, and checkered shawls had gone out of fashion, and the +black looked some as if it would fade with washin', and the white wuzn't +over clear, and the colors wuzn't no ways becomin' to her complexion, +and etcetery, etcetery.</p> + +<p>"But," sez she, after she had got all through with the rest of her +complaints—"if the white stripes wuz where the black wuz, and the black +where the white wuz, she should like it quite well." And there it wuz, +even check, two and two. Wall, that wuz a sample of her doin's. If +anybody had a Roman nose she wanted a Greecy one.</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="036.jpg (61K)" src="images/036.jpg" height="503" width="445"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>And if the nose wuz Greece, why then she wanted Rome.</p> + +<p>Why, Josiah sez to me along about the third week, he said (to ourselves, +in private), "that if Lodema went to Heaven she would be dissatisfied +with it, and think it wuz livelier, and more goin' on down to the other +place." And he said she would get the angels all stirred up a findin' +fault with their feathers.</p> + +<p>I told him "I would not hear such talk."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez he, "don't you believe it?"</p> + +<p>And I kinder turned him off, and wouldn't tell, and told him it wuz +wicked to talk so.</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez Josiah, "you dassent say she wouldn't."</p> + +<p>And I dassent, though I wouldn't own it up to him, I dassent.</p> + +<p>And if she kinder got out of other occupations for a minute durin' them +first weeks she would be a quarrelin' with Josiah Allen about age.</p> + +<p>I s'pose she and Josiah wuzn't far from the same age, for they wuz +children together. But she wanted to make out she wuz young.</p> + +<p>And she would tell Josiah that "he seemed jest like a father to her, and +always had." And sometimes when she felt the most curius, she would call +him "Father," and "Pa," and "Papa." And it would mad Josiah Allen so +that I would have all I could do to quell him down.</p> + +<p>Now I didn't feel so, I didn't mind it so much. Why, there would be +days, when she felt the curiusest, that she would call me "Mother," and +"Ma," and foller me round with foot-stools and things, when I went to +set down, and would kinder worry over my fallin' off the back step, and +would offer to help me up the suller stairs, and so forth, and watchin' +over what I et, and tellin' me folks of my age ort to be careful, and +not over-eat.</p> + +<p>And Josiah asked me to ask her "How she felt about that time?" For she +wuz from three to four years older than I wuz.</p> + +<p>But I wouldn't contend with her, and the footstools come kinder handy, I +had jest as lieve have 'em under my feet as not, and ruther. And as for +rich vittles not agreein' with me, and my not over-eatin', I broke that +tip by fallin' right in with her, and not cookin' such good things—that +quelled her down, and gaulded Josiah too.</p> + +<p>But, as I said, it riled Josiah the worst of anything to have Lodema +call him father, for he wants to make out that he is kinder young +himself.</p> + +<p>And sez he to her one day, about the third week, when she was a-goin' +on about how good and fatherly he looked, and how much he seemed like +a parent to her, and always had, sez he: "I wonder if I seemed like a +father to you when we wuz a-kickin' at each other in the same cradle?" +Sez he: "We both used to nuss out of the same bottle, any way, for +I have heard my mother say so lots of times. There wuzn't ten days' +difference in our ages. You wuz ten days the oldest as I have always +made out."</p> + +<p>She screamed right out, "Why, Josiah Allen, where is your conscience to +talk in that way—and your heart?"</p> + +<p>"In here, where everybody's is," sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his +right hand—he meant to strike against his left breast, but struck too +low, kinder on his stomach.</p> + +<p>And sez I, "That is what I have always thought, Josiah Allen. I have +always had better luck reachin' your conscience through your stomach +than in any other way. And now," sez I coldly, "do you go out and bring +in a pail of water."</p> + +<p>I used to get beat out and sick of their scufflin's and disagreein's, +and broke 'em up whenever I could.</p> + +<p>But oh! oh! how she did quarrel with Josiah Allen and that buzz saw +scheme of his'n. How light she made of that enterprise, how she demeaned +the buzz, and run the saws—till I felt that bad as I hated the +enterprise myself, I felt that a variety of loud buzz saws would be a +welcome relief from her tongue—from their two tongues; for as fur down +as she would run them buzz saws, jest so fur would Josiah Allen praise +'em up.</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="037.jpg (42K)" src="images/037.jpg" height="438" width="332"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>She never agreed with Josiah Allen but in jest one thing while she was +under his ruff. I happened to mention one day how extremely anxious I +wuz to have females set on the Conference; and then, wantin' to dispute +me, and also bein' set on that side, she run down the project, and +called it all to nort—and when too late she see that she had got over +on Josiah Allen's side of the fence.</p> + +<p>But it had one good effect. When that man see she wuz there, he waded +off, way out of sight of the project, and wouldn't mention it—it madded +him so to be on the same side of the fence she wuz—so that it seemed +to happen all for the best.</p> + +<p>Why, I took her as a dispensation from the first, and drawed all sorts +of morels from her, and sights of 'em—sights.</p> + +<p>But oh, it wuz tuff on me, fearful tuff.</p> + +<p>And when she calculated and laid out to make out her visit and go, wuz +more than we could tell.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + + +<a name="c8"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="038c8.jpg (95K)" src="images/038c8.jpg" height="716" width="581"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER VIII.</p> + +<p> +For two weeks had passed away like a nite mair of the nite—and three +weeks, and four weeks—and she didn't seem to be no nigher goin' than +she did when she came.</p> + +<p>And I would not make a move towards gettin' rid of her, not if I had +dropped down in my tracts, because she wuz one of the relatives on his +side.</p> + +<p>But I wuz completely fagged out; it did seem, as I told Tirzah Ann one +day in confidence, "that I never knew the meanin' of the word 'fag' +before."</p> + +<p>And Tirzah Ann told me (she couldn't bear her) that if she wuz in my +place, she would start her off. Sez she:</p> + +<p>"She has plenty of brothers and sisters, and a home of her own, and why +should she come here to torment you and father;" and sez she, "I'll talk +to her, mother, I'd jest as leve as not." Sez I, "Tirzah Ann, if you +say a word to her, I'll—I'll never put confidence in you agin;" sez I, +"Life is full of tribulations, and we must expect to bear our crosses;" +sez I, "The old martyrs went through more than Lodema."</p> + +<p>Sez Tirzah Ann, "I believe Lodema would have wore out John Rogers."</p> + +<p>And I don't know but she would, but I didn't encourage her by ownin' it +up that she would; but I declare for't, I believe she would have been +more tegus than the nine children, and the one at the breast, any way.</p> + +<p>Wall, as I said, it wuz durin' the fifth week that Josiah Allen turned +right round, and used her first rate.</p> + +<p>And when she would talk before folks about how much filial affection she +had for him, and about his always havin' been jest like a parent to her, +and everything of the kind—he never talked back a mite, but looked +clever, and told me in confidence, "That he had turned over a new leaf, +and he wuz goin' to surprise her—give her a happy surprise."</p> + +<p>And he seemed, instead of lovin' to rile her up, as he had, to jest put +his hull mind on the idee of the joyful surprise.</p> + +<p>Wall, I am always afraid (with reason) of Josiah Allen's enterprizes. +But do all I could, he wouldn't tell me one word about what he wuz goin' +to do, only he kep it up, kep a-sayin' that,</p> + +<p>"It wuz somethin' I couldn't help approvin' of, and it wuz somethin' +that would happify me, and be a solid comfort to her, and a great gain +and honor."</p> + +<p>So (though I trembled some for the result) I had to let it go on, for +she wuz one of the relations on his own side, and I knew it wouldn't do +for me to interfere too much, and meddle.</p> + +<p>Why, he did come right out one day and give hints to me to that effect.</p> + +<p>Sez I, "Why do you go on and be so secret about it? Why don't you tell +your companion all about it, what you are a-goin' to do, and advise with +her?"</p> + +<p>And he sez, "I guess I know what I am about. She is one of the relations +on my side, and I guess I have got a few rights left, and a little +spunk."</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez I, sadly, "you have got the spunk."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez he, "I guess I can spunk up, and do somethin' for one of my +own relations, without any interference or any advice from any of the +Smith family, or anybody else."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "I don't want to stop your doin' all you can for Lodema, but why +not tell what you are a-goin' to do?"</p> + +<p>"It will be time enough when the time comes," sez he. "You will find it +out in the course of next week."</p> + +<p>Wall, it run along to the middle of the next week. And one day I had +jest sot down to tie off a comforter.</p> + +<p>It wuz unbleached cheese cloth that I had bought and colored with tea +leaves. It wuz a sort of a light mice color, a pretty soft gray, and I +wuz goin' to tie it in with little balls of red zephyr woosted, and work +it in buttonhole stitch round the edge with the same.</p> + +<p>It wuz fur our bed, Josiah's and mine, and it wuz goin' to be soft and +warm and very pretty, though I say it, that shouldn't.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="039.jpg (103K)" src="images/039.jpg" height="585" width="594"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>It wuzn't quite so pretty as them that hain't colored. I had 'em for my +spare beds, cream color tied with pale blue and pink, that wuz perfectly +beautiful and very dressy; but I thought for everyday use a colored one +would be better.</p> + +<p>Wall, I had brought it out and wuz jest a-goin' to put it onto the +frames (some new-fashioned ones I had borrowed from Tirzah Ann for the +occasion).</p> + +<p>And Cousin Lodema had jest observed, "that the new-fashioned frames with +legs wuzn't good for nothin', and she didn't like the color of gray, +it looked too melancholy, and would be apt to depress our feelin's too +much, and would be tryin' to our complexions."</p> + +<p>And I told her "that I didn't spoze there would be a very great +congregation in our bedroom, as a general thing in the dead of night, to +see whether it wuz becomin' to Josiah and me or not. And, it bein' as +dark as Egypt, our complexions wouldn't make a very bad show any way."</p> + +<p>"Wall," she said, "to tie it with red wuzn't at all appropriate, it wuz +too dressy a color for folks of our age, Josiah's and mine." "Why," sez +she, "even <i>I</i>, at <i>my</i> age, would skurcely care to sleep under one so +gay. And she wouldn't have a cheese cloth comforter any way." She sort +o' stopped to ketch breath, and Josiah sez:</p> + +<p>"Oh, wall, Lodema, a cheese cloth comforter is better than none, and I +should think you would be jest the one to like any sort of a frame on +legs."</p> + +<p>But I wunk at him, a real severe and warnin' wink, and he stopped short +off, for all the world as if he had forgot bein' on his good behavior; +he stopped short off, and went right to behavin', and sez he to me:</p> + +<p>"Don't put on your comforter to-day, Samantha, for Tirzah Ann and +Whitfield and the babe are a-comin' over here bimeby, and Maggie is +a-comin', and Thomas Jefferson."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, "that is a good reason why I should keep on with it; the +girls can help me if I don't get it off before they get here."</p> + +<p>And then he sez, "Miss Minkley is a-comin', too, and the Elder."</p> + +<p>"Why'ee," sez I, "Josiah Allen, why didn't you tell me before, so I +could have baked up somethin' nice? What a man you are to keep things; +how long have you known it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a week or so!"</p> + +<p>"A week!" sez I; "Josiah Allen, where is your conscience? if you have +got a conscience."</p> + +<p>"In the same old place," sez he, kinder hittin' himself in the pit of +his stomach.</p> + +<p>"Wall, I should think as much," sez I.</p> + +<p>And Lodema sez, sez she: "A man that won't tell things is of all +creeters that walks the earth the most disagreeable. And I should think +the girls, Maggie and Tirzah Ann, would want to stay to home and clean +house such a day as this is. And I should think a Elder would want to +stay to home so's to be on hand in case of anybody happenin' to be +exercised in their minds, and wantin to talk to him on religious +subjects. And if I wuz a Elder's wife, I should stay to home with him; +I should think it wuz my duty and my privilege. And if I wuz a married +woman, I would have enough baked up in the house all the time, so's not +to be afraid of company."</p> + +<p>But I didn't answer back. I jest sot away my frames, and went out and +stirred up a cake; I had one kind by me, besides cookies and jell tarts.</p> + +<p>But I felt real worked up to think I hadn't heard. Wall, I hadn't more'n +got that cake fairly into the oven when the children come, and Elder +Minkley and his wife. And I thought they looked queer, and I thought the +Elder begun to tell me somethin', and I thought I see Josiah wink at +him. But I wouldn't want to take my oath whether he wunk or not, but I +<i>thought</i> he wunk.</p> + +<p>I wuz jest a turnin' this over in my mind, and a carryin' away their +things, when I glanced out of the settin' room winder, and lo, and +behold! there wuz Abi Adsit a comin' up to the front door, and right +behind her wuz her Pa and Ma Adsit, and Deacon Henzy and his wife, +and Miss Henn and Metilda, and Lute Pitkins and his wife, and Miss +Petengill, and Deacon Sypher and Drusilly, and Submit Tewksbury—a hull +string of 'em as long as a procession.</p> + +<p>Sez I, and I spoke it right out before I thought—sez I—</p> + +<p>"Why'ee!" sez I. "For the land's sake!" sez I, "has there been a +funeral, or anything? And are these the mourners?" sez I. "Are they +stoppin' here to warm?"</p> + +<p>For it wuz a cold day—and I repeated the words to myself mechanically +as it wuz, as I see 'em file up the path.</p> + +<p>"They be mourners, hain't they?"</p> + +<p>"No," sez Josiah, who had come in and wuz a standin' by the side of me, +as I spoke out to myself unbeknown to me—sez he in a proud axent—</p> + +<p>"No, they hain't mourners, they are Happyfiers; they are Highlariers; +they have come to our party. We are givin' a party, Samantha. We are +havin' a diamond weddin' here for Lodema."</p> + +<p>"A diamond weddin'!" I repeated mechanically.</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is my happy surprise for Lodema."</p> + +<p>I looked at Lodema Trumble. She looked strange. She had sunk back in her +chair. I thought she wuz a-goin' to faint, and she told somebody the +next day, "that she did almost lose her conscientiousness."</p> + +<p>"Why," sez I, "she hain't married."</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="040.jpg (114K)" src="images/040.jpg" height="650" width="586"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>"Wall, she ort to be, if she hain't," sez he. "I say it is high time for +her to have some sort of a weddin'. Everybody is a havin' 'em—tin, and +silver and wooden, and basswood, and glass, and etc.—and I thought it +wuz a perfect shame that Lodema shouldn't have none of no kind—and I +thought I'd lay to, and surprise her with one. Every other man seemed +to be a-holdin' off, not willin' seemin'ly that she should have one, and +I jest thought I would happify her with one."</p> + +<p>"Wall, why didn't you make her a silver one, or a tin?" sez I.</p> + +<p>"Or a paper one!" screamed Lodema, who had riz up out of her almost +faintin' condition. "That would have been much more appropriate," sez +she.</p> + +<p>"Wall, I thought a diamond one would be more profitable to her. For I +asked 'em all to bring diamonds, if they brought anything. And then I +thought it would be more suitable to her age."</p> + +<p>"Why!" she screamed out. "They have to be married seventy-five years +before they can have one."</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez he dreemily, "I thought that would be about the right +figure."</p> + +<p>Lodema wuz too mad to find fault or complain or anything. She jest +marched up-stairs and didn't come down agin that night. And the young +folks had a splendid good time, and the old ones, too.</p> + +<p>Tirzah Ann and Maggie had brought some refreshments with 'em, and so had +some of the other wimmen, and, with what I had, there wuz enough, and +more than enough, to refresh ourselves with.</p> + +<p>Wall, the very next mornin' Lodema marched down like a grenideer, and +ordered Josiah to take her to the train. And she eat breakfast with her +things on, and went away immegiately after, and hain't been back here +sense.</p> + +<p>And I wuz truly glad to see her go, but wuz sorry she went in such a +way, and I tell Josiah he wuz to blame,</p> + +<p>But he acts as innocent as you pleese. And he goes all over the +arguments agin every time I take him to do about it. He sez "she wuz old +enough to have a weddin' of some kind."</p> + +<p>And of course I can't dispute that, when he faces me right down, and +sez:</p> + +<p>"Hain't she old enough?"</p> + +<p>And I'll say, kinder short—</p> + +<p>"Why, I spoze so!"</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez he, "wouldn't it have been profitable to her if they had +brought diamonds? Wouldn't it have been both surprisin' and profitable?" +And sez he, "I told 'em expressly to bring diamonds if they had more +than they wanted. I charged old Bobbet and Lute Pitkins specially on the +subject. I didn't want 'em to scrimp themselves; but," sez I, "if you +have got more diamonds than you want, Lute, bring over a few to Lodema."</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="041.jpg (48K)" src="images/041.jpg" height="465" width="474"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>"Yes," sez I, coldly, "he wuz dretful likely to have diamonds more then +he wanted, workin' out by day's work to support his family. You know +there wuzn't a soul you invited that owned a diamond."</p> + +<p>"How did I know +what they owned? I never have prowled round into their bureau draws and +things, tryin' to find out what they had; they might have had quarts of +'em, and I not know it."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "You did it to make fun of Lodema and get rid of her. And it only +makes it worse to try to smooth it over." Sez I, "I'd be honorable about +it if I wuz in your place, and own up."</p> + +<p>"Own up? What have I got to own up? I shall always say if my orders wuz +carried out, it would have been a profitable affair for Lodema, and it +would—profitable and surprisin'."</p> + +<p>And that is all I can get him to say about it, from that day to this.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + + +<a name="c9"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="042c9.jpg (100K)" src="images/042c9.jpg" height="722" width="592"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER IX.</p> + +<p> +But truly the labors that descended onto my shoulders immegiately after +Lodema's departure wuz hard enough to fill up my hull mind, and tax +every one of my energies.</p> + +<p>Yes, my labors and the labors of the other female Jonesvillians wuz deep +and arjuous in the extreme (of which more and anon bimeby).</p> + +<p>I had been the female appinted in a private and becomin' female way, to +go to Loontown to see the meetin' house there that we heard they had +fixed over in a cheap but commojous way. And for reasons (of which more +and anon) we wanted to inquire into the expense, the looks on't, etc., +etc.</p> + +<p>So I persuaded Josiah Allen to take me over to Loontown on this pressin' +business, and he gin his consent to go on the condition that we should +stop for a visit to Cephas Bodley'ses. Josiah sets store by 'em. You +see they are relations of ourn and have been for some time, entirely +unbeknown to us, and they'd come more'n a year ago a huntin' of us up. +They said they "thought relations ought to be hunted up and hanged +together." They said "the idea of huntin' us up had come to 'em after +readin' my books." They told me so, and I said, "Wall!" I didn't add nor +diminish to that one "wall," for I didn't want to act too backward, nor +too forward. I jest kep' kinder neutral, and said, "Wall!"</p> + +<p>You see Cephas'ses father's sister-in-law wuz stepmother to my aunt's +second cousin on my father's side. And Cephas said that "he had felt +more and more, as years went by, that it wuz a burnin' shame for +relations to not know and love each other." He said "he felt that he +loved Josiah and me dearly."</p> + +<p>I didn't say right out whether it wuz reciprokated or not I kinder said, +"Wall!" agin.</p> + +<p>And I told Josiah, in perfect confidence and the wood-house chamber, +"that I had seen nearer relations than Mr. Bodley'ses folks wuz to us,"</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="043.jpg (125K)" src="images/043.jpg" height="588" width="628"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>Howsumever, I done well by 'em. Josiah killed a fat turkey, and I baked +it, and done other things for their comfort, and we had quite a good +time. Cephas wuz ruther flowery and enthusiastick, and his mouth and +voice wuz ruther large, but he meant well, I should judge, and we had +quite a good time.</p> + +<p>She wuz very freckled, and a second-day Baptist by perswasion, and wuz +piecin' up a crazy bedquilt. She went a-visitin' a good deal, and got +pieces of the women's dresses where she visited for blocks. So it wuz +quite a savin' bedquilt, and very good-lookin', considerin'.</p> + +<p>But to resoom and continue on. Cephas'ses folks made us promise on our +two sacred honors, Josiah's honor and mine, that we would pay back the +visit, for, as Cephas said, "for relatives to live so clost to each +other, and not to visit back and forth, wuz a burnin' shame and a +disgrace." And Josiah promised that we would go right away after +sugerin'.</p> + +<p>We wouldn't promise on the New Testament, as Cephas wanted us to (he is +dretful enthusiastick); but we gin good plain promises that we would go, +and laid out to keep our two words.</p> + +<p>Wall, we got there onexpected, as they had come onto us. And we found +'em plunged into trouble. Their only child, a girl, who had married a +young lawyer of Loontown, had jest lost her husband with the typus, and +they wuz a-makin' preparations for the funeral when we got there. She +and her husband had come on a visit, and he wuz took down bed-sick there +and died.</p> + +<p>I told 'em I felt like death to think I had descended down onto 'em at +such a time.</p> + +<p>But Cephas said he wuz jest dispatchin' a messenger for us when we +arrove, for, he said, "in a time of trouble, then wuz the time, if ever, +that a man wanted his near relations clost to him."</p> + +<p>And he said "we had took a load offen him by appearin' jest as we +did, for there would have been some delay in gettin' us there, if the +messenger had been dispatched."</p> + +<p>He said "that mornin' he had felt so bad that he wanted to die—it +seemed as if there wuzn't nothin' left for him to live for; but now he +felt that he had sunthin' to live for, now his relatives wuz gathered +round him."</p> + +<p>Josiah shed tears to hear Cephas go on. I myself didn't weep none, but I +wuz glad if we could be any comfort to 'em, and told 'em so.</p> + +<p>And I told Sally Ann, that wuz Cephas'ses wife, that I would do anything +I could to help 'em. And she said everything wuz a-bein' done that +wuz necessary. She didn't know of but one thing that wuz likely to be +overlooked and neglected, and that wuz the crazy bedquilt. She said +"she would love to have that finished to throw over a lounge in the +settin'-room, that wuz frayed out on the edges, and if I felt like it, +it <i>would</i> be a great relief to her to have me take it right offen her +hands and finish it."</p> + +<p>So I took out my thimble and needle (I always carry such necessaries +with me, in a huzzy made expressly for that purpose), and I sot down and +went to piecin' up. There wuz seventeen blocks to piece up, each one +crazy as a loon to look at, and it wuz all to set together.</p> + +<p>She had the pieces, for she had been off on a visitin' tower the week +before, and collected of 'em.</p> + +<p>So I sot in quiet and the big chair in the settin'-room, and pieced up, +and see the preparations goin' on round us.</p> + +<p>I found that Cephas'ses folks lived in a house big and showy-lookin', +but not so solid and firm as I had seen.</p> + +<p>It wuz one of the houses, outside and inside, where more pains had been +took with the porticos and ornaments than with the underpinnin'.</p> + +<p>It had a showy and kind of a shaky look. And I found that that extended +to Cephas'ses business arrangements. Amongst the other ornaments of his +buildin's wuz mortgages, quite a lot of'em, and of almost every variety. +He had gin his only child, S. Annie (she wuz named after her mother, +Sally Ann, but spelt it this way), he had gin S. Annie a showy +education, a showy weddin', and a showy settin'-out. But she had +had the good luck to marry a sensible man, though poor.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="044.jpg (54K)" src="images/044.jpg" height="494" width="368"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>He took S. Annie and the brackets, the piano and hangin' lamps and +baskets and crystal bead lambrequins, her father had gin her, moved +'em all into a good, sensible, small house, and went to work to get a +practice and a livin'. He was a lawyer by perswasion.</p> + +<p>Wall, he worked hard, day and night, for three little children come to +'em pretty fast, and S. Annie consumed a good deal in trimmin's and +cheap lace to ornament 'em; she wuz her father's own girl for ornament. +But he worked so hard, and had so many irons in the fire, and kep' 'em +all so hot, that he got a good livin' for 'em, and begun to lay up money +towards buyin' 'em a house—a home.</p> + +<p>He talked a sight, so folks said that knew him well, about his consumin' +desire and aim to get his wife and children into a little home of their +own, into a safe little haven, where they could live if he wuz called +away. They say that that wuz on his mind day and night, and wuz what +nerved his hand so in the fray, and made him so successful. Wall, he had +laid up about nine hundred dollars towards a home, every dollar on +it earned by hard work and consecrated by this deathless hope and +affection. The house he had got his mind on only cost about a thousand +dollars. Loontown property is cheap.</p> + +<p>Wall, he had laid up nine hundred, and wuz a-beginnin' to save on the +last hundred, for he wouldn't run in debt a cent any way, when he wuz +took voyalent sick there to Cephas'ses; he and S. Annie had come home +for a visit of a day or two, and he bein' so run down, and weak with his +hard day work and his night work, that he suckumbed to his sickness, and +passed away the day before I got there.</p> + +<p>Wall, S. Annie wuz jest overcome with grief the day I got there, but the +day follerin' she begun to take some interest and help her father in +makin' preparations for the funeral.</p> + +<p>The body wuz embalmed, accordin' to Cephas'ses and S. Annie's wish, and +the funeral wuz to be on the Sunday follerin', and on that Cephas and S. +Annie now bent their energies.</p> + +<p>To begin with, S. Annie had a hull suit of clear crape made for herself, +with a veil that touched the ground; she also had three other suits +commenced, for more common wear, trimmed heavy with crape, one of which +she ordered for sure the next week, for she said, "she couldn't stir out +of the house in any other color but black."</p> + +<p>I knew jest how dear crape wuz, and I tackled her on the subject, and +sez I—</p> + +<p>"Do you know, S. Annie, these dresses of your'n will cost a sight?"</p> + +<p>"Cost?" sez she, a-bustin' out a-cryin'. "What do I care about cost? I +will do everything I can to respect his memory. I do it in remembrance +of him."</p> + +<p>Sez I, gently, "S. Annie, you wouldn't forget him if you wuz dressed in +white. And as for respect, such a life as his, from all I hear of it, +don't need crape to throw respect on it; it commands respect, and gets +it from everybody."</p> + +<p>"But," sez Cephas, "it would look dretful odd to the neighbors if she +didn't dress in black." Sez he in a skairful tone, and in his intense +way—</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="045.jpg (122K)" src="images/045.jpg" height="663" width="628"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>"I would ruther resk my life than to have her fail in duty in this way; +it would make talk. And." sez he, "what is life worth when folks talk?" +I turned around the crazed block and tackled it in a new place (more +luny than ever it seemed to me), and sez I, mekanickly—</p> + +<p>"It is pretty hard work to keep folks from talkin'; to keep 'em from +sayin' somethin'."</p> + +<p>But I see from their looks it wouldn't do to say anything more, so I had +to set still and see it go on.</p> + +<p>At that time of year flowers wuz dretful high, but S. Annie and Cephas +had made up their minds that they must have several flower-pieces from +the city nighest to Loontown.</p> + +<p>One wuz a-goin' to be a gate ajar, and one wuz to be a gate wide open, +and one wuz to be a big book. Cephas asked what book I thought would be +preferable to represent. And I mentioned the Bible.</p> + +<p>But Cephas sez, "No, he didn't think he would have a Bible; he didn't +think it would be appropriate, seein' the deceased wuz a lawyer." He +said "he hadn't quite made up his mind what book to have. But anyway it +wuz to be in flowers—beautiful flowers." Another piece wuz to be his +name in white flowers on a purple background of pansies. His name wuz +Wellington Napoleon Bonaparte Hardiman. And I sez to Cephas—"To save +expense, you will probable have the moneygram W.N.B.H.?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," sez he.</p> + +<p>Sez I, "hen the initials of his given names, and the last name in +full."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," he said; "it wuz S. Annie's wish, and hisen, that the hull +name should be put on. They thought it would show more respect."</p> + +<p>I sez, "Where Wellington is now, that hain't a goin' to make any +difference, and," sez I, "Cephas, flowers are dretful high this time of +year, and it is a long name."</p> + +<p>But Cephas said agin that he didn't care for expense, so long as respect +wuz done to the memory of the deceased. He said that he and S. Annie +both felt that it wuz their wish to have the funeral go ahead of any +other that had ever took place in Loontown or Jonesville. He said that +S. Annie felt that it wuz all that wuz left her now in life, the memory +of such a funeral as he deserved.</p> + +<p>Sez I, "There is his children left for her to live for," sez I—"three +little bits of his own life, for her to nourish, and cherish, and look +out for."</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez Cephas, "and she will do that nobly, and I will help her. +They are all goin' to the funeral, too, in deep-black dresses." He said +"they wuz too little to realize it now, but in later and maturer years +it would be a comfort to 'em to know they had took part in such a +funeral as that wuz goin' to be, and wuz dressed in black."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I (in a quiet, onassumin' way I would gin little hints of my +mind on the subject), "I am afraid that will be about all the comforts +of life the poor little children will ever have," sez I. "It will be if +you buy many more flower-pieces and crape dresses."</p> + +<p>Cephas said "it wouldn't take much crape for the children's dresses, +they wuz so little, only the baby's; that would have to be long."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "The baby would look better in white, and it will take sights of +crape for a long baby dress."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but S. Annie can use it afterwards for veils. She is very +economical; she takes it from me. And she feels jest as I do, that the +baby must wear it in respect to her father's memory."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "The baby don't know crape from a clothes-pin."</p> + +<p>"No," sez Cephas, +"but in after years the thought of the respect she showed will sustain +her."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, "I guess she won't have much besides thoughts to live on, +if things go on in this way."</p> + +<p>I would give little hints in this way, but they wuzn't took. Things went +right on as if I hadn't spoke. And I couldn't contend, for truly, as a +bad little boy said once on a similar occasion, "it wuzn't my funeral," +so I had to set and work on that insane bedquilt and see it go on. But +I sithed constant and frequent, and when I wuz all alone in the room I +indulged in a few low groans.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<a name="c10"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="046c10.jpg (95K)" src="images/046c10.jpg" height="694" width="588"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER X.</p> + +<p> +We dressmakers wuz in the house, to stay all the time till the dresses +wuz done; and clerks would come around, anon, if not oftener, with +packages of mournin' goods, and mournin' jewelry, and mournin' +handkerchiefs, and mournin' stockings, and mournin' stockin'-supporters, +and mournin' safety-pins, and etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Every one of 'em, I knew, a-wrenchin' boards offen the sides of that +house that Wellington had worked so hard to get for his wife and little +ones.</p> + +<p>Wall, the day of the funeral come. It wuz a wet, drizzly day, but Cephas +wuz up early, to see that everything wuz as he wanted it to be.</p> + +<p>As fur as I wuz concerned, I had done my duty, for the crazy bedquilt +wuz done; and though brains might totter as they looked at it, I felt +that it wuzn't my fault. Sally Ann spread it out with complacency over +the lounge, and thanked me, with tears in her eyes, for my noble deed.</p> + +<p>Along quite early in the mornin', before the show commenced, I went in +to see Wellington.</p> + +<p>He lay there calm and peaceful, with a look on his face as if he had got +away at last from a atmosphere of show and sham, and had got into the +great Reality of life.</p> + +<p>It wuz a good face, and the worryment and care that folks told me had +been on it for years had all faded away. But the look of determination, +and resolve, and bravery,—that wuz ploughed too deep in his face to be +smoothed out, even by the mighty hand that had lain on it. The resolved +look, the brave look with which he had met the warfare of life, toiled +for victory over want, toiled to place his dear and helpless ones in a +position of safety,—that look wuz on his face yet, as if the deathless +hope and endeavor had gone on into eternity with him.</p> + +<p>And by the side of him, on a table, wuz the big high flower-pieces, +beginnin' already to wilt and decay.</p> + +<p>Wall, it's bein' such an uncommon bad day, there wuzn't many to the +funeral. But we rode to the meetin'-house in Loontown in a state and +splendor that I never expect to again. Cephas had hired eleven mournin' +coaches, and the day bein' so bad, and so few a-turnin' out to the +funeral, that in order to occupy all the coaches—and Cephas thought it +would look better and more popular to have 'em all occupied—we divided +up, and Josiah went in one, alone, and lonesome as a dog, as he said +afterwards to me. And I sot up straight and oncomfortable in another one +on 'em, stark alone.</p> + +<p>Cephas had one to himself, and his wife another one, and two old maids, +sisters of Cephas'ses who always made a point of attendin' funerals, +they each one of 'em had one. S. Annie and her children, of course, had +the first one, and then the minister had one, and one of the trustees in +the neighborhood had another; so we lengthened out into quite a crowd, +all a-follerin' the shiny hearse, and the casket all covered with showy +plated nails. I thought of it in jest that way, for Wellington, I knew, +the real Wellington, wuzn't there. No, he wuz fur away—as fur as the +Real is from the Unreal. Wall, we filed into the Loontown meetin'-house +in pretty good shape. The same meetin'-house I had been sent to +reconoiter. But Cephas hadn't no black handkerchief, and he looked +worried about it. He had shed tears a-tellin' me about it, what a +oversight it wuz, while I wuz a fixin' on his mournin' weed. He took it +into his head to have a deeper weed at the last minute, so I fixed it +on. He had the weed come up to the top of his hat and lap over. I never +see so tall a weed. But it suited Cephas; he said "he thought it showed +deep respect."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, "it is a deep weed, anyway—the deepest I ever see." And +he said as I wuz a sewin' it on, he a-holdin' his hat for me, "that +Wellington deserved it; he deserved it all."</p> + +<p>But, as I say, he shed tears to think that his handkerchief wuzn't +black-bordered. He said "it wuz a fearful oversight; it would probably +make talk."</p> + +<p>"But," I sez, "mebby it won't be noticed."</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="047.jpg (123K)" src="images/047.jpg" height="629" width="638"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>"Yes, it will," sez he. "It will be noticed." And sez he, "I don't care +about myself, but I am afraid it will reflect onto Wellington. I am +afraid they will think it shows a lack of respect for him. For +Wellington's sake I feel cut down about it."</p> + +<p>And I sez, "I guess where Wellington is now, the color of a handkerchief +border hain't a-goin' to make much difference to him either way."</p> + +<p>And I don't spoze it wuz noticed much, for there wuzn't more'n ten or a +dozen folks there when we went in. We went in in Injin file mostly by +Cephas'ses request, so's to make more show. And as a procession we wuz +middlin' long, but ruther thin.</p> + +<p>The sermon wuz not so very good as to quality, but abundant as to +quantity. It wuz, as nigh as I could calkerlate, about a hour and +three-quarters long. Josiah whispered to me along about the last that +"we had been there over seven hours, and his legs wuz paralyzed."</p> + +<p>And I whispered back that "seven hours would take us into the night, and +to stretch his feet out and pinch 'em," which he did.</p> + +<p>But it wuz long and tegus. My feet got to sleep twice, and I had hard +work to wake 'em up agin. The sermon meant to be about Wellington, I +s'pose; he did talk a sight about him, and then he kinder branched off +onto politics, and then the Inter-State bill; he kinder favored it, I +thought.</p> + +<p>Wall, we all got drippin' wet a-goin' home, for Cephas insisted on our +gettin' out at the grave, for he had hired some uncommon high singers +(high every way, in price and in notes) to sing at the grave.</p> + +<p>And so we disembarked in the drippin' rain, on the wet grass, and formed +a procession agin. And Cephas had a long exercise light there in the +rain. But the singin' wuz kinder jerky and curius, and they had got +their pay beforehand, so they hurried it through. And one man, the +tenor, who wuz dretful afraid of takin' cold, hurried through his part +and got through first, and started on a run for the carriage. The others +stood their grounds till the piece wuz finished, but they put on some +dretful curius quavers. I believe they had had chills; it sounded like +it.</p> + +<p>Take it altogether, I don't believe anybody got much satisfaction out of +it, only Cephas. S. Annie sp'ilt her dress and bonnet entirely—they wuz +wilted all down; and she ordered another suit jest like it before +she slept. Wall, the next mornin' early two men come with plans for +monuments. Cephas had telegrafted to 'em to come with plans and bid for +the job of furnishin' the monument.</p> + +<p>And after a good deal of talk on both sides, Cephas and S. Annie +selected one that wuz very high and p'inted.</p> + +<p>The men stayed to dinner, and I said to Cephas out to one side—</p> + +<p>"Cephas, that monument is a-goin' to cost a sight."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez he, "we can't raise too high a one. Wellington deserved it +all."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "Won't that and all these funeral expenses take about all the +money he left?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" sez he. "He had insured his life for a large amount, and it +all goes to his wife and children. He deserves a monument if a man ever +did."</p> + +<p>"But," sez I, "don't you believe that Wellington would ruther have S. +Annie and the children settled down in a good little home with sumthin' +left to take care of 'em, than to have all this money spent in perfectly +useless things?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Useless!</i>" sez Cephas, turnin' red. "Why," sez he, +"if you wuzn't a near relation I should resent that speech bitterly."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, "what do all these flowers, and empty carriages, and +silver-plated nails, and crape, and so forth—what does it all amount +to?"</p> + +<p>"Respect and honor to his memory," sez Cephas, proudly.</p> + +<p>Sez I, "Such a life as Wellington's had them; no body could take 'em +away nor deminish 'em. Such a brave, honest life is crowned with honor +and respect any way. It don't need no crape, nor flowers, nor monuments +to win 'em. And, at the same time," sez I dreamily, "if a man is mean, +no amount of crape, or flower-pieces, or flowery sermons, or obituries, +is a-goin' to cover up that meanness. A life has to be lived out-doors +as it were; it can't be hid. A string of mournin' carriages, no matter +how long, hain't a-goin' to carry a dishonorable life into honor, and +no grave, no matter how low and humble it is, is a-goin' to cover up a +honorable life.</p> + +<p>"Such a life as Wellington's don't need no monument to carry up the +story of his virtues into the heavens; it is known there already. And +them that mourn his loss don't need cold marble words to recall his +goodness and faithfulness. The heart where the shadow of his eternal +absence has fell don't need crape to make it darker.</p> + +<p>"Wellington wouldn't be forgot if S. Annie wore pure white from day +today. No, nobody that knew Wellington, from all I have hearn of him, +needs crape to remind 'em that he wuz once here and now is gone.</p> + +<p>"Howsomever, as fur as that is concerned, I always feel that mourners +must do as they are a mind to about crape, with fear and tremblin'—that +is, if they are well off, and <i>can</i> do as they are a mind to; and the +same with monuments, flowers, empty coaches, etc. But in this case, +Cephas Bodley, I wouldn't be a doin' my duty if I didn't speak my mind. +When I look at these little helpless souls that are left in a cold world +with nothin' to stand between them and want but the small means their pa +worked so hard for and left for the express purpose of takin' care of +'em, it seems to me a foolish thing, and a cruel thing, to spend all +that money on what is entirely onnecessary."</p> + +<p>"Onnecessary!" sez Cephas, +angrily. "Agin I say, Josiah Allen's wife, that if it wuzn't for our +close relationship I should turn on you. A worm will turn," sez he, "if +it is too hardly trampled on."</p> + +<p>"I hain't trampled on you," sez I, "nor hain't had no idea on't. I wuz +only statin' the solemn facts and truth of the matter. And you will see +it some time, Cephas Bodley, if you don't now."</p> + +<p>Sez Cephas, "The worm has turned, Josiah Allen's wife! Yes, I feel that +I have got to look now to more distant relations for comfort. Yes, the +worm has been stomped on too heavy."</p> + +<p>He looked cold, cold as a iceickle almost. And I see that jest the few +words I had spoke, jest the slight hints I had gin, hadn't been took as +they should have been took. So I said no more. For agin the remark of +that little bad boy came up in my mind and restrained me from sayin' any +more.</p> + +<p>Truly, as the young male child observed, "it wuzn't my funeral."</p> + +<p>We went home almost immegiately afterwards, my heart nearly a-bleedin' +for the little children, poor little creeters, and Cephas actin' cold +and distant to the last And we hain't seen 'em sence. But news has come +from them, and come straight. Josiah heerd to Jonesville all about it. +And though it is hitchin' the democrat buggy on front of the mare—to +tell the end of the funeral here—yet I may as well tell it now and be +done with it.</p> + +<p>The miller at Loontown wuz down to the Jonesville mill to get the loan +of some bags, and Josiah happened to be there to mill that day, and +heerd all about it.</p> + +<p>Cephas had got the monument, and the ornaments on it cost fur more than +he expected. There wuz a wreath a-runnin' round it clear from the bottom +to the top, and verses a kinder runnin' up it at the same time. And it +cost fearful. Poetry a-runnin' up, they say, costs fur more than it duz +on a level.</p> + +<p>Any way, the two thousand dollars that wuz insured on Wellington's life +wuzn't quite enough to pay for it. But the sale of his law library and +the best of the housen' stuff paid it. The nine hundred he left went, +every mite of it, to pay the funeral expenses and mournin' for the +family.</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="048.jpg (103K)" src="images/048.jpg" height="634" width="640"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>And as bad luck always follers on in a procession, them mortgages of +Cephas'ses all run out sort o' together. His creditors sold him out, +and when his property wuz all disposed of it left him over fourteen +hundred dollars in debt.</p> + +<p>The creditors acted perfectly greedy, so they say—took everything they +could; and one of the meanest ones took that insane bedquilt that I +finished. That <i>wuz</i> mean. They say Sally Ann crumpled right down +when that wuz took. Some say that they got hold of that tall weed of +Cephas'ses, and some dispute it; some say that he wore it on the last +ride he took in Loontown.</p> + +<p>But, howsomever, Cephas wuz took sick, Sally Ann wuzn't able to do +anything for their support, S. Annie wuz took down with the typhus, and +so it happened the very day the monument wuz brought to the Loontown +cemetery, Cephas Bodley's folks wuz carried to the county house, S. +Annie, the children and all.</p> + +<p>And it happened dretful curius, but the town hired that very team that +drawed the monument there, to take the family back.</p> + +<p>It wuz a good team.</p> + +<p>The monument wuzn't set up, for they lacked money to pay for the +underpinnin'! (Wuz n't it curius, Cephas Bodley never would think of the +underpinnin' to anything?) But it lay there by the side of the road, a +great white shape.</p> + +<p>And they say the children wuz skairt, and cried when they went by +it—cried and wept.</p> + +<p>But I believe it wuz because they wuz cold and hungry that made 'em cry. +I don't believe it wuz the monument.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<a name="c11"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="049c11.jpg (96K)" src="images/049c11.jpg" height="744" width="599"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER XI.</p> + + +<p>A few days follerin' on and ensuin' after this +eppisode, Submit Tewksburv wuz a takin' supper with me. She had come +home with me from the meetin' house where we had been to work all day.</p> + +<p>I had urged her to stay, for she lived a mile further on the road, and +had got to walk home afoot.</p> + +<p>And she hain't any too well off, Submit hain't—she has to work hard for +every mite of food she eats, and clothes she wears, and fuel and lights, +etc., etc.</p> + +<p>So I keep her to dinners and suppers all I can, specially when we are +engaged in meetin' house work, for as poor as Submit is, she will insist +on doin' for the meetin' house jest as much as any other female woman in +Jonesville.</p> + +<p>She is quite small boneded, and middlin' good lookin' for a women of her +years. She has got big dark eyes, very soft and mellow lookin' in +expression—and a look deep down into 'em, as if she had been waitin' +for something, for some time. Her hair is gettin' quite gray now, but +its original color was auburn, and she has got quite a lot of it—kinder +crinkly round her forward. Her complexion is pale. She is a very good +lookin' woman yet, might marry any day of the week now, I hain't no +doubt of it. She is a single woman, but is well thought on in +Jonesville, and the southern part of Zoar, where she has relatives on +her mother's side.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="050.jpg (60K)" src="images/050.jpg" height="534" width="337"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>She has had chances to my certain knowledge (widowers and such).</p> + +<p>But if all the men in the world should come and stand in rows in front +of her gate with gilded crowns in their hands all ready to crown her, +and septers all ready for her to grasp holt of, and wield over the +world, she would refuse every one of 'em.</p> + +<p>She has had a disappointment, Submit has. And she looked at the world so +long through tears, that the world got to lookin' sort o' dim like and +shadowy to her, and the whole men race looked to her fur off and misty, +as folks will when you look at 'em through a rain.</p> + +<p>She couldn't marry one of them shadows of men, if she tried, and she +hain't never tried. No, her heart always has been, and is now, fur away, +a-travellin' through unknown regions, unknown, and yet more real to her +than Jonesville or Zoar, a-follerin' the one man in the world who is a +reality to her. Submit wuz engaged to a young Methodist minister by the +name of Samuel Danker. I remember him well. A good lookin' young fellow +at the time, with blue eyes and light hair, ruther long and curly, and +kinder wavin' back from his forward, and a deep spiritual look in his +eyes. In fact, his eyes looked right through the fashions and follys of +the civilized world, into the depths of ignorance, rivers of ruin and +despair, that wuz a-washin' over a human race, black jungles where naked +sin and natural depravities crouched hungry for victims.</p> + +<p>Samuel Danker felt that he had got to go into heathen lands as a +missionary. He wuz engaged to Submit, and loved her dearly, and he urged +her to go too.</p> + +<p>But Submit had a invalid father on her hands, a bed rid grandfather, and +three young brothers, too young to earn a thing, and they all on 'em +together hadn't a cent of money to their names. They had twenty-five +acres of middlin' poor land, and a old house.</p> + +<p>Wall, Submit felt that she couldn't leave these helpless ones and go +to more foreign heathen lands. So, with a achin' heart, she let Samuel +Danker go from her, for he felt a call, loud, and she couldn't counsel +him to shet up his ears, or put cotton into 'em. Submit Tewksbury had +always loved and worked for the Methodist meetin' house (she jined it +on probation when she wuz thirteen). But although she always had been +extremely liberal in givin', and had made a practice of contributin' +every cent she could spare to the meetin' house, it wuz spozed that +Samuel Danker wuz the biggest offerin' she had ever give to it.</p> + +<p>Fur it wuz known that he went to her the night before he sot sail, took +supper with her, and told her she should decide the matter for him, +whether he went or whether he staid.</p> + +<p>It wuz spozed his love for Submit wuz so great that it made him waver +when the time come that he must leave her to her lot of toil and +sacrifice and loneliness.</p> + +<p>But Submit loved the Methodist meetin' house to that extent, she leaned +so hard on the arm of Duty, that she nerved up her courage anew, refused +to accept the sacrifice of his renunciation, bid him go to his great +work, and quit himself like a man—told him she would always love him, +pray for him, be constant to him. And she felt that the Master they both +wanted to serve would some day bring him back to her.</p> + +<p>So he sailed away to his heathens—and Submit stayed to home with her +five helpless males and her achin' heart. And if I had to tell which +made her the most trouble, I couldn't to save my life.</p> + +<p>She knew the secret of her achin' heart, and the long dark nights she +kep awake with it. The neighbors couldn't understand that exactly, for +there hain't no language been discovered yet that will give voice to +the silent crys of a breakin' heart, a tender heart, a constant heart, +cryin' out acrost the grayness of dreary days acrost the blackness of +lonely nights.</p> + +<p>But we could see her troubles with the peevish paralasys of age, with +the tremendus follys of undisciplined youth.</p> + +<p>But Submit took care of the hull caboodle of 'em; worked out some by +days' works, to get more necessaries for 'em than the poor little +farm would bring in; nursed the sick on their sick-beds and on their +death-beds, till she see 'em into Heaven—or that is where we spoze +they went to, bein' deservin' old males both on 'em, her father and her +grandfather, and in full connectin with the Methodist Episcopel meetin' +house.</p> + +<p>She took care of her young brothers, patient with 'em always, ready to +mend bad rents in their clothin' and their behavior—tryin' to prop up +their habits and their morals, givin' 'em all the schoolin' she could, +givin' 'em all a good trade, all but the youngest, him she kep with her +always till the Lord took him (scarlet fever), took him to learn the +mysterius trade of the immortals.</p> + +<p>Submit had a hard fit of sickness after that. And when she got up agin, +there wuz round her pale forward a good many white hairs that wuz orburn +before the little boy went away from her.</p> + +<p>Sense that, the other boys have married, and Submit has lived alone in +the old farm-house, lettin' the farm out on shares. It is all run +down; she don't get much from it; it don't yield much but trouble and +burdocks, but as little as she gets, she always will, as I say, do her +full share, and more than her share, for the meetin' house.</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="051.jpg (129K)" src="images/051.jpg" height="680" width="652"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>Some think it is on account of her inherient goodness, and some think +it is on account of Samuel Danker.</p> + +<p>We all spose she hain't forgot Samuel. And they do say that every year +when the day comes round, that he took supper with her for the last +time, she puts a plate on for him—the very one he eat on last—-a pink +edged chiny plate, with gilt sprigs, the last one left of her mother's +first set of chiny.</p> + +<p>That is what they <i>say</i>, I hain't never seen the plate.</p> + +<p>It is now about twenty years sense Samuel Danker went to heathen lands. +And as it wuz a man-eatin' tribe he went to preach to, and as he hain't +been heern of from that day to this, it is spozed that they eat him up +some years ago.</p> + +<p>But it is thought that Submit hain't gin up hope yet. We spoze so, but +don't know, on account of her never sayin' anything on the subject. But +we judge from the plate.</p> + +<p>Wall, as I say (and I have episoded fearfully, fearfully), Submit took +supper with me that night. And after Josiah had put out his horse (he +had been to Jonesville for the evenin' mail, and stopped for us at the +meetin' house on his way back), he took the <i>World</i> out of his pocket, +and perused it for some time, and from that learned the great news that +wimmen wuz jest about to be held up agin, to see if her strength wuz +sufficient to set on the Conference.</p> + +<p>And oh! how Josiah Allen went on about it to Submit and me, all the +while we wuz a eatin' supper—and for more'n a hour afterwuds.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<a name="c12"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="052c12.jpg (107K)" src="images/052c12.jpg" height="765" width="611"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER XII.</p> + +<p> +Submit wuz very skairt to heern him go on (she felt more nervous on +account of an extra hard day's work), and I myself wuz beat out, but I +wuzn't afraid at all of him, though he did go on elegant, and dretful +empressive and even skairful.</p> + +<p>He stood up on the same old ground that men have always stood up on, +the ground of man's great strength and capability, and wimmen's utter +weakness, helplessness, and incapacity. Josiah enlarged almost wildly on +the subject of how high, how inaccessibley lofty the Conference wuz, and +the utter impossibility of a weak, helpless, fragaile bein' like a women +ever gettin' up on it, much less settin' on it. And then, oh how vividly +he depictered it, how he and every other male Methodist in the land +loved wimmen too well, worshipped 'em too deeply to put such a wearin' +job onto 'em. Oh how Josiah Allen soared up in eloquence. Submit shed +tears, or, that is, I thought she did—I see her wipe her eyes any way. +Some think that about the time the Samuel Danker anniversary comes +round, she is more nervous and deprested. It wuz very near now, and +take that with her hard work that day, it accounts some for her extra +depression—though, without any doubt, it wuz Josiah's talk that started +the tears.</p> + +<p>I couldn't bear to see Submit look so mournful and deprested, and so, +though I wuz that tired myself that I could hardly hold my head up, yet +I did take my bits in my teeth, as you may say, and asked him—</p> + +<p>What the awful hard job wuz that he and other men wuz so anxus to ward +offen wimmen.</p> + +<p>And he sez, "Why, a settin' on the Conference."</p> + +<p>And I sez, "I don't believe that is such a awful hard job to tackle."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, it is," sez Josiah in his most skairful axent, "yes, it +is."</p> + +<p>And he shook his head meenin'ly and impressively, and looked at me and +Submit in as mysterius and strange a way, es I have ever been looked at +in my life, and I have had dretful curius looks cast onto me, from first +to last. And he sez in them deep impressive axents of hisen,</p> + +<p>"You jest try it once, and see—I have sot on it, and I know."</p> + +<p>Josiah wuz sent once as a delegate to the Methodist Conference, so I +spozed he did know.</p> + +<p>But I sez, "Why you come home the second day when you sot as happy as a +king, and you told me how you had rested off durin' the two days, and +how you had visited round at Uncle Jenkins'es, and Cousin Henn's, and +you said that you never had had such a good time in your hull life, as +you did when you wuz a settin'. You looked as happy as a king, and acted +so."</p> + +<p>Josiah looked dumbfounded for most a quarter of a minute. For he knew my +words wuz as true es anything ever sot down in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, +or any of the other old patriarks. He knew it wuz Gospel truth, that +he had boasted of his good times a settin', and as I say for nearly a +quarter of a minute he showed plain signs of mortification.</p> + +<p>But almost imegietly he recovered himself, and went on with the doggy +obstinacy of his sect: "Oh, wall! Men can tackle hard jobs, and get some +enjoyment out of it too, when it is in the line of duty. One thing that +boys em' up, and makes em' happy, is the thought that they are a keepin' +trouble and care offen wimmen. That is a sweet thought to men, and +always wuz. And there wuz great strains put onto our minds, us men that +sot, that wimmen couldn't be expected to grapple with, and hadn't ort to +try to. It wuz a great strain onto us."</p> + +<p>"What was the nater of the strain?" sez I. "I didn't know as you did a +thing only sot still there and go to sleep. <i>You</i> wuz fast asleep there +most the hull of the time, for it come straight to me from them that +know. And all that Deacon Bobbet did who went with you wuz to hold up +his hand two or three times a votin'. I shouldn't think that wuz so +awful wearin'."</p> + +<p>And agin I sez, "What wuz the strain?"</p> + +<p>But Josiah didn't answer, for that very minute he remembered a pressin' +engagement he had about borrowin' a plow. He said he had got to go up to +Joe Charnick's to get his plow. (I don't believe he wanted a plow that +time of night.) But he hurried away from the spot. And soon after Submit +went home lookin' more deprested and down-casted than ever.</p> + +<p>And Josiah Allen didn't get home till <i>late</i> at night. I dare persume to +say it wuz as late as a quarter to nine when that man got back to the +bosom of his family.</p> + +<p>And I sot there all alone, and a-meditatin' on things, and a-wonderin' +what under the sun he wuz a-traipsin up to Joe Charnick's for at that +time of night, and a-worryin' some for fear he wuz a-keepin' Miss +Charnick up, and a-spozin' in my mind what Miss Charnick would do, to +get along with the meetin' house, and the Conference question, if she +wuz a member. (She is a <i>very</i> sensible woman, Jenette Charnick is, +<i>very</i>, and a great favorite with me, and others.)</p> + +<p>And I got to thinkin' how prosperus and happy she is now, and how much +she had went through. And I declare the hull thing come back to me, all +the strange and curius circumstances connected with her courtship and +marriage, and I thought it all out agin, the hull story, from beginnin' +to end.</p> + +<p>The way it begun wuz—and the way Josiah Allen and me come to have any +connectin with the story wuz as follers:</p> + +<p>Some time ago, and previus, we had a widder come to stay with us a +spell, she that wuz Tamer Shelmadine, Miss Trueman Pool that now is.</p> + +<p>Her husband died several years ago, and left her not over and above +well off. And so she goes round a-visitin', and has went ever sense his +death. And finds sights of faults with things wherever she is, sights of +it.</p> + +<p>Trueman wuz Josiah's cousin, on his own side, and I always made a +practice of usin' her quite well. She used to live neighbor to me before +I wuz married, and she come and stayed nine weeks.</p> + +<p>She is a tall spindlin' woman, a Second Adventist by perswasion, and +weighs about ninety-nine pounds.</p> + +<p>Wall, as I say, she means middlin' well, and would be quite agreeable +if it wuzn't for a habit she has of thinkin' what she duz is a leetle +better than anybody else can do, and wantin' to tell a leetle better +story than anybody else can.</p> + +<p>Now she thinks she looks better than I do. But Josiah sez she can't +begin with me for looks, and I don't spoze she can, though of course it +hain't to be expected that I would want it told of that I said so. No, I +wouldn't want it told of pro or con, especially con. But I know Josiah +Allen has always been called a pretty good judge of wimmen's looks.</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="053.jpg (41K)" src="images/053.jpg" height="534" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>And now she thinks she can set hens better than I can—and make better +riz biscuit. She jest the same as told me so. Any way, the first time +I baked bread after she got here, she looked down on my loaves real +haughty, yet with a pityin' look, and sez:</p> + +<p>"It is very good for yeast, but I always use milk emptin's."</p> + +<p>And she kinder tested her head, and sort o' swept out of the room, not +with a broom, no, she would scorn to sweep out a room with a broom or +help me in any way, but she sort o' swept it out with her mean. But I +didn't care, I knew my bread wuz good.</p> + +<p>Now if anybody is sick, she will always tell of times when she has been +sicker. She boasts of layin' three nights and two days in a fit. But we +don't believe it, Josiah and me don't. That is, we don't believe she lay +there so long, a-runnin'.</p> + +<p>We believe she come out of 'em occasionally.</p> + +<p>But you couldn't get her to give off a hour or a minute of the time. +Three nights and two days she lay there a-runnin', so she sez, and she +has said it so long, that we spoze, Josiah and me do, that she believes +it herself now.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr><br><br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3. +by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + +***** This file should be named 9445-h.htm or 9445-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/4/9445/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3. + +Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +SAMANTHA + +AMONG THE BRETHREN. + +By + +"Josiah Allen's Wife" + +(Marietta Holley) + + +Part 3 + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +But along about the middle of the fifth week I see a change. Lodema +had been uncommon exasperatin', and I expected she would set Josiah to +goin', and I groaned in spirit, to think what a job wuz ahead of me, to +part their two tongues--when all of a sudden I see a curius change come +over my pardner's face. + +I remember jest the date that the change in his mean wuz visible, and +made known to me--for it wuz the very mornin' that we got the invitation +to old Mr. and Miss Pressley's silver weddin'. And that wuz the +fifteenth day of the month along about the middle of the forenoon. + +And it wuz not half an hour after Elnathen Pressley came to the door and +give us the invitations, that I see the change in his mean. + +And when I asked him about it afterwards, what that strange and curius +look meant, he never hung back a mite from tellin' me, but sez right out +plain: + +"Mebby, Samantha, I hain't done exactly as I ort to by cousin Lodema, +and I have made up my mind to make her a happy surprise before she goes +away." + +"Wall," sez I, "so do." + +I thought he wuz goin' to get her a new dress. She had been a-hintin' +to him dretful strong to that effect. She wanted a parmetty, or a +balzereen, or a circassien, which wuz in voge in her young days. But I +wuz in hopes he would get her a cashmere, and told him so, plain. + +But I couldn't get him to tell what the surprise wuz. He only sez, sez +he: + +"I am goin' to make her a happy surprise." + +And the thought that he wuz a-goin' to branch out and make a change, wuz +considerable of a comfort to me. And I needed comfort--yes, indeed I +did--I needed it bad. For not one single thing did I do for her that I +done right, though I tried my best to do well by her. + +But she found fault with my vittles from mornin' till night, though I am +called a excellent cook all over Jonesville, and all round the adjoining +country, out as far as Loontown, and Zoar. It has come straight back to +me by them that wouldn't lie. But it hain't made me vain. + +But I never cooked a thing that suited Lodema, not a single thing. Most +of my vittles wuz too fresh, and then if I braced up and salted 'em +extra so as to be sure to please her, why then they wuz briny, and hurt +her mouth. + +Why, if you'll believe it, I give her a shawl, made her a present of it; +it had even checks black and white, jest as many threads in the black +stripes as there wuz in the white, for I counted 'em. + +And she told me, after she had looked it all over and said it wuz kinder +thin and slazy, and checkered shawls had gone out of fashion, and the +black looked some as if it would fade with washin', and the white wuzn't +over clear, and the colors wuzn't no ways becomin' to her complexion, +and etcetery, etcetery. + +"But," sez she, after she had got all through with the rest of her +complaints--"if the white stripes wuz where the black wuz, and the black +where the white wuz, she should like it quite well." And there it wuz, +even check, two and two. Wall, that wuz a sample of her doin's. If +anybody had a Roman nose she wanted a Greecy one. + +[Illustration: "IF THE WHITE STRIPES WUZ WHERE THE BLACK WUZ."] + +And if the nose wuz Greece, why then she wanted Rome. + +Why, Josiah sez to me along about the third week, he said (to ourselves, +in private), "that if Lodema went to Heaven she would be dissatisfied +with it, and think it wuz livelier, and more goin' on down to the other +place." And he said she would get the angels all stirred up a findin' +fault with their feathers. + +I told him "I would not hear such talk." + +"Wall," sez he, "don't you believe it?" + +And I kinder turned him off, and wouldn't tell, and told him it wuz +wicked to talk so. + +"Wall," sez Josiah, "you dassent say she wouldn't." + +And I dassent, though I wouldn't own it up to him, I dassent. + +And if she kinder got out of other occupations for a minute durin' them +first weeks she would be a quarrelin' with Josiah Allen about age. + +I s'pose she and Josiah wuzn't far from the same age, for they wuz +children together. But she wanted to make out she wuz young. + +And she would tell Josiah that "he seemed jest like a father to her, and +always had." And sometimes when she felt the most curius, she would call +him "Father," and "Pa," and "Papa." And it would mad Josiah Allen so +that I would have all I could do to quell him down. + +Now I didn't feel so, I didn't mind it so much. Why, there would be +days, when she felt the curiusest, that she would call me "Mother," and +"Ma," and foller me round with foot-stools and things, when I went to +set down, and would kinder worry over my fallin' off the back step, and +would offer to help me up the suller stairs, and so forth, and watchin' +over what I et, and tellin' me folks of my age ort to be careful, and +not over-eat. + +And Josiah asked me to ask her "How she felt about that time?" For she +wuz from three to four years older than I wuz. + +But I wouldn't contend with her, and the footstools come kinder handy, I +had jest as lieve have 'em under my feet as not, and ruther. And as for +rich vittles not agreein' with me, and my not over-eatin', I broke that +tip by fallin' right in with her, and not cookin' such good things--that +quelled her down, and gaulded Josiah too. + +But, as I said, it riled Josiah the worst of anything to have Lodema +call him father, for he wants to make out that he is kinder young +himself. + +And sez he to her one day, about the third week, when she was a-goin' +on about how good and fatherly he looked, and how much he seemed like +a parent to her, and always had, sez he: "I wonder if I seemed like a +father to you when we wuz a-kickin' at each other in the same cradle?" +Sez he: "We both used to nuss out of the same bottle, any way, for +I have heard my mother say so lots of times. There wuzn't ten days' +difference in our ages. You wuz ten days the oldest as I have always +made out." + +She screamed right out, "Why, Josiah Allen, where is your conscience to +talk in that way--and your heart?" + +"In here, where everybody's is," sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his +right hand--he meant to strike against his left breast, but struck too +low, kinder on his stomach. + +And sez I, "That is what I have always thought, Josiah Allen. I have +always had better luck reachin' your conscience through your stomach +than in any other way. And now," sez I coldly, "do you go out and bring +in a pail of water." + +I used to get beat out and sick of their scufflin's and disagreein's, +and broke 'em up whenever I could. + +But oh! oh! how she did quarrel with Josiah Allen and that buzz saw +scheme of his'n. How light she made of that enterprise, how she demeaned +the buzz, and run the saws--till I felt that bad as I hated the +enterprise myself, I felt that a variety of loud buzz saws would be a +welcome relief from her tongue--from their two tongues; for as fur down +as she would run them buzz saws, jest so fur would Josiah Allen praise +'em up. + +[Illustration: LODEMA AND JOSIAH IN YOUTH.] + +She never agreed with Josiah Allen but in jest one thing while she was +under his ruff. I happened to mention one day how extremely anxious I +wuz to have females set on the Conference; and then, wantin' to dispute +me, and also bein' set on that side, she run down the project, and +called it all to nort--and when too late she see that she had got over +on Josiah Allen's side of the fence. + +But it had one good effect. When that man see she wuz there, he waded +off, way out of sight of the project, and wouldn't mention it--it madded +him so to be on the same side of the fence she wuz--so that it seemed +to happen all for the best. + +Why, I took her as a dispensation from the first, and drawed all sorts +of morels from her, and sights of 'em--sights. + +But oh, it wuz tuff on me, fearful tuff. + +And when she calculated and laid out to make out her visit and go, wuz +more than we could tell. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +For two weeks had passed away like a nite mair of the nite--and three +weeks, and four weeks--and she didn't seem to be no nigher goin' than +she did when she came. + +And I would not make a move towards gettin' rid of her, not if I had +dropped down in my tracts, because she wuz one of the relatives on his +side. + +But I wuz completely fagged out; it did seem, as I told Tirzah Ann one +day in confidence, "that I never knew the meanin' of the word 'fag' +before." + +And Tirzah Ann told me (she couldn't bear her) that if she wuz in my +place, she would start her off. Sez she: + +"She has plenty of brothers and sisters, and a home of her own, and why +should she come here to torment you and father;" and sez she, "I'll talk +to her, mother, I'd jest as leve as not." Sez I, "Tirzah Ann, if you +say a word to her, I'll--I'll never put confidence in you agin;" sez I, +"Life is full of tribulations, and we must expect to bear our crosses;" +sez I, "The old martyrs went through more than Lodema." + +Sez Tirzah Ann, "I believe Lodema would have wore out John Rogers." + +And I don't know but she would, but I didn't encourage her by ownin' it +up that she would; but I declare for't, I believe she would have been +more tegus than the nine children, and the one at the breast, any way. + +Wall, as I said, it wuz durin' the fifth week that Josiah Allen turned +right round, and used her first rate. + +And when she would talk before folks about how much filial affection she +had for him, and about his always havin' been jest like a parent to her, +and everything of the kind--he never talked back a mite, but looked +clever, and told me in confidence, "That he had turned over a new leaf, +and he wuz goin' to surprise her--give her a happy surprise." + +And he seemed, instead of lovin' to rile her up, as he had, to jest put +his hull mind on the idee of the joyful surprise. + +Wall, I am always afraid (with reason) of Josiah Allen's enterprizes. +But do all I could, he wouldn't tell me one word about what he wuz goin' +to do, only he kep it up, kep a-sayin' that, + +"It wuz somethin' I couldn't help approvin' of, and it wuz somethin' +that would happify me, and be a solid comfort to her, and a great gain +and honor." + +So (though I trembled some for the result) I had to let it go on, for +she wuz one of the relations on his own side, and I knew it wouldn't do +for me to interfere too much, and meddle. + +Why, he did come right out one day and give hints to me to that effect. + +Sez I, "Why do you go on and be so secret about it? Why don't you tell +your companion all about it, what you are a-goin' to do, and advise with +her?" + +And he sez, "I guess I know what I am about. She is one of the relations +on my side, and I guess I have got a few rights left, and a little +spunk." + +"Yes," sez I, sadly, "you have got the spunk." + +"Wall," sez he, "I guess I can spunk up, and do somethin' for one of my +own relations, without any interference or any advice from any of the +Smith family, or anybody else." + +Sez I, "I don't want to stop your doin' all you can for Lodema, but why +not tell what you are a-goin' to do?" + +"It will be time enough when the time comes," sez he. "You will find it +out in the course of next week." + +Wall, it run along to the middle of the next week. And one day I had +jest sot down to tie off a comforter. + +It wuz unbleached cheese cloth that I had bought and colored with tea +leaves. It wuz a sort of a light mice color, a pretty soft gray, and I +wuz goin' to tie it in with little balls of red zephyr woosted, and work +it in buttonhole stitch round the edge with the same. + +It wuz fur our bed, Josiah's and mine, and it wuz goin' to be soft and +warm and very pretty, though I say it, that shouldn't. + +[Illustration: "I HAD JEST SOT DOWN TO TIE OFF A COMFORTER."] + +It wuzn't quite so pretty as them that hain't colored. I had 'em for my +spare beds, cream color tied with pale blue and pink, that wuz perfectly +beautiful and very dressy; but I thought for everyday use a colored one +would be better. + +Wall, I had brought it out and wuz jest a-goin' to put it onto the +frames (some new-fashioned ones I had borrowed from Tirzah Ann for the +occasion). + +And Cousin Lodema had jest observed, "that the new-fashioned frames with +legs wuzn't good for nothin', and she didn't like the color of gray, +it looked too melancholy, and would be apt to depress our feelin's too +much, and would be tryin' to our complexions." + +And I told her "that I didn't spoze there would be a very great +congregation in our bedroom, as a general thing in the dead of night, to +see whether it wuz becomin' to Josiah and me or not. And, it bein' as +dark as Egypt, our complexions wouldn't make a very bad show any way." + +"Wall," she said, "to tie it with red wuzn't at all appropriate, it wuz +too dressy a color for folks of our age, Josiah's and mine." "Why," sez +she, "even _I_, at _my_ age, would skurcely care to sleep under one so +gay. And she wouldn't have a cheese cloth comforter any way." She sort +o' stopped to ketch breath, and Josiah sez: + +"Oh, wall, Lodema, a cheese cloth comforter is better than none, and I +should think you would be jest the one to like any sort of a frame on +legs." + +But I wunk at him, a real severe and warnin' wink, and he stopped short +off, for all the world as if he had forgot bein' on his good behavior; +he stopped short off, and went right to behavin', and sez he to me: + +"Don't put on your comforter to-day, Samantha, for Tirzah Ann and +Whitfield and the babe are a-comin' over here bimeby, and Maggie is +a-comin', and Thomas Jefferson." + +"Wall," sez I, "that is a good reason why I should keep on with it; the +girls can help me if I don't get it off before they get here." + +And then he sez, "Miss Minkley is a-comin', too, and the Elder." + +"Why'ee," sez I, "Josiah Allen, why didn't you tell me before, so I +could have baked up somethin' nice? What a man you are to keep things; +how long have you known it?" + +"Oh, a week or so!" + +"A week!" sez I; "Josiah Allen, where is your conscience? if you have +got a conscience." + +"In the same old place," sez he, kinder hittin' himself in the pit of +his stomach. + +"Wall, I should think as much," sez I. + +And Lodema sez, sez she: "A man that won't tell things is of all +creeters that walks the earth the most disagreeable. And I should think +the girls, Maggie and Tirzah Ann, would want to stay to home and clean +house such a day as this is. And I should think a Elder would want to +stay to home so's to be on hand in case of anybody happenin' to be +exercised in their minds, and wantin to talk to him on religious +subjects. And if I wuz a Elder's wife, I should stay to home with him; +I should think it wuz my duty and my privilege. And if I wuz a married +woman, I would have enough baked up in the house all the time, so's not +to be afraid of company." + +But I didn't answer back. I jest sot away my frames, and went out and +stirred up a cake; I had one kind by me, besides cookies and jell tarts. + +But I felt real worked up to think I hadn't heard. Wall, I hadn't more'n +got that cake fairly into the oven when the children come, and Elder +Minkley and his wife. And I thought they looked queer, and I thought the +Elder begun to tell me somethin', and I thought I see Josiah wink at +him. But I wouldn't want to take my oath whether he wunk or not, but I +_thought_ he wunk. + +I wuz jest a turnin' this over in my mind, and a carryin' away their +things, when I glanced out of the settin' room winder, and lo, and +behold! there wuz Abi Adsit a comin' up to the front door, and right +behind her wuz her Pa and Ma Adsit, and Deacon Henzy and his wife, +and Miss Henn and Metilda, and Lute Pitkins and his wife, and Miss +Petengill, and Deacon Sypher and Drusilly, and Submit Tewksbury--a hull +string of 'em as long as a procession. + +Sez I, and I spoke it right out before I thought--sez I-- + +"Why'ee!" sez I. "For the land's sake!" sez I, "has there been a +funeral, or anything? And are these the mourners?" sez I. "Are they +stoppin' here to warm?" + +For it wuz a cold day--and I repeated the words to myself mechanically +as it wuz, as I see 'em file up the path. + +"They be mourners, hain't they?" + +"No," sez Josiah, who had come in and wuz a standin' by the side of me, +as I spoke out to myself unbeknown to me--sez he in a proud axent-- + +"No, they hain't mourners, they are Happyfiers; they are Highlariers; +they have come to our party. We are givin' a party, Samantha. We are +havin' a diamond weddin' here for Lodema." + +"A diamond weddin'!" I repeated mechanically. + +"Yes, this is my happy surprise for Lodema." + +I looked at Lodema Trumble. She looked strange. She had sunk back in her +chair. I thought she wuz a-goin' to faint, and she told somebody the +next day, "that she did almost lose her conscientiousness." + +"Why," sez I, "she hain't married." + +[Illustration: "WE ARE GIVIN' A PARTY, SAMANTHA."] + +"Wall, she ort to be, if she hain't," sez he. "I say it is high time for +her to have some sort of a weddin'. Everybody is a havin' 'em--tin, and +silver and wooden, and basswood, and glass, and etc.--and I thought it +wuz a perfect shame that Lodema shouldn't have none of no kind--and I +thought I'd lay to, and surprise her with one. Every other man seemed +to be a-holdin' off, not willin' seemin'ly that she should have one, and +I jest thought I would happify her with one." + +"Wall, why didn't you make her a silver one, or a tin?" sez I. + +"Or a paper one!" screamed Lodema, who had riz up out of her almost +faintin' condition. "That would have been much more appropriate," sez +she. + +"Wall, I thought a diamond one would be more profitable to her. For I +asked 'em all to bring diamonds, if they brought anything. And then I +thought it would be more suitable to her age." + +"Why!" she screamed out. "They have to be married seventy-five years +before they can have one." + +"Yes," sez he dreemily, "I thought that would be about the right +figure." + +Lodema wuz too mad to find fault or complain or anything. She jest +marched up-stairs and didn't come down agin that night. And the young +folks had a splendid good time, and the old ones, too. + +Tirzah Ann and Maggie had brought some refreshments with 'em, and so had +some of the other wimmen, and, with what I had, there wuz enough, and +more than enough, to refresh ourselves with. + +Wall, the very next mornin' Lodema marched down like a grenideer, and +ordered Josiah to take her to the train. And she eat breakfast with her +things on, and went away immegiately after, and hain't been back here +sense. + +And I wuz truly glad to see her go, but wuz sorry she went in such a +way, and I tell Josiah he wuz to blame, + +But he acts as innocent as you pleese. And he goes all over the +arguments agin every time I take him to do about it. He sez "she wuz old +enough to have a weddin' of some kind." + +And of course I can't dispute that, when he faces me right down, and +sez: + +"Hain't she old enough?" + +And I'll say, kinder short-- + +"Why, I spoze so!" + +"Wall," sez he, "wouldn't it have been profitable to her if they had +brought diamonds? Wouldn't it have been both surprisin' and profitable?" +And sez he, "I told 'em expressly to bring diamonds if they had more +than they wanted. I charged old Bobbet and Lute Pitkins specially on the +subject. I didn't want 'em to scrimp themselves; but," sez I, "if you +have got more diamonds than you want, Lute, bring over a few to Lodema." + +[Illustration: "IF YOU HAVE GOT MORE DIAMONDS THAN YOU WANT."] + +"Yes," sez I, coldly, "he wuz dretful likely to have diamonds more then +he wanted, workin' out by day's work to support his family. You know +there wuzn't a soul you invited that owned a diamond." + +"How did I know what they owned? I never have prowled round into their +bureau draws and things, tryin' to find out what they had; they might +have had quarts of 'em, and I not know it." + +Sez I, "You did it to make fun of Lodema and get rid of her. And it only +makes it worse to try to smooth it over." Sez I, "I'd be honorable about +it if I wuz in your place, and own up." + +"Own up? What have I got to own up? I shall always say if my orders wuz +carried out, it would have been a profitable affair for Lodema, and it +would--profitable and surprisin'." + +And that is all I can get him to say about it, from that day to this. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +But truly the labors that descended onto my shoulders immegiately after +Lodema's departure wuz hard enough to fill up my hull mind, and tax +every one of my energies. + +Yes, my labors and the labors of the other female Jonesvillians wuz deep +and arjuous in the extreme (of which more and anon bimeby). + +I had been the female appinted in a private and becomin' female way, to +go to Loontown to see the meetin' house there that we heard they had +fixed over in a cheap but commojous way. And for reasons (of which more +and anon) we wanted to inquire into the expense, the looks on't, etc., +etc. + +So I persuaded Josiah Allen to take me over to Loontown on this pressin' +business, and he gin his consent to go on the condition that we should +stop for a visit to Cephas Bodley'ses. Josiah sets store by 'em. You +see they are relations of ourn and have been for some time, entirely +unbeknown to us, and they'd come more'n a year ago a huntin' of us up. +They said they "thought relations ought to be hunted up and hanged +together." They said "the idea of huntin' us up had come to 'em after +readin' my books." They told me so, and I said, "Wall!" I didn't add nor +diminish to that one "wall," for I didn't want to act too backward, nor +too forward. I jest kep' kinder neutral, and said, "Wall!" + +You see Cephas'ses father's sister-in-law wuz stepmother to my aunt's +second cousin on my father's side. And Cephas said that "he had felt +more and more, as years went by, that it wuz a burnin' shame for +relations to not know and love each other." He said "he felt that he +loved Josiah and me dearly." + +I didn't say right out whether it wuz reciprokated or not I kinder said, +"Wall!" agin. + +And I told Josiah, in perfect confidence and the wood-house chamber, +"that I had seen nearer relations than Mr. Bodley'ses folks wuz to us," + +[Illustration: "CEPHAS SAID IT WUZ A BURNIN' SHAME FOR RELATIONS TO +NOT KNOW AND LOVE EACH OTHER."] + +Howsumever, I done well by 'em. Josiah killed a fat turkey, and I baked +it, and done other things for their comfort, and we had quite a good +time. Cephas wuz ruther flowery and enthusiastick, and his mouth and +voice wuz ruther large, but he meant well, I should judge, and we had +quite a good time. + +She wuz very freckled, and a second-day Baptist by perswasion, and wuz +piecin' up a crazy bedquilt. She went a-visitin' a good deal, and got +pieces of the women's dresses where she visited for blocks. So it wuz +quite a savin' bedquilt, and very good-lookin', considerin'. + +But to resoom and continue on. Cephas'ses folks made us promise on our +two sacred honors, Josiah's honor and mine, that we would pay back the +visit, for, as Cephas said, "for relatives to live so clost to each +other, and not to visit back and forth, wuz a burnin' shame and a +disgrace." And Josiah promised that we would go right away after +sugerin'. + +We wouldn't promise on the New Testament, as Cephas wanted us to (he is +dretful enthusiastick); but we gin good plain promises that we would go, +and laid out to keep our two words. + +Wall, we got there onexpected, as they had come onto us. And we found +'em plunged into trouble. Their only child, a girl, who had married a +young lawyer of Loontown, had jest lost her husband with the typus, and +they wuz a-makin' preparations for the funeral when we got there. She +and her husband had come on a visit, and he wuz took down bed-sick there +and died. + +I told 'em I felt like death to think I had descended down onto 'em at +such a time. + +But Cephas said he wuz jest dispatchin' a messenger for us when we +arrove, for, he said, "in a time of trouble, then wuz the time, if ever, +that a man wanted his near relations clost to him." + +And he said "we had took a load offen him by appearin' jest as we +did, for there would have been some delay in gettin' us there, if the +messenger had been dispatched." + +He said "that mornin' he had felt so bad that he wanted to die--it +seemed as if there wuzn't nothin' left for him to live for; but now he +felt that he had sunthin' to live for, now his relatives wuz gathered +round him." + +Josiah shed tears to hear Cephas go on. I myself didn't weep none, but I +wuz glad if we could be any comfort to 'em, and told 'em so. + +And I told Sally Ann, that wuz Cephas'ses wife, that I would do anything +I could to help 'em. And she said everything wuz a-bein' done that +wuz necessary. She didn't know of but one thing that wuz likely to be +overlooked and neglected, and that wuz the crazy bedquilt. She said +"she would love to have that finished to throw over a lounge in the +settin'-room, that wuz frayed out on the edges, and if I felt like it, +it _would_ be a great relief to her to have me take it right offen her +hands and finish it." + +So I took out my thimble and needle (I always carry such necessaries +with me, in a huzzy made expressly for that purpose), and I sot down and +went to piecin' up. There wuz seventeen blocks to piece up, each one +crazy as a loon to look at, and it wuz all to set together. + +She had the pieces, for she had been off on a visitin' tower the week +before, and collected of 'em. + +So I sot in quiet and the big chair in the settin'-room, and pieced up, +and see the preparations goin' on round us. + +I found that Cephas'ses folks lived in a house big and showy-lookin', +but not so solid and firm as I had seen. + +It wuz one of the houses, outside and inside, where more pains had been +took with the porticos and ornaments than with the underpinnin'. + +It had a showy and kind of a shaky look. And I found that that extended +to Cephas'ses business arrangements. Amongst the other ornaments of his +buildin's wuz mortgages, quite a lot of'em, and of almost every variety. +He had gin his only child, S. Annie (she wuz named after her mother, +Sally Ann, but spelt it this way), he had gin S. Annie a showy +education, a showy weddin', and a showy settin'-out. But she had +had the good luck to marry a sensible man, though poor. + +[Illustration: "So I SOT IN QUIET AND THE BIG CHAIR."] + +He took S. Annie and the brackets, the piano and hangin' lamps and +baskets and crystal bead lambrequins, her father had gin her, moved +'em all into a good, sensible, small house, and went to work to get a +practice and a livin'. He was a lawyer by perswasion. + +Wall, he worked hard, day and night, for three little children come to +'em pretty fast, and S. Annie consumed a good deal in trimmin's and +cheap lace to ornament 'em; she wuz her father's own girl for ornament. +But he worked so hard, and had so many irons in the fire, and kep' 'em +all so hot, that he got a good livin' for 'em, and begun to lay up money +towards buyin' 'em a house--a home. + +He talked a sight, so folks said that knew him well, about his consumin' +desire and aim to get his wife and children into a little home of their +own, into a safe little haven, where they could live if he wuz called +away. They say that that wuz on his mind day and night, and wuz what +nerved his hand so in the fray, and made him so successful. Wall, he had +laid up about nine hundred dollars towards a home, every dollar on +it earned by hard work and consecrated by this deathless hope and +affection. The house he had got his mind on only cost about a thousand +dollars. Loontown property is cheap. + +Wall, he had laid up nine hundred, and wuz a-beginnin' to save on the +last hundred, for he wouldn't run in debt a cent any way, when he wuz +took voyalent sick there to Cephas'ses; he and S. Annie had come home +for a visit of a day or two, and he bein' so run down, and weak with his +hard day work and his night work, that he suckumbed to his sickness, and +passed away the day before I got there. + +Wall, S. Annie wuz jest overcome with grief the day I got there, but the +day follerin' she begun to take some interest and help her father in +makin' preparations for the funeral. + +The body wuz embalmed, accordin' to Cephas'ses and S. Annie's wish, and +the funeral wuz to be on the Sunday follerin', and on that Cephas and S. +Annie now bent their energies. + +To begin with, S. Annie had a hull suit of clear crape made for herself, +with a veil that touched the ground; she also had three other suits +commenced, for more common wear, trimmed heavy with crape, one of which +she ordered for sure the next week, for she said, "she couldn't stir out +of the house in any other color but black." + +I knew jest how dear crape wuz, and I tackled her on the subject, and +sez I-- + +"Do you know, S. Annie, these dresses of your'n will cost a sight?" + +"Cost?" sez she, a-bustin' out a-cryin'. "What do I care about cost? I +will do everything I can to respect his memory. I do it in remembrance +of him." + +Sez I, gently, "S. Annie, you wouldn't forget him if you wuz dressed in +white. And as for respect, such a life as his, from all I hear of it, +don't need crape to throw respect on it; it commands respect, and gets +it from everybody." + +"But," sez Cephas, "it would look dretful odd to the neighbors if she +didn't dress in black." Sez he in a skairful tone, and in his intense +way-- + +[Illustration: "WHAT IS LIFE WORTH WHEN FOLKS TALK?"] + +"I would ruther resk my life than to have her fail in duty in this way; +it would make talk. And." sez he, "what is life worth when folks talk?" +I turned around the crazed block and tackled it in a new place (more +luny than ever it seemed to me), and sez I, mekanickly-- + +"It is pretty hard work to keep folks from talkin'; to keep 'em from +sayin' somethin'." + +But I see from their looks it wouldn't do to say anything more, so I had +to set still and see it go on. + +At that time of year flowers wuz dretful high, but S. Annie and Cephas +had made up their minds that they must have several flower-pieces from +the city nighest to Loontown. + +One wuz a-goin' to be a gate ajar, and one wuz to be a gate wide open, +and one wuz to be a big book. Cephas asked what book I thought would be +preferable to represent. And I mentioned the Bible. + +But Cephas sez, "No, he didn't think he would have a Bible; he didn't +think it would be appropriate, seein' the deceased wuz a lawyer." He +said "he hadn't quite made up his mind what book to have. But anyway it +wuz to be in flowers--beautiful flowers." Another piece wuz to be his +name in white flowers on a purple background of pansies. His name wuz +Wellington Napoleon Bonaparte Hardiman. And I sez to Cephas--"To save +expense, you will probable have the moneygram W.N.B.H.?" + +"Oh, no," sez he. + +Sez I, "hen the initials of his given names, and the last name in +full." + +"Oh, no," he said; "it wuz S. Annie's wish, and hisen, that the hull +name should be put on. They thought it would show more respect." + +I sez, "Where Wellington is now, that hain't a goin' to make any +difference, and," sez I, "Cephas, flowers are dretful high this time of +year, and it is a long name." + +But Cephas said agin that he didn't care for expense, so long as respect +wuz done to the memory of the deceased. He said that he and S. Annie +both felt that it wuz their wish to have the funeral go ahead of any +other that had ever took place in Loontown or Jonesville. He said that +S. Annie felt that it wuz all that wuz left her now in life, the memory +of such a funeral as he deserved. + +Sez I, "There is his children left for her to live for," sez I--"three +little bits of his own life, for her to nourish, and cherish, and look +out for." + +"Yes," sez Cephas, "and she will do that nobly, and I will help her. +They are all goin' to the funeral, too, in deep-black dresses." He said +"they wuz too little to realize it now, but in later and maturer years +it would be a comfort to 'em to know they had took part in such a +funeral as that wuz goin' to be, and wuz dressed in black." + +"Wall," sez I (in a quiet, onassumin' way I would gin little hints of my +mind on the subject), "I am afraid that will be about all the comforts +of life the poor little children will ever have," sez I. "It will be if +you buy many more flower-pieces and crape dresses." + +Cephas said "it wouldn't take much crape for the children's dresses, +they wuz so little, only the baby's; that would have to be long." + +Sez I, "The baby would look better in white, and it will take sights of +crape for a long baby dress." + +"Yes, but S. Annie can use it afterwards for veils. She is very +economical; she takes it from me. And she feels jest as I do, that the +baby must wear it in respect to her father's memory." + +Sez I, "The baby don't know crape from a clothes-pin." + +"No," sez Cephas, "but in after years the thought of the respect she +showed will sustain her." + +"Wall," sez I, "I guess she won't have much besides thoughts to live on, +if things go on in this way." + +I would give little hints in this way, but they wuzn't took. Things went +right on as if I hadn't spoke. And I couldn't contend, for truly, as a +bad little boy said once on a similar occasion, "it wuzn't my funeral," +so I had to set and work on that insane bedquilt and see it go on. But +I sithed constant and frequent, and when I wuz all alone in the room I +indulged in a few low groans. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +We dressmakers wuz in the house, to stay all the time till the dresses +wuz done; and clerks would come around, anon, if not oftener, with +packages of mournin' goods, and mournin' jewelry, and mournin' +handkerchiefs, and mournin' stockings, and mournin' stockin'-supporters, +and mournin' safety-pins, and etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. + +Every one of 'em, I knew, a-wrenchin' boards offen the sides of that +house that Wellington had worked so hard to get for his wife and little +ones. + +Wall, the day of the funeral come. It wuz a wet, drizzly day, but Cephas +wuz up early, to see that everything wuz as he wanted it to be. + +As fur as I wuz concerned, I had done my duty, for the crazy bedquilt +wuz done; and though brains might totter as they looked at it, I felt +that it wuzn't my fault. Sally Ann spread it out with complacency over +the lounge, and thanked me, with tears in her eyes, for my noble deed. + +Along quite early in the mornin', before the show commenced, I went in +to see Wellington. + +He lay there calm and peaceful, with a look on his face as if he had got +away at last from a atmosphere of show and sham, and had got into the +great Reality of life. + +It wuz a good face, and the worryment and care that folks told me had +been on it for years had all faded away. But the look of determination, +and resolve, and bravery,--that wuz ploughed too deep in his face to be +smoothed out, even by the mighty hand that had lain on it. The resolved +look, the brave look with which he had met the warfare of life, toiled +for victory over want, toiled to place his dear and helpless ones in a +position of safety,--that look wuz on his face yet, as if the deathless +hope and endeavor had gone on into eternity with him. + +And by the side of him, on a table, wuz the big high flower-pieces, +beginnin' already to wilt and decay. + +Wall, it's bein' such an uncommon bad day, there wuzn't many to the +funeral. But we rode to the meetin'-house in Loontown in a state and +splendor that I never expect to again. Cephas had hired eleven mournin' +coaches, and the day bein' so bad, and so few a-turnin' out to the +funeral, that in order to occupy all the coaches--and Cephas thought it +would look better and more popular to have 'em all occupied--we divided +up, and Josiah went in one, alone, and lonesome as a dog, as he said +afterwards to me. And I sot up straight and oncomfortable in another one +on 'em, stark alone. + +Cephas had one to himself, and his wife another one, and two old maids, +sisters of Cephas'ses who always made a point of attendin' funerals, +they each one of 'em had one. S. Annie and her children, of course, had +the first one, and then the minister had one, and one of the trustees in +the neighborhood had another; so we lengthened out into quite a crowd, +all a-follerin' the shiny hearse, and the casket all covered with showy +plated nails. I thought of it in jest that way, for Wellington, I knew, +the real Wellington, wuzn't there. No, he wuz fur away--as fur as the +Real is from the Unreal. Wall, we filed into the Loontown meetin'-house +in pretty good shape. The same meetin'-house I had been sent to +reconoiter. But Cephas hadn't no black handkerchief, and he looked +worried about it. He had shed tears a-tellin' me about it, what a +oversight it wuz, while I wuz a fixin' on his mournin' weed. He took it +into his head to have a deeper weed at the last minute, so I fixed it +on. He had the weed come up to the top of his hat and lap over. I never +see so tall a weed. But it suited Cephas; he said "he thought it showed +deep respect." + +"Wall," sez I, "it is a deep weed, anyway--the deepest I ever see." And +he said as I wuz a sewin' it on, he a-holdin' his hat for me, "that +Wellington deserved it; he deserved it all." + +But, as I say, he shed tears to think that his handkerchief wuzn't +black-bordered. He said "it wuz a fearful oversight; it would probably +make talk." + +"But," I sez, "mebby it won't be noticed." + +[Illustration: "AS A PROCESSION WE WUZ MIDDLIN' LONG, BUT RUTHER +THIN."] + +"Yes, it will," sez he. "It will be noticed." And sez he, "I don't care +about myself, but I am afraid it will reflect onto Wellington. I am +afraid they will think it shows a lack of respect for him. For +Wellington's sake I feel cut down about it." + +And I sez, "I guess where Wellington is now, the color of a handkerchief +border hain't a-goin' to make much difference to him either way." + +And I don't spoze it wuz noticed much, for there wuzn't more'n ten or a +dozen folks there when we went in. We went in in Injin file mostly by +Cephas'ses request, so's to make more show. And as a procession we wuz +middlin' long, but ruther thin. + +The sermon wuz not so very good as to quality, but abundant as to +quantity. It wuz, as nigh as I could calkerlate, about a hour and +three-quarters long. Josiah whispered to me along about the last that +"we had been there over seven hours, and his legs wuz paralyzed." + +And I whispered back that "seven hours would take us into the night, and +to stretch his feet out and pinch 'em," which he did. + +But it wuz long and tegus. My feet got to sleep twice, and I had hard +work to wake 'em up agin. The sermon meant to be about Wellington, I +s'pose; he did talk a sight about him, and then he kinder branched off +onto politics, and then the Inter-State bill; he kinder favored it, I +thought. + +Wall, we all got drippin' wet a-goin' home, for Cephas insisted on our +gettin' out at the grave, for he had hired some uncommon high singers +(high every way, in price and in notes) to sing at the grave. + +And so we disembarked in the drippin' rain, on the wet grass, and formed +a procession agin. And Cephas had a long exercise light there in the +rain. But the singin' wuz kinder jerky and curius, and they had got +their pay beforehand, so they hurried it through. And one man, the +tenor, who wuz dretful afraid of takin' cold, hurried through his part +and got through first, and started on a run for the carriage. The others +stood their grounds till the piece wuz finished, but they put on some +dretful curius quavers. I believe they had had chills; it sounded like +it. + +Take it altogether, I don't believe anybody got much satisfaction out of +it, only Cephas. S. Annie sp'ilt her dress and bonnet entirely--they wuz +wilted all down; and she ordered another suit jest like it before +she slept. Wall, the next mornin' early two men come with plans for +monuments. Cephas had telegrafted to 'em to come with plans and bid for +the job of furnishin' the monument. + +And after a good deal of talk on both sides, Cephas and S. Annie +selected one that wuz very high and p'inted. + +The men stayed to dinner, and I said to Cephas out to one side-- + +"Cephas, that monument is a-goin' to cost a sight." + +"Wall," sez he, "we can't raise too high a one. Wellington deserved it +all." + +Sez I, "Won't that and all these funeral expenses take about all the +money he left?" + +"Oh, no!" sez he. "He had insured his life for a large amount, and it +all goes to his wife and children. He deserves a monument if a man ever +did." + +"But," sez I, "don't you believe that Wellington would ruther have S. +Annie and the children settled down in a good little home with sumthin' +left to take care of 'em, than to have all this money spent in perfectly +useless things?" + +"_Useless!_" sez Cephas, turnin' red. "Why," sez he, "if you wuzn't a +near relation I should resent that speech bitterly." + +"Wall," sez I, "what do all these flowers, and empty carriages, and +silver-plated nails, and crape, and so forth--what does it all amount +to?" + +"Respect and honor to his memory," sez Cephas, proudly. + +Sez I, "Such a life as Wellington's had them; no body could take 'em +away nor deminish 'em. Such a brave, honest life is crowned with honor +and respect any way. It don't need no crape, nor flowers, nor monuments +to win 'em. And, at the same time," sez I dreamily, "if a man is mean, +no amount of crape, or flower-pieces, or flowery sermons, or obituries, +is a-goin' to cover up that meanness. A life has to be lived out-doors +as it were; it can't be hid. A string of mournin' carriages, no matter +how long, hain't a-goin' to carry a dishonorable life into honor, and +no grave, no matter how low and humble it is, is a-goin' to cover up a +honorable life. + +"Such a life as Wellington's don't need no monument to carry up the +story of his virtues into the heavens; it is known there already. And +them that mourn his loss don't need cold marble words to recall his +goodness and faithfulness. The heart where the shadow of his eternal +absence has fell don't need crape to make it darker. + +"Wellington wouldn't be forgot if S. Annie wore pure white from day +today. No, nobody that knew Wellington, from all I have hearn of him, +needs crape to remind 'em that he wuz once here and now is gone. + +"Howsomever, as fur as that is concerned, I always feel that mourners +must do as they are a mind to about crape, with fear and tremblin'--that +is, if they are well off, and _can_ do as they are a mind to; and the +same with monuments, flowers, empty coaches, etc. But in this case, +Cephas Bodley, I wouldn't be a doin' my duty if I didn't speak my mind. +When I look at these little helpless souls that are left in a cold world +with nothin' to stand between them and want but the small means their pa +worked so hard for and left for the express purpose of takin' care of +'em, it seems to me a foolish thing, and a cruel thing, to spend all +that money on what is entirely onnecessary." + +"Onnecessary!" sez Cephas, angrily. "Agin I say, Josiah Allen's wife, +that if it wuzn't for our close relationship I should turn on you. A +worm will turn," sez he, "if it is too hardly trampled on." + +"I hain't trampled on you," sez I, "nor hain't had no idea on't. I wuz +only statin' the solemn facts and truth of the matter. And you will see +it some time, Cephas Bodley, if you don't now." + +Sez Cephas, "The worm has turned, Josiah Allen's wife! Yes, I feel that +I have got to look now to more distant relations for comfort. Yes, the +worm has been stomped on too heavy." + +He looked cold, cold as a iceickle almost. And I see that jest the few +words I had spoke, jest the slight hints I had gin, hadn't been took as +they should have been took. So I said no more. For agin the remark of +that little bad boy came up in my mind and restrained me from sayin' any +more. + +Truly, as the young male child observed, "it wuzn't my funeral." + +We went home almost immegiately afterwards, my heart nearly a-bleedin' +for the little children, poor little creeters, and Cephas actin' cold +and distant to the last And we hain't seen 'em sence. But news has come +from them, and come straight. Josiah heerd to Jonesville all about it. +And though it is hitchin' the democrat buggy on front of the mare--to +tell the end of the funeral here--yet I may as well tell it now and be +done with it. + +The miller at Loontown wuz down to the Jonesville mill to get the loan +of some bags, and Josiah happened to be there to mill that day, and +heerd all about it. + +Cephas had got the monument, and the ornaments on it cost fur more than +he expected. There wuz a wreath a-runnin' round it clear from the bottom +to the top, and verses a kinder runnin' up it at the same time. And it +cost fearful. Poetry a-runnin' up, they say, costs fur more than it duz +on a level. + +Any way, the two thousand dollars that wuz insured on Wellington's life +wuzn't quite enough to pay for it. But the sale of his law library and +the best of the housen' stuff paid it. The nine hundred he left went, +every mite of it, to pay the funeral expenses and mournin' for the +family. + +[Illustration: CARRIED TO THE COUNTY POOR HOUSE.] + +And as bad luck always follers on in a procession, them mortgages of +Cephas'ses all run out sort o' together. His creditors sold him out, +and when his property wuz all disposed of it left him over fourteen +hundred dollars in debt. + +The creditors acted perfectly greedy, so they say--took everything they +could; and one of the meanest ones took that insane bedquilt that I +finished. That _wuz_ mean. They say Sally Ann crumpled right down +when that wuz took. Some say that they got hold of that tall weed of +Cephas'ses, and some dispute it; some say that he wore it on the last +ride he took in Loontown. + +But, howsomever, Cephas wuz took sick, Sally Ann wuzn't able to do +anything for their support, S. Annie wuz took down with the typhus, and +so it happened the very day the monument wuz brought to the Loontown +cemetery, Cephas Bodley's folks wuz carried to the county house, S. +Annie, the children and all. + +And it happened dretful curius, but the town hired that very team that +drawed the monument there, to take the family back. + +It wuz a good team. + +The monument wuzn't set up, for they lacked money to pay for the +underpinnin'! (Wuz n't it curius, Cephas Bodley never would think of the +underpinnin' to anything?) But it lay there by the side of the road, a +great white shape. + +And they say the children wuz skairt, and cried when they went by +it--cried and wept. + +But I believe it wuz because they wuz cold and hungry that made 'em cry. +I don't believe it wuz the monument. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +[Illustration:] + +A few days follerin' on and ensuin' after this +eppisode, Submit Tewksburv wuz a takin' supper with me. She had come +home with me from the meetin' house where we had been to work all day. + +I had urged her to stay, for she lived a mile further on the road, and +had got to walk home afoot. + +And she hain't any too well off, Submit hain't--she has to work hard for +every mite of food she eats, and clothes she wears, and fuel and lights, +etc., etc. + +So I keep her to dinners and suppers all I can, specially when we are +engaged in meetin' house work, for as poor as Submit is, she will insist +on doin' for the meetin' house jest as much as any other female woman in +Jonesville. + +She is quite small boneded, and middlin' good lookin' for a women of her +years. She has got big dark eyes, very soft and mellow lookin' in +expression--and a look deep down into 'em, as if she had been waitin' +for something, for some time. Her hair is gettin' quite gray now, but +its original color was auburn, and she has got quite a lot of it--kinder +crinkly round her forward. Her complexion is pale. She is a very good +lookin' woman yet, might marry any day of the week now, I hain't no +doubt of it. She is a single woman, but is well thought on in +Jonesville, and the southern part of Zoar, where she has relatives on +her mother's side. + +[Illustration: SUBMIT TEWKSBURY.] + +She has had chances to my certain knowledge (widowers and such). + +But if all the men in the world should come and stand in rows in front +of her gate with gilded crowns in their hands all ready to crown her, +and septers all ready for her to grasp holt of, and wield over the +world, she would refuse every one of 'em. + +She has had a disappointment, Submit has. And she looked at the world so +long through tears, that the world got to lookin' sort o' dim like and +shadowy to her, and the whole men race looked to her fur off and misty, +as folks will when you look at 'em through a rain. + +She couldn't marry one of them shadows of men, if she tried, and she +hain't never tried. No, her heart always has been, and is now, fur away, +a-travellin' through unknown regions, unknown, and yet more real to her +than Jonesville or Zoar, a-follerin' the one man in the world who is a +reality to her. Submit wuz engaged to a young Methodist minister by the +name of Samuel Danker. I remember him well. A good lookin' young fellow +at the time, with blue eyes and light hair, ruther long and curly, and +kinder wavin' back from his forward, and a deep spiritual look in his +eyes. In fact, his eyes looked right through the fashions and follys of +the civilized world, into the depths of ignorance, rivers of ruin and +despair, that wuz a-washin' over a human race, black jungles where naked +sin and natural depravities crouched hungry for victims. + +Samuel Danker felt that he had got to go into heathen lands as a +missionary. He wuz engaged to Submit, and loved her dearly, and he urged +her to go too. + +But Submit had a invalid father on her hands, a bed rid grandfather, and +three young brothers, too young to earn a thing, and they all on 'em +together hadn't a cent of money to their names. They had twenty-five +acres of middlin' poor land, and a old house. + +Wall, Submit felt that she couldn't leave these helpless ones and go +to more foreign heathen lands. So, with a achin' heart, she let Samuel +Danker go from her, for he felt a call, loud, and she couldn't counsel +him to shet up his ears, or put cotton into 'em. Submit Tewksbury had +always loved and worked for the Methodist meetin' house (she jined it +on probation when she wuz thirteen). But although she always had been +extremely liberal in givin', and had made a practice of contributin' +every cent she could spare to the meetin' house, it wuz spozed that +Samuel Danker wuz the biggest offerin' she had ever give to it. + +Fur it wuz known that he went to her the night before he sot sail, took +supper with her, and told her she should decide the matter for him, +whether he went or whether he staid. + +It wuz spozed his love for Submit wuz so great that it made him waver +when the time come that he must leave her to her lot of toil and +sacrifice and loneliness. + +But Submit loved the Methodist meetin' house to that extent, she leaned +so hard on the arm of Duty, that she nerved up her courage anew, refused +to accept the sacrifice of his renunciation, bid him go to his great +work, and quit himself like a man--told him she would always love him, +pray for him, be constant to him. And she felt that the Master they both +wanted to serve would some day bring him back to her. + +So he sailed away to his heathens--and Submit stayed to home with her +five helpless males and her achin' heart. And if I had to tell which +made her the most trouble, I couldn't to save my life. + +She knew the secret of her achin' heart, and the long dark nights she +kep awake with it. The neighbors couldn't understand that exactly, for +there hain't no language been discovered yet that will give voice to +the silent crys of a breakin' heart, a tender heart, a constant heart, +cryin' out acrost the grayness of dreary days acrost the blackness of +lonely nights. + +But we could see her troubles with the peevish paralasys of age, with +the tremendus follys of undisciplined youth. + +But Submit took care of the hull caboodle of 'em; worked out some by +days' works, to get more necessaries for 'em than the poor little +farm would bring in; nursed the sick on their sick-beds and on their +death-beds, till she see 'em into Heaven--or that is where we spoze +they went to, bein' deservin' old males both on 'em, her father and her +grandfather, and in full connectin with the Methodist Episcopel meetin' +house. + +She took care of her young brothers, patient with 'em always, ready to +mend bad rents in their clothin' and their behavior--tryin' to prop up +their habits and their morals, givin' 'em all the schoolin' she could, +givin' 'em all a good trade, all but the youngest, him she kep with her +always till the Lord took him (scarlet fever), took him to learn the +mysterius trade of the immortals. + +Submit had a hard fit of sickness after that. And when she got up agin, +there wuz round her pale forward a good many white hairs that wuz orburn +before the little boy went away from her. + +Sense that, the other boys have married, and Submit has lived alone in +the old farm-house, lettin' the farm out on shares. It is all run +down; she don't get much from it; it don't yield much but trouble and +burdocks, but as little as she gets, she always will, as I say, do her +full share, and more than her share, for the meetin' house. + +[Illustration: "HE TOOK SUPPER WITH HER FOR THE LAST TIME."] + +Some think it is on account of her inherient goodness, and some think +it is on account of Samuel Danker. + +We all spose she hain't forgot Samuel. And they do say that every year +when the day comes round, that he took supper with her for the last +time, she puts a plate on for him--the very one he eat on last---a pink +edged chiny plate, with gilt sprigs, the last one left of her mother's +first set of chiny. + +That is what they _say_, I hain't never seen the plate. + +It is now about twenty years sense Samuel Danker went to heathen lands. +And as it wuz a man-eatin' tribe he went to preach to, and as he hain't +been heern of from that day to this, it is spozed that they eat him up +some years ago. + +But it is thought that Submit hain't gin up hope yet. We spoze so, but +don't know, on account of her never sayin' anything on the subject. But +we judge from the plate. + +Wall, as I say (and I have episoded fearfully, fearfully), Submit took +supper with me that night. And after Josiah had put out his horse (he +had been to Jonesville for the evenin' mail, and stopped for us at the +meetin' house on his way back), he took the _World_ out of his pocket, +and perused it for some time, and from that learned the great news that +wimmen wuz jest about to be held up agin, to see if her strength wuz +sufficient to set on the Conference. + +And oh! how Josiah Allen went on about it to Submit and me, all the +while we wuz a eatin' supper--and for more'n a hour afterwuds. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Submit wuz very skairt to heern him go on (she felt more nervous on +account of an extra hard day's work), and I myself wuz beat out, but I +wuzn't afraid at all of him, though he did go on elegant, and dretful +empressive and even skairful. + +He stood up on the same old ground that men have always stood up on, +the ground of man's great strength and capability, and wimmen's utter +weakness, helplessness, and incapacity. Josiah enlarged almost wildly on +the subject of how high, how inaccessibley lofty the Conference wuz, and +the utter impossibility of a weak, helpless, fragaile bein' like a women +ever gettin' up on it, much less settin' on it. And then, oh how vividly +he depictered it, how he and every other male Methodist in the land +loved wimmen too well, worshipped 'em too deeply to put such a wearin' +job onto 'em. Oh how Josiah Allen soared up in eloquence. Submit shed +tears, or, that is, I thought she did--I see her wipe her eyes any way. +Some think that about the time the Samuel Danker anniversary comes +round, she is more nervous and deprested. It wuz very near now, and +take that with her hard work that day, it accounts some for her extra +depression--though, without any doubt, it wuz Josiah's talk that started +the tears. + +I couldn't bear to see Submit look so mournful and deprested, and so, +though I wuz that tired myself that I could hardly hold my head up, yet +I did take my bits in my teeth, as you may say, and asked him-- + +What the awful hard job wuz that he and other men wuz so anxus to ward +offen wimmen. + +And he sez, "Why, a settin' on the Conference." + +And I sez, "I don't believe that is such a awful hard job to tackle." + +"Yes, indeed, it is," sez Josiah in his most skairful axent, "yes, it +is." + +And he shook his head meenin'ly and impressively, and looked at me and +Submit in as mysterius and strange a way, es I have ever been looked at +in my life, and I have had dretful curius looks cast onto me, from first +to last. And he sez in them deep impressive axents of hisen, + +"You jest try it once, and see--I have sot on it, and I know." + +Josiah wuz sent once as a delegate to the Methodist Conference, so I +spozed he did know. + +But I sez, "Why you come home the second day when you sot as happy as a +king, and you told me how you had rested off durin' the two days, and +how you had visited round at Uncle Jenkins'es, and Cousin Henn's, and +you said that you never had had such a good time in your hull life, as +you did when you wuz a settin'. You looked as happy as a king, and acted +so." + +Josiah looked dumbfounded for most a quarter of a minute. For he knew my +words wuz as true es anything ever sot down in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, +or any of the other old patriarks. He knew it wuz Gospel truth, that +he had boasted of his good times a settin', and as I say for nearly a +quarter of a minute he showed plain signs of mortification. + +But almost imegietly he recovered himself, and went on with the doggy +obstinacy of his sect: "Oh, wall! Men can tackle hard jobs, and get some +enjoyment out of it too, when it is in the line of duty. One thing that +boys em' up, and makes em' happy, is the thought that they are a keepin' +trouble and care offen wimmen. That is a sweet thought to men, and +always wuz. And there wuz great strains put onto our minds, us men that +sot, that wimmen couldn't be expected to grapple with, and hadn't ort to +try to. It wuz a great strain onto us." + +"What was the nater of the strain?" sez I. "I didn't know as you did a +thing only sot still there and go to sleep. _You_ wuz fast asleep there +most the hull of the time, for it come straight to me from them that +know. And all that Deacon Bobbet did who went with you wuz to hold up +his hand two or three times a votin'. I shouldn't think that wuz so +awful wearin'." + +And agin I sez, "What wuz the strain?" + +But Josiah didn't answer, for that very minute he remembered a pressin' +engagement he had about borrowin' a plow. He said he had got to go up to +Joe Charnick's to get his plow. (I don't believe he wanted a plow that +time of night.) But he hurried away from the spot. And soon after Submit +went home lookin' more deprested and down-casted than ever. + +And Josiah Allen didn't get home till _late_ at night. I dare persume to +say it wuz as late as a quarter to nine when that man got back to the +bosom of his family. + +And I sot there all alone, and a-meditatin' on things, and a-wonderin' +what under the sun he wuz a-traipsin up to Joe Charnick's for at that +time of night, and a-worryin' some for fear he wuz a-keepin' Miss +Charnick up, and a-spozin' in my mind what Miss Charnick would do, to +get along with the meetin' house, and the Conference question, if she +wuz a member. (She is a _very_ sensible woman, Jenette Charnick is, +_very_, and a great favorite with me, and others.) + +And I got to thinkin' how prosperus and happy she is now, and how much +she had went through. And I declare the hull thing come back to me, all +the strange and curius circumstances connected with her courtship and +marriage, and I thought it all out agin, the hull story, from beginnin' +to end. + +The way it begun wuz--and the way Josiah Allen and me come to have any +connectin with the story wuz as follers: + +Some time ago, and previus, we had a widder come to stay with us a +spell, she that wuz Tamer Shelmadine, Miss Trueman Pool that now is. + +Her husband died several years ago, and left her not over and above +well off. And so she goes round a-visitin', and has went ever sense his +death. And finds sights of faults with things wherever she is, sights of +it. + +Trueman wuz Josiah's cousin, on his own side, and I always made a +practice of usin' her quite well. She used to live neighbor to me before +I wuz married, and she come and stayed nine weeks. + +She is a tall spindlin' woman, a Second Adventist by perswasion, and +weighs about ninety-nine pounds. + +Wall, as I say, she means middlin' well, and would be quite agreeable +if it wuzn't for a habit she has of thinkin' what she duz is a leetle +better than anybody else can do, and wantin' to tell a leetle better +story than anybody else can. + +Now she thinks she looks better than I do. But Josiah sez she can't +begin with me for looks, and I don't spoze she can, though of course it +hain't to be expected that I would want it told of that I said so. No, I +wouldn't want it told of pro or con, especially con. But I know Josiah +Allen has always been called a pretty good judge of wimmen's looks. + +[Illustration: "SHE IS A TALL SPINDLIN' WOMAN."] + +And now she thinks she can set hens better than I can--and make better +riz biscuit. She jest the same as told me so. Any way, the first time +I baked bread after she got here, she looked down on my loaves real +haughty, yet with a pityin' look, and sez: + +"It is very good for yeast, but I always use milk emptin's." + +And she kinder tested her head, and sort o' swept out of the room, not +with a broom, no, she would scorn to sweep out a room with a broom or +help me in any way, but she sort o' swept it out with her mean. But I +didn't care, I knew my bread wuz good. + +Now if anybody is sick, she will always tell of times when she has been +sicker. She boasts of layin' three nights and two days in a fit. But we +don't believe it, Josiah and me don't. That is, we don't believe she lay +there so long, a-runnin'. + +We believe she come out of 'em occasionally. + +But you couldn't get her to give off a hour or a minute of the time. +Three nights and two days she lay there a-runnin', so she sez, and she +has said it so long, that we spoze, Josiah and me do, that she believes +it herself now. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3. +by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + +***** This file should be named 9445.txt or 9445.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/4/9445/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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