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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+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, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9450]
+Last Updated: February 28, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration] SAMANTHA
+
+AMONG THE BRETHREN.
+
+BY
+
+“JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE”
+
+(MARIETTA HOLLEY).
+
+
+_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_.
+
+
+
+
+1890
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+All Women
+
+WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES
+
+THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A
+
+BETTER COUNTRY,
+
+_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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:
+
+“What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?”
+
+And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, “The Cause of Eternal
+Justice, Josiah Allen.”
+
+“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.)
+
+“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.”
+
+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:
+
+“A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he.”
+
+And sez I, “How do you know?”
+
+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?”
+
+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.”
+
+“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?”
+
+“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!”
+
+“Oh shaw!” sez Josiah, “some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
+work and back combs.”
+
+I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
+reasonable:
+
+“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.
+
+“And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
+Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her.”
+
+“Wall, hain't _he_?” sez Josiah.
+
+“No, _she_ hain't,” sez I.
+
+“Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to
+rile you up?”
+
+Sez I, “_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
+Conference.”
+
+“Wall, I say _he_ wuz right,” sez Josiah. “_He_ knew, and I knew, that
+wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Wall,” sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, “don't
+be too severe with the Meetin' House.”
+
+And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head
+in and sez:
+
+“Don't be too hard on _him_”
+
+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.
+
+  JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE,
+  Bonny View,
+  near Adams, New York,
+  Oct. 14th, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_Publishers' Appendix_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
+
+And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
+our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze
+because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
+
+Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
+from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
+our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
+particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.
+
+It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
+answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
+
+The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
+other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
+
+As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own
+particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all  on 'em to be divided
+up equal among the five deacons.
+
+[Illustration: “A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME.”]
+
+They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
+that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
+the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
+not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
+and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+salvation.
+
+I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+deacons ought to cultivate.
+
+But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
+to promulgate 'em. They all said, “The better the man, the better the
+deed.”
+
+They said, “The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+likely to run.” The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
+wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.]
+
+But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--“If bein' set
+apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to
+go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+enterprise?”
+
+And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, “The better the man,
+the better the deed. We need buzz saws.”
+
+And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+high-headed.
+
+And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
+
+But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
+prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
+of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
+
+And I sez to him in solemn axents:
+
+“Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
+your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?”
+
+And Josiah sez, “Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
+he has got a chance.” And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
+I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+religious duties.
+
+And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+said, “he didn't dumb 'em.”
+
+“What wuz you dumbin'?” sez I, coldly.
+
+“I wuz dumbin' the idee,” sez he, “that a man can't make money when he
+has a chance to.”
+
+But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
+
+“Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
+farms.
+
+“And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
+of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
+interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
+prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
+works generally?”
+
+And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
+
+“Dumb good works!”
+
+[Illustration: “I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'”]
+
+But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+axents, and sez, “What will become of all this gospel work?”
+
+And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
+a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
+
+“Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+will 'tend to it.”
+
+And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+have put the question to him.
+
+For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
+go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
+there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
+and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
+bimeby).
+
+There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
+mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
+brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
+and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
+theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
+
+But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
+
+Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
+this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+Henzy.
+
+Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
+
+“She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on,” so she often sez,
+“if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'.”
+
+Some sez he duz.
+
+Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
+And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
+begin to feel bad.
+
+She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
+me, that “what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
+the deacon's society.” It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
+she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
+Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
+had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
+dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
+his face till dinner time.
+
+And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
+because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
+
+She is a dretful admirin' woman.
+
+She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls
+her husband “the Deacon,” as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
+when she dreams about him she dreams of him as “the Deacon,” and not as
+Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
+
+[Illustration: “THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'”]
+
+But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+dreams is a place where you can't slip on  your sun-bonnet and foller
+neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+from hour to hour.
+
+No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
+into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
+
+No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
+
+But, as I said, this had been spozen.
+
+But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+napkins, and piller-cases, and such, “M. D. S.” And I asked her one day
+what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+Drusillia Sypher.
+
+And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+“Miss Deacon Sypher.”
+
+Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
+hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
+the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
+good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
+
+Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+into the buzz saw-mill business.
+
+But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
+every time he came in sight.
+
+They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest
+smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
+step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a “infernal fool.”
+
+But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+low.
+
+But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
+and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
+books. And he sez:
+
+“Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_”
+
+I guess he did say as much as that.
+
+But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to
+stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
+
+[Illustration: “ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT
+HIM.”]
+
+And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
+smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
+effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
+was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
+get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
+and he makes a good deal of her.
+
+I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
+this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
+
+Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
+the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
+
+Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
+foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
+that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin'
+article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
+fun of the projeck.
+
+We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
+fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
+store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
+He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
+worshipped him.
+
+They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
+
+The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to
+work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+in the shop.)
+
+He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
+doubt of that.
+
+Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
+educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
+born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
+in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
+Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
+any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
+syllables wuz common in it.
+
+His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
+to be disseminated abroad.
+
+The idees wuz, “that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
+ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
+up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
+sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
+guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
+from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
+howsumever.”
+
+Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
+painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
+strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would
+weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
+herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
+tottlin' eminence.
+
+The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+letters over each one.
+
+The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
+
+_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER;
+
+_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
+
+The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares
+and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+wimmen to do--not a single thing.
+
+Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors
+and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
+_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
+farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
+sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
+_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
+even the lightest and slightest.
+
+Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could
+be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
+great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
+place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
+
+And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
+Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
+the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
+in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
+posture as settin' up on a Conference.
+
+[Illustration: “JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT.”]
+
+“To have her set up on it,” sez the writer, in conclusion, “would
+endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
+would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
+It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm.”  Why, Josiah Allen
+handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
+as he handed it to me to read, “if my hands wuz perfectly clean,” and we
+had some words about it.
+
+And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second
+Galatians.
+
+And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+bed rid.
+
+Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
+
+And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+very first.
+
+Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
+next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
+it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
+idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
+so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
+
+And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
+
+But of this, more anon and bimeby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for
+I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays
+bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
+and so forth.
+
+But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
+old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
+on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
+
+(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
+
+Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
+there for some time alone.
+
+Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
+first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I
+had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
+oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
+
+Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
+sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a
+difference, a difference in visitors?
+
+Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
+
+And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of “Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose.”
+
+I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+brung me startlin' intelligence.
+
+It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
+
+And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, “Wall, she has wrote
+dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is.”
+
+But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
+see it wuz writ on duty.
+
+She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
+and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
+in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
+on't.
+
+She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
+any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
+was mistook.
+
+She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
+for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
+said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
+had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
+own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
+man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
+round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
+two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
+mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
+couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
+broke in on her serenity.
+
+Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
+
+[Illustration: “FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM.”]
+
+Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
+affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths
+emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
+actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
+impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
+accustomed to 'em.
+
+The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
+they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work.
+And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
+The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
+
+_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz
+small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
+got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
+as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
+near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
+of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
+lambs callin' on their dams.
+
+It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+hadn't. And she ended by sayin', “God bless me and adoo.”
+
+[Illustration: THE LECTURE.]
+
+The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
+of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
+snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
+I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
+events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
+yesterday.
+
+I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
+there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
+the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
+
+And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
+Josiah hitched the mair.
+
+We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+life.
+
+And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
+lecture wuz, “Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose.”
+
+A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
+all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
+rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
+first rate.
+
+I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
+the heads of it.
+
+It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+bare heads.
+
+She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
+the subject, “Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?”
+
+She had even read these dreadful words--“Marriage is a Failure.” She
+hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+privilege, to speak in its praise.
+
+I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
+no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
+whose name vuz once Smith.
+
+I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
+time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
+side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
+Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+every word she said.
+
+But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
+school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
+how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
+
+How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
+
+And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+souls bathed in blissful repose!
+
+[Illustration: “HE HAD ON A NEW VEST.”]
+
+It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'.  There wasn't a dry
+eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
+vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
+slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
+(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
+And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
+vest.
+
+Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
+
+And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
+
+I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
+
+And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
+see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
+fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+me.
+
+[Illustration: “I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS.”]
+
+Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
+over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
+foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
+lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
+a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
+miserable.
+
+Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
+
+And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
+bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
+broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
+cloud.
+
+And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
+
+She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
+of 'em brought the school-house down.
+
+And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
+together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
+forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
+
+And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
+hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
+perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
+
+Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
+
+He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
+
+But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
+
+I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
+deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
+lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
+its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
+stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
+wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
+occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
+sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
+
+And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very
+sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
+
+Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
+me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
+
+Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
+over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.
+
+She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
+spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
+day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
+have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
+as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
+hold of my opinion.
+
+Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
+her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
+
+I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
+meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey.
+
+But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, “How
+I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?” I leaned up
+against Duty, and told her, “I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+with every word of it.”
+
+Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.
+
+And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, “It wuz very full of
+beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+June, but,” says I, “if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough.”
+
+“Mean enough?” sez she. “What do you mean?”
+
+“Why,” sez I, “I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur.”
+
+She said with a modest look “that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
+she didn't go too far.”
+
+And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, “I know she
+didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth.”
+
+Sez I, “Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
+it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+hain't _all_ happiness.”
+
+“It is,” sez Josiah (cross and surly), “it is, too.”
+
+[Illustration: “YOU GO TOO FUR.”]
+
+And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I  wuz mistaken, “she
+thought it wuz.” And Josiah jined right in with her and said:
+
+“He _knew_ it wuz, and he would take his oath to it.”
+
+But I went right on, and, sez I, “Mebby it is in one sense the most
+peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+But,” sez I, “marriage hain't _all_ peace.”
+
+Sez Josiah: “It is, and I'll swear to it.”
+
+Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, “The sunshine of true love gilds
+the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+hain't all radiance.”
+
+“Yes, it is,” sez Josiah, firmly, “it is, every mite of it.”
+
+And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, “Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+right; I think it is.”
+
+“Wall,” sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', “when you are married
+you will change your opinion, you mark my word.”
+
+And she said, gently, but persistently, “That she guessed she shouldn't;
+she guessed she was in the right of it.”
+
+Sez I, “You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all
+earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?”
+
+And she sez, gently, “Yes, mem!”
+
+“Why,” sez I, “I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called
+a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.
+
+“I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care
+of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid,
+a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.
+
+“Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+haint if you are ever married.”
+
+But Miss Fogg said, mildly, “that she thought I wuz mistaken--she
+thought it wuz.”
+
+“You do?” sez I.
+
+“Yes, mem,” sez she.
+
+I got up, and sez I, “Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'.”
+ I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.
+
+She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+and have me criticise it. Sez she:
+
+“I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I, “it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way.”
+
+And sez she, “I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+each other.” And I told her “that our love for each other wuz like two
+rocks that couldn't be moved.”
+
+And she said, “On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my
+advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where
+there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she
+was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed
+that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on.”
+
+And I told her calmly “that I presumed I could.”
+
+It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to
+drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and
+come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.
+
+And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped
+and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees
+of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand
+the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face
+a Greenland winter in.
+
+And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back
+and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's
+call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:
+
+She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and
+stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the
+lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a
+place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and
+she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and
+forth and try to convince each other.
+
+And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+my frame, though dreadin' the job some.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture--crazy as a loon. He
+raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it
+to me. About “how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in
+a serene calm--a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts.”
+
+“Oh,” sez he, “it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew
+that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they
+wuz till to-night.”
+
+“She said,” sez I, in considerable dry axents--not so dry as I keep by
+me, but pretty dry--“No true man would let a woman perform any manuel
+labor.”
+
+“Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger
+in emanuel labor.”
+
+“Manuel, Josiah.”
+
+“Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?”
+
+“Yes,” sez I. “You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good,” sez I,
+firmly, “full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+along without some work and care.”
+
+“Wall I say,” sez he, “that there hain't no need of you havin' a care,
+not a single care. Not as long as I live--if it wuzn't for me, you might
+have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live.”
+
+I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly
+anon--
+
+[Illustration: “OH, WHAT A LECTURE THAT WUZ.”]
+
+“Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life--did you
+notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified
+to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands.”
+
+“Wall,” sez I, firmly, “when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap
+on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been
+a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have
+never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and
+tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs,
+jest like any other human states.”
+
+Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and
+I was too tired, “There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea
+by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold
+their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies
+blow--and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It
+is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into
+billows. But our sea--the sea of married life--is not like that, it is
+ofttimes billowy and rough.”
+
+“I say it hain't,” sez he, for he was jest carried away with the
+lecture, and enthused. “We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen,
+for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly
+smooth?”
+
+“Yes, it has; smooth as glass.”
+
+“Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?”
+
+“No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud.”
+
+Sez I, sternly, “There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+if I was in your place.”
+
+“'Dumb' hain't swearin',” sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
+till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
+
+“Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
+Allen.”
+
+“All right,” sez I, cheerfully. “I'd love to have her stay a week or
+ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+lecture.”
+
+Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
+and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
+company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
+did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
+have come in a much worse time.
+
+It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.
+
+Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish
+to have showed off to the public.
+
+He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward
+with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.
+
+He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
+and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
+see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.
+
+There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
+and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
+frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
+be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
+language he hurled at me acrost that stove.
+
+“Why,” sez I, “you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
+this side.”
+
+And then he hollered at me, and asked me:
+
+“How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in.” And then he wanted to know
+“if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or
+if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
+of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?” He
+hollered wildly.
+
+“Wall,” sez I, “you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
+you what end to move first,” sez I. “You have moved it in side-ways. It
+would go in all right if you had started it the other way.”
+
+“Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
+with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
+perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
+But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
+out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
+be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the
+breath of life in me.”
+
+Sez I, “Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door.”
+
+“I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at
+that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock.”
+
+[Illustration: “WON'T YOU BE STILL?”]
+
+Sez I agin in a whisper, “Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'.”  “Wall, I want 'em to
+ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
+every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do
+I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I
+said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to.”
+
+Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:
+
+“Won't you be still?”
+
+“No, I won't be still!” he yelled out louder than ever. “And you may go
+through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove.”
+
+I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
+stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of “Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose.” I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
+she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
+awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
+took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
+to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
+to Josiah.
+
+And I whispered to him, sez I: “Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
+about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?”
+
+But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
+he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, “She won't find much
+repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
+tore to pieces to get that stove started.”
+
+Sez I, “There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
+door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that.”
+
+“Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
+for two hours as I have, and then see.”
+
+Sez I, “You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+there,” sez I, liftin' up one end a little, “see what anybody can do who
+is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along.”
+ “Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself.”
+
+I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
+
+[Illustration: “AND HE SAID I HAD RUBBED 'EM OUT.”]
+
+Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't
+go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with
+chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had “rubbed 'em out.”
+ I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I
+see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of
+“Wedlock's Peaceful Repose” was a-listenin'.
+
+But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose
+to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out
+for years and years--why, then I _had_ to correct him on the subject,
+and we had a little dialogue.
+
+I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple
+sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+machine a-comin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half
+an hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected
+onto him as it did onto me.
+
+Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they
+had to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.
+
+They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to
+go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get
+to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they
+wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
+heard that was the cap sheaf.
+
+Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
+enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
+the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
+and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
+every minute.
+
+Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
+wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
+three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
+the author of “Peaceful Repose,” and me, almost to death.
+
+The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.
+
+I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.
+
+[Illustration: “IT DIDN'T FALL OUT ONLY THREE TIMES.”]
+
+Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+beginnin'. If you'll believe it,  I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
+by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
+pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all
+kinds.
+
+The author of “Wedlock's Peaceful Repose” came out into the kitchen. I
+told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.
+
+She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked
+it, to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement,
+to hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.
+
+But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to
+lift my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my
+hands.
+
+And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild
+man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by
+havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he
+couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And
+then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.
+
+[Illustration: “TO FIND A PIECE OF OLD ROPE TO TIE UP THE HARNESS.”]
+
+Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's
+legs, where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I
+took my hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up
+the harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on
+Josiah Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or
+else to do somethin' for him that he couldn't do.
+
+Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm
+holt of my principles, and didn't groan--not when anybody could hear me.
+I won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a
+groan or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after,
+I was calm again.
+
+Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed
+a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
+had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+dinner.
+
+I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
+the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
+and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
+little piece of brown paper, or full cloth--everything, he said, that
+wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.
+
+And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+right by the notch.
+
+And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)
+
+But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
+shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
+and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
+when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.
+
+[Illustration: “SHE LOOKED CURIUS, CURIUSER THAN THE FLOOR LOOKED.”]
+
+But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must--for
+I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the  author of
+“Wedlock's Peaceful Repose” wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
+curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
+curosity, and metafor.
+
+Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
+to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+stay to dinner.
+
+I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
+Zoar--it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
+only made fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along.
+And I had a good dinner and enough of it.
+
+I had to wait on the table, of course--that is, the tea and coffee. And
+I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that wore
+out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.
+
+And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my
+lips, the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em--good,
+strong Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't
+fairly got it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had
+drinked a drop, for the case demanded help at once.
+
+Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+the company wuz very genteel--a minister and a Justice of the Peace--so
+she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.
+
+She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to
+get 'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house
+and onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse
+barn, for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the
+very second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her
+husband to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to
+let the cat out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em
+and comparin' 'em with hern.
+
+I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the
+shelf, so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the
+most went onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that
+that wuz tricklin' down my backbone.
+
+[Illustration: “I SEE THE NECESSITY FOR URGENT HASTE.”]
+
+Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread,
+and then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for
+I wuz wet as sop--as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Wall, the author of “Wedlock's Peaceful Repose” wuz a-waitin' for me to
+the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by
+me, and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than
+ever, and more sad like.
+
+She said, “she was dretful sorry for me,” and I believed her.
+
+She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, “if I had such trials every day?”
+
+And I told her “No, I didn't.” I told her that things would run along
+smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody
+to once. Sez I, “You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of
+'em,' or words to that effect.”
+
+Sez I, in reasonable axents, “Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good
+things happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful
+agreeable days, and easy.”
+
+Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', “Did you ever have
+another day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin'
+through?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” sez I, “lots of'em--some worse ones, and,” sez I, “the day
+has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever
+stop.”
+
+Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:
+
+“You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+changin' your dress.”
+
+“Oh, wall,” sez I, “I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and
+get the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have
+got to do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and
+cakes and such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men.”
+
+So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg “that
+the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things
+to happen before night,” for I had only jest got well to work on the
+ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over “to see if I
+could let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her--she wanted
+'em to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through
+the winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots
+and seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+perfectly convenient,” so the boy said.
+
+Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+said, “either make or break me.”
+
+So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before
+I could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the
+total deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the
+last bag of seeds that I overhauled.
+
+But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.
+
+But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of
+garden and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent
+Submit the sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I
+possibly could.
+
+But I sez to the author of “Peaceful Repose,” I sez to her, sez I:
+
+“I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will
+try to,” sez I.
+
+“Oh,” sez she, “it hain't no matter about that; I--I--I somehow--I don't
+feel like rehearsin' it as it was.” Sez she, “I guess I shall make some
+changes in it before I rehearse it agin.”
+
+Sez I, “You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum.”
+
+“Yes,” sez she, in faint axents, “I am a-thinkin' of it.”
+
+[Illustration: “AS I STARTED FOR THE BUTTERY.”]
+
+“Wall,” sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of
+cups in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+napkins under my arm, “I believe I shall like it as well again if you
+do, any way,” sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my
+dress, and opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.
+
+“Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it.”
+
+Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my
+work quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the
+effort.
+
+And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised
+New Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as
+mebby I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk
+more'n an hour and three quarters.
+
+He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk;
+he'll make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles
+such large, curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz
+a-answerin' his questions.
+
+[Illustration: “THERE WUZ SOMETHIN' WRONG ABOUT 'EM.”]
+
+Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board
+in  her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had
+got another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.
+
+I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said “there wuz
+somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what.”
+
+She said “she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much
+round, but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of
+the barriers, and he must have his coat.”
+
+Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time,
+and took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it
+I see what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows
+come right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition
+to the funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms
+right acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.
+
+And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot
+the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it--and
+she went home feelin' first rate.
+
+I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would
+miss me if any thing should happen.
+
+[Illustration: “SHE IS APT TO GET THINGS WRONG.”]
+
+I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little
+boy's pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would
+have to set down from the front side, or else stand up.
+
+And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way
+to get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the
+legs. But I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and
+bastin', and settin' her right, and I did now.
+
+Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an
+old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and
+the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he
+wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the
+first thing that “he wanted some of Hall's salve.” And I told him “there
+wuzn't a mite in the house.”
+
+And he hollered up and says, “There would be some if there wuz any sense
+in the head of the house.”
+
+[Illustration: “HE WANTED SOME OF HALL'S SALVE.”]
+
+I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for
+I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, “Why hain't there any
+Hall's salve?”  Sez I, “Because old Hall has been dead for years and
+years, and hain't made any salve.”
+
+“Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,”
+ he yelled out.
+
+“Why,” sez I, “he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely
+onexpected five years ago last summer.”
+
+“Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will
+become of me!” he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
+
+Sez I, “Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah.”
+
+“Pond's Extract!” he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
+
+And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of
+man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to
+take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me
+all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him
+a-purpose.
+
+He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+author of “Wedlock's Peaceful Repose” would hear him, and he hollered
+back “he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he
+shouldn't live to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up.”
+
+His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had
+brung down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back--a hull
+lot of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.
+
+There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children,
+and the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+a-visitin', and the editor of the _Augur'ses_ wife (she wuz related to
+the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go
+to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the
+West's bosom friend, or used to be.
+
+Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The author of “Peaceful Repose” sez to me, and she looked pale and
+skairt; she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful
+skairt and shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin',
+as I said prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as
+good as the very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I
+would allow spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she
+proposed, Miss Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man.
+And though I urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard
+as I would otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of
+visitors had reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.
+
+[Illustration: “SHE PROPOSED THAT SHE SHOULD RIDE BACK WITH THE LIVERY
+MAN.”]
+
+I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I
+have got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different
+occasions, every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and
+curiusest ones.
+
+Wall, the author of “Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose” insisted on
+goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, “That
+if she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much
+work round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her
+rehearse the lecture.”
+
+But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as
+wan agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): “That she should make
+_changes_ in it before she ever rehearsed it agin--_deep changes_!”
+
+And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+till I got this letter.
+
+Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all
+on the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot
+down to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens
+make a practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if
+they did--and have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt
+well, and the supper tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I
+told him Lodema wuz approachin' and would be there that very night or
+the next day--still the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin'
+mellowness of the hot tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other
+good things.
+
+[Illustration: “MY PARDNER ENJOYS GOOD VITTLES.”]
+
+My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz
+enjoy good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.
+
+And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+lawyers would almost entirely disappear.
+
+For truly it seems that _no_ human man _could be_ more worrysome, and
+curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at times; still,
+by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from day to day,
+and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him to me by
+ties that can't never be broken into.
+
+He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.
+
+He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it
+in his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are
+the ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a
+cheerful countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright
+room, on a snowy table-cloth!
+
+Great--great is the mystery of men's love.
+
+I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that
+underlies married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much
+cannot be said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of
+female and male humanity--and it _cannot_ be too closely followed up and
+practised by female pardners.
+
+But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.
+
+Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early--I mean
+the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema--oh no, fur from it; Lodema is never
+bright and cheerful--she is the opposite and reverse always.
+
+She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to
+call 'em so rather than “old maid” (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful
+sharp before I could get him into it).
+
+I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of
+old maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that
+would but couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the
+“would-but-couldn't's,” though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said
+so, not for the world.
+
+Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:
+
+“She hain't to blame, Josiah.”
+
+And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.
+
+Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we
+had our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of
+makin' awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down
+onto us sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along--jest
+like a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind
+to bring up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.
+
+And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I
+done well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved
+to put on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for
+either on 'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time
+a'most. And it come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand
+the brunt on it.
+
+But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them
+that can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide
+world to suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather,
+and if the weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.
+
+[Illustration: “BUT SHE IS A DISAGREEABLE CREETER.”]
+
+If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+groans aloud and says “she can't see.”
+
+And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she
+spends the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at
+'em.
+
+You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of
+game you set out to hunt in the mornin'.
+
+If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+perseverin'--if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
+such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
+cattle--why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
+will be a noble and happy hunter.
+
+[Illustration: “BUT FIT WITH THEIR TONGUES, FEARFUL.”]
+
+At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
+night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
+right along and chase 'em down.  Wall, Lodema never got led away from
+her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
+and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.
+
+But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
+always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
+huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
+It wuz! It wuz!
+
+And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
+wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
+visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
+the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues--they didn't
+fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
+tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
+themselves--boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
+boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
+it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
+and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
+truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
+had got to thinkin' so.
+
+But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
+
+Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+pious.
+
+[Illustration: “HIS FACE WUZ A GOOD MORAL FACE.”]
+
+But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
+
+But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
+that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
+carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
+actin'.
+
+And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+found that he had always been a pattern man--never had done a single
+mean act, so fur as wuz known.
+
+Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
+talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
+wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
+told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
+
+Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+comin' to a end.
+
+She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
+her--and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
+extremely sot.
+
+But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+quite good ones.
+
+That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+and above disagreeable to me.
+
+Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
+they would be better off.
+
+But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+fur, they hain't megum enough.
+
+Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
+
+It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
+mebby will be agin.
+
+But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
+
+You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+even whip 'em.
+
+No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
+truth in it.
+
+[Illustration: “EF I FELL ON A STUN.”]
+
+Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
+Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
+on a stun--I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
+and there hain't no stun--and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
+achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
+no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.
+
+No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
+subject.
+
+But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way--so nigh to it that
+seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
+
+I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+frequently, “before and after takin'.”
+
+Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+calmness, and joy--refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
+
+Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
+brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
+so much peace and happiness.
+
+Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
+question, or ort to be.
+
+And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+lookin' at it, and commandin' it to--or call some posys to fall down
+into my lap, right through, the plasterin'--
+
+Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
+me stayed to Jonesville.
+
+Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
+do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
+deal of the time.
+
+I most know I couldn't.
+
+But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
+Natur.
+
+And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+it.
+
+And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
+of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
+breath leaves their body.
+
+Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
+beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
+
+Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
+never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
+
+And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
+meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
+felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
+lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
+
+They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
+at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of their
+childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
+
+I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
+or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
+imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
+imperfect world.
+
+But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+about 'em--you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
+
+Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
+last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
+end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
+didn't either. And I sez to her, “The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
+to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
+Father when that great day shall be.” And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
+I, “How should _you_ be expected to know it?”
+
+Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, “My name
+wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that _wuzn't_ to know it!”
+
+And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side--you
+know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+side--you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
+did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
+use in disputin' back and forth.
+
+But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
+old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+naterally wanted to be round at the time.
+
+She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
+his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
+wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
+up as any way.
+
+Josiah didn't like it at all.
+
+Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance--not fierce, you know,
+or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
+ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
+fierce.
+
+[Illustration: “BURIED IN THE OLD RISLEY DEESIRICT.”]
+
+Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
+
+And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
+jest _knew_ the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
+of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
+to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
+made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns--so she told me in
+confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
+
+She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
+for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
+
+But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
+old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
+
+His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length--Joe is
+tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
+for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
+likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
+what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
+she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
+human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
+joke, Jenette duz: “I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
+got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
+would be glad the world _wuz_ comin' to a end.”
+
+But he _didn't_ look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
+see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
+have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
+everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
+
+He has got 300 acres of good land, “be it more or less,” as the deed
+reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
+'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
+house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
+handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
+barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
+order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
+more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
+
+He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+too.
+
+But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
+Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
+honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
+And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
+subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
+she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
+the poet sez, she wuzn't one “to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
+bask waist,” still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
+eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
+have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
+a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
+to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
+
+And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, “smart as lightnin',” as Josiah
+always said.
+
+She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
+girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
+said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
+gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
+said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
+said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
+goodness to 'em.
+
+That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
+pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
+to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
+and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
+life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
+enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
+night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
+little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
+comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
+and thought her eyes on him.
+
+And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
+home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
+weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
+
+That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+prior and beforehand.
+
+Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
+
+He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
+
+And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
+
+For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+think such a girl as Jenette had been--such a patient, good creeter, and
+such a good-tempered one, and everything--to think her pa should have
+forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+their money and make Jenette trouble.
+
+But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
+I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
+
+But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
+day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
+and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
+
+That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
+
+Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
+a bright face.
+
+If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
+dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
+locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
+laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
+to the rattle of a bone.
+
+And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
+
+The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
+by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
+the qualities kinder struck in and she _wuz_ happy, and she _wuz_
+contented--that is, I s'poze so.
+
+Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
+to home--not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+like a meteor.
+
+Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+movin' constantly through space--but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
+meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
+I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
+
+Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
+who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
+One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
+of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
+admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
+good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
+'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
+
+And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+got to goin'.
+
+[Illustration: “Dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz.”]
+
+Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
+and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
+curls all over her head.
+
+Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
+a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
+on the other side, and got through with it.
+
+Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
+
+A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
+had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
+But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
+was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
+afternoon.
+
+Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
+case of the world's endin'.
+
+And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, “that
+she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
+the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes.”
+
+And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
+
+She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
+time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
+Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
+in front.
+
+Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
+
+She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
+
+But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
+get better and she did.
+
+One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
+the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
+month.
+
+[Illustration: “Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur.”]
+
+He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley
+school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the
+next mornin' Miss  Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that
+evenin'. It wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah
+had to be away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy
+loaded, and wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
+
+But she said “that she felt that the walk would do her good.”
+
+I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said “stanchils and
+religion wuz two separate things.” Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
+to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
+And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
+another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
+or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
+in onxiety--it hain't my way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
+Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
+carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
+his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
+Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
+with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
+her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
+size.
+
+Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
+enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
+been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach--a sort of
+a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
+her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
+old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
+thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
+wuz tightenin'.
+
+And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
+And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
+head and said, “she didn't approve of it--she thought a chicken ought to
+be brung up by a hen.”
+
+But Miss Charnick said, “Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+perished right there in the nest.”
+
+But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, “that it wuz
+a hen's business, and nobody else's.”
+
+And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
+hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
+if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to--they ought to
+be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
+wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
+the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
+to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
+
+And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+and she said “that basks had gone out.”
+
+And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
+Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
+
+“Basks _wuz out_, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+polenay.”
+
+And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+“Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
+got so little time to wear 'em.”
+
+And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+somethin' about “hired girls keepin' their place.”
+
+And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
+
+They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
+their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
+others.
+
+It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
+
+And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
+her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
+fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
+in--I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
+knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
+
+Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
+do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
+sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
+his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
+her belief.
+
+But Josiah said, “he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
+if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
+guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand.”
+
+Sez I, “Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself.” And he owned up that
+he wuz.
+
+Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
+breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
+overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
+come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
+and press the seams.
+
+I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
+had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
+
+She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
+that day. She sez, “The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
+a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!” sez she.
+
+“Wall,” sez I, “I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
+riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
+commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
+Hubbard.”
+
+“It hain't a Mother Hubbard!” sez she.
+
+“Wall,” sez I, “I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+them, and you know it.” Hers wuz made with a yoke.
+
+And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+bitterly reproved him. But he sez, “If the world don't come to a end,
+the corn will be needed.”
+
+“But it will,” she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
+
+[Illustration: “WALL,” SEZ HE, “IF IT DOES, I MAY AS WELL BE DOIN'
+THAT AS TO BE SETTIN' ROUND.”]
+
+“Wall,” sez he, “if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+settin' round.” And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+jawed me for upholdin' him.
+
+And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+previous to eatin' it, sez she, “I should think _respect_, respect for
+the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+of the idea of goin' on with your work.”
+
+Sez I calmly, “Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?”
+
+“Wall, not exactly scare,” sez she, “but lift up, lift up far above
+bread and other kitchen work.”
+
+And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, “I don't s'poze
+I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
+of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
+that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
+would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
+ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+grandchildren.” (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
+to dinner.)
+
+“Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
+have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
+soar up above riz biscuit.”
+
+And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
+another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, “What did
+they do there?”
+
+“Do!” sez she, “why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile.”
+
+I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
+I do say it), and sez calmly, “Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
+have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
+_some_ things, things He has _commanded_. Everybody to their own way.
+I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever,” sez I,
+“I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz _my_ way to lay speechless
+or holler much--not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
+principle, but I never seemed to have a call to.”
+
+“You would be far better if you did,” sez Trueman's wife, “far better.
+But you hain't good enough.”
+
+“Oh!” sez I, reasonably, “I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
+the _use_ in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
+all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
+you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
+_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife,” sez I,
+“that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
+'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
+temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
+regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
+our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
+life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?”
+
+“You would be glad to if you wuz good enough,” sez she; “if you had
+attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it.”
+
+That kinder riled me up, and I sez, “Wall, I have lived in this house
+with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
+one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters,” sez I, a prickin' my
+biscuit with a fork, “more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on.”
+
+Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
+agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
+years.
+
+But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
+
+But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
+companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
+her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+be sent up.
+
+Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
+in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
+by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
+had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
+
+The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
+it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
+goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
+enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
+
+The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
+stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
+talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
+had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
+
+But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+on white book muslin robes. Good land!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+about 3 o'clock P.M.--afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
+
+We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
+wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
+kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
+top of the him book.
+
+Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
+a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
+and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known--Miss Charnick is a
+smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
+
+Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through--as mournful,
+skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
+out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
+way, and wierd--dretful wierd.
+
+And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
+days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
+men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
+and wept and cried.
+
+I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
+serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought--jest
+as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
+very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
+mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
+the certainties of the other.
+
+[Illustration: “A SORT OF A LURID, WILD-LOOKING CHAP.”]
+
+For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
+big that the hull world must pass through it--and yet so small that the
+hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.
+
+My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+mysterious arches, alone--and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
+onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had _got_ to be
+parted.
+
+And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+the bendin' heavens--we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
+on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.
+
+Not that I really _wanted_ the world to come to a end that day. No,
+I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
+for the _sake_ of livin'. I enjoy it.
+
+But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+a-shinin' in his'n.
+
+Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+three to quarter to 4--and so on--they shouted, they sung, they prayed,
+they shook each other's hands--they wuz fairly crazed with excitement
+and fervor, which they called religion--for they wuz in earnest, nobody
+could dispute that.
+
+Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time--though I ketched
+him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say, “Oh, how
+I hate to leave you, Jenette!”
+
+But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.
+
+Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on
+the puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say
+this, that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's
+time. And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep
+calm and serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there--no sign, no
+change--and Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.
+
+But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe,
+more than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been
+in for a week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this
+day, he jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and
+stood there in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had
+been calm enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice--his
+voice always did have a good honest ring to it:
+
+  Farewell my friends,
+  Farewell my foes;
+  Up to Heaven
+  Joe Charnick goes.
+
+And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he
+waved his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and
+sprung upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller
+him--and go right up into the heavens.
+
+And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+too--jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a camp
+chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred her
+dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks,
+and lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her
+way of applyin' of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: “FAREWELL MY FRIENDS, FAREWELL MY FOES.”]
+
+I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+only to put 'em on it.  But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.
+
+Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world--not a
+word--but a-naggin' about everything else.
+
+Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her
+healed, and started off.
+
+But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.
+
+He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+love--Joe never could be megum.
+
+Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell--but
+when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die,
+then she owned up to him that she worshipped him--and always had.
+
+And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death
+at the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl--she thinks her eyes on
+her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever
+wuz all around, if not agreeabler.
+
+Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of
+his bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin'
+her so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad
+on't, so they say.
+
+Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when
+Trueman's wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house
+still; that is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that
+Ma Charnick offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the
+ones she had brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please
+her, so's to get in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14
+of 'em, all fat and flourishing--they wuz well took care of. And Miss
+Charnick looked down on 'em fondly, and sez:
+
+“I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+married.”
+
+[Illustration: “I LAY OUT TO HAVE A GOOD CHICKEN PIE THE DAY THAT JOE
+AND JENETTE ARE MARRIED.”]
+
+“Married!” sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. “Yes,
+they are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough.
+Jenette is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'--with a
+bask,” sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped
+down and gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much
+store she set by it for sickness.
+
+But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered
+and sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before
+the weddin'.
+
+They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here
+a-visitin'--and she asked me in confidence (and it _must_ be kep, it
+stands lo reason it must), “if I s'posed that book muslin robe would
+make two little dresses?”
+
+And I told her, “Good land! yes, three on 'em,” and it did.
+
+She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would
+want the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the
+materials--
+
+It looks some like her and some like Joe--and they both think their eyes
+on it--but old Miss Charnick worships it--Wall, though es I said (and I
+have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and onheard on).
+
+Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a _plow_, that
+time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on--
+
+He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+(He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it,
+and don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)
+
+He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+from hour to hour.
+
+He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle
+the wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist
+wimmen wuz to work.
+
+After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+post-office for his daily _World_, and then he would stop on his way
+back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+give us his idees on't.
+
+[Illustration: “HE NEVER HAD TIME TO HELP.”]
+
+And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the  very bone, with his
+dretful imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo
+herself, and ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to
+set!
+
+Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.
+
+He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do
+some little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.
+
+But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work.
+He wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about
+that buzz saw mill.
+
+And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz
+able to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and
+their buzz saws, and their inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc.,
+etc.
+
+And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+meetin' house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said
+they had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't
+do any more, any way.
+
+As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the
+male brethern.
+
+Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+come right out plain and said so.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said “he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right
+to his face that he hadn't done his share,” and he said “he wuzn't the
+man either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things.” I don't
+believe he wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like
+death to have him so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the
+tex' wuz; it wuz these words:
+
+“The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.”
+
+The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached
+about it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat
+to several of the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly
+pinched 'em.
+
+But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said “he
+wouldn't give a _darn_ cent.”
+
+But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+that he had demeaned himself to that extent.
+
+Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain
+members of the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin'
+slightin' about buzz saws.
+
+I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws
+had a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I
+believe the subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these
+various hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the
+men kinder joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other,
+and they all baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the
+minister wuz, good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of
+life, and most half a year's salery due.
+
+I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her
+own sirname about how her Metilda had been used.
+
+The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.
+
+She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny
+it, and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said,
+and stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been
+to save her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when
+some of the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:
+
+“The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+unless it is when you can't help it.”
+
+What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:
+
+There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+evenin' meetin's.
+
+She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it
+wuz s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.
+
+She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+a-cryin' before she got it all out.
+
+She always said “she wanted to be found always at the foot of the
+Cross.”
+
+She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical,
+and then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out
+into tears somewhere through it from first to last.
+
+But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz
+present for the first time after his wive's death.
+
+But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly--she was most a
+head taller than any man there--and she sez out loud and strong:
+
+“I want to be found--”
+
+And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some
+time. And then she begun agin,
+
+“I want to be found--”
+
+And then she busted out agin.
+
+And so it went on for some time--she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+and firm, “that she wanted to be found--” and then bustin' into tears.
+
+Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+right out onto the him--
+
+  “Oh, that will be joyful!”
+
+And Sister Lum sot down.
+
+Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+bring forward that verse of scripter. That the Bible said “'there wuz a
+time to laugh,' and I didn't know when it wuz unless it wuz when you
+couldn't help it--”
+
+But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda--no, indeed. I only said it
+because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin'
+house down on her so heavy.
+
+But Josiah said, “What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+punish its unruly members?”
+
+And I sez to Josiah, “Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of,
+and the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it,
+Josiah Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And
+Miss Henn is a widder and poor.”
+
+“Yes,” sez Josiah, calmly, “she hain't been able to help the meetin'
+house much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely.”
+
+Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, “I hearn he did at the time he wuz
+up--I hearn he contributed _lots_ to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+him--but,” sez I, “do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay
+in the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that
+is sendin' men to ruin all round him--
+
+“Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way
+so it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every
+low saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and
+boy that wants it.
+
+“And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm--so he jest
+entices 'em down into the road to ruin--doin' as much agin harm as a
+whiskey seller.
+
+“And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are
+always appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by
+their peers, but wimmen never are.
+
+“I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked
+it to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+about Metilda's case--thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.
+
+[Illustration: “SUPPLYIN' EVERY LOW SALOON FUR AND NEAR.”]
+
+“I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's
+mother set on him? She is a Sister  in the meetin' house and Charley is
+a ruined boy--and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin--
+jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if
+he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon.”
+
+Sez I, “In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who
+have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of
+their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red
+with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and
+deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.
+
+“What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there
+and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other
+young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young
+hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that
+wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink.
+Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
+changed the smiles to curses?
+
+“Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+easy.
+
+“They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
+down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
+
+“Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
+But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
+no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
+downward?
+
+“How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+love, a divine purity?”
+
+Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
+
+And sez I, “Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
+Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
+the first cause of her goin' astray kep in--the handsome,
+smooth-faced hypocrite?--it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
+plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
+speeches and his money.”
+
+[Illustration: “JOSIAH LOOKED UP AND SEZ, 'HOW A STEEPLE WOULD LOOK
+A-PINTIN' DOWN'”]
+
+“Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
+pinted the other way.”
+
+Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+sez he,
+
+“How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
+most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
+anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
+storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
+
+Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+gently sarcestickle.
+
+“How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee.”
+
+[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]
+
+Sez I, “I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
+that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
+that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it.”
+
+“I d'no as she wuz his victim,” sez Josiah.
+
+Sez I, “Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
+man that led her astray.”
+
+“It wuzn't proved,” sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
+at the advertisement on the back side on't.
+
+“And why wuzn't it proved?” sez I, “because he held a big piece of gold
+against the mouths of the witnesses.”
+
+“I didn't see any in front of my mouth,” sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+some composed.
+
+“And you know what the story wuz,” sez he, “accordin' to that, he did it
+all to try her faith.”
+
+I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+well what the story wuz he referred to.
+
+It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
+
+She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
+
+And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
+all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
+right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
+while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
+he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
+bitterly.
+
+She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
+
+And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
+it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
+'em.
+
+And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, “Bretheren and
+sisters, let us sing these lines:
+
+  “He did it all to try her faith.”
+
+I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
+by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes--nor I didn't
+smile--oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+indignatin in my axents, and sez I, “Josiah Allen, can you look me in
+the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
+such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?” Sez
+I, “If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
+the influence of men that like hard drink?”
+
+“Wall, as it were,” sez Josiah, “I--that is--wall, it is a-gettin'
+bed-time, Samantha.”
+
+And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
+
+And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour--and I
+dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
+did.
+
+But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
+
+Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+we felt that she wuz a great loss.
+
+Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
+hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
+had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
+etc.
+
+And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
+a little help gin her when she needed it.
+
+And Miss Bobbet said “she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+bein' cast down.” And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
+of 'em did. But I sez to 'em--
+
+“Good land!” sez I. “We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+and we can do it agin.”
+
+Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
+jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
+the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
+spell.
+
+But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
+
+We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
+other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
+prayed--we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
+rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
+Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
+and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
+to nothin' or not.
+
+Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
+our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
+had a right to).
+
+After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+enough to raise some money.
+
+It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
+the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
+
+It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
+at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
+makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
+
+But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
+we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
+
+The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+fix up the old house a little.
+
+The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
+half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
+aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
+always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
+when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
+'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
+be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
+ways--nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
+meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
+resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
+which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
+meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
+approvals--and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint--we could
+_work_ all we wanted to.
+
+So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
+had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
+we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
+be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
+wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
+to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
+and the scrapin' had begun.
+
+[Illustration: “APPEARIN' IN PUBLIC.”]
+
+The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+together, and raised enough money to get the paper--it wuz very nice,
+and fifty cents a roll (double roll).  These young females appearin' in
+public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
+and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
+I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
+sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
+our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
+
+I sez, “I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
+es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
+of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
+sights of quavers.”
+
+But they all said that wuz a _very_ different thing.
+
+And sez I, “How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
+of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
+congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
+'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
+see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them”--and
+sez I, “they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
+had on a low neck and short sleeves.” But they wouldn't yield, and I
+wouldn't nuther.
+
+But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
+scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
+could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
+say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
+And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.
+
+Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
+have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
+and 'Piscopals.
+
+No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
+do the scrapin' with case knives.
+
+It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
+as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
+fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
+standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
+strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
+got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
+that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
+is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
+before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
+to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
+
+But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
+there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
+what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
+Methodist Meetin' House.
+
+Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
+all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
+to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
+strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
+we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.
+
+[Illustration: “EVERY NIGHT JOSIAH WOULD TACKLE ME ON IT.”]
+
+And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+thought quelled us down a sight.
+
+Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
+and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
+up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.
+
+And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
+the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
+house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
+to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
+Conference.
+
+It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+Jonesville with a extra grip.
+
+So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
+
+Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
+from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
+
+I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
+brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
+
+He would talk _very_ skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
+of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
+by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
+
+I suffered.
+
+Josiah would set with the _World_ and other papers in his hand,
+a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
+left off, the nite mairs would begin.
+
+I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
+
+The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
+wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
+rostrums. And sez he, “That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
+stand.”
+
+[Illustration: “IS ROSTRUMS MUCH HIGHER THAN THEM BARELLS TO STAND ON?”]
+
+And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
+not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
+work, I sez to him:
+
+“Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+meetin' house?”
+
+And Josiah said, “it wuz suthin' altogether different.” And he assured
+me agin,
+
+“That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
+to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
+why,” sez he, “that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
+most all the hard work in the church--such as raisin' money for church
+work--earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
+of charity work connected with it--teachin' the children, nursin' the
+sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But,” sez he, “this is
+fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
+Conference. Why,” sez he, in a haughty tone, “I should think they'd know
+without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women.”
+
+Sez I, “Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
+wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
+vote for them?”
+
+“That is the pint,” sez Josiah, “that is the very pint I have been
+tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
+help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+explain it to you that the word laymen _always_ means woman when she can
+help men in any way, but _not_ when he can help her, or in any other
+sense.”
+
+Sez I, “It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+meetin' house.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, “the word laymen always means
+wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+men.”
+
+Sez I, in a very dry axent, “Then the word man, when it is used in
+church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
+and drowdgin' round?”
+
+“Yes,” sez Josiah haughtily, “And it always means men in the higher and
+more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
+on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so,” sez he.
+
+“Who settled it?” sez I.
+
+“Why the men, of course,” sez he. “The men have always made the rules
+of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+difficult,” sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, “It
+seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+and when it means wimmen.”
+
+“That is so,” sez Josiah. “It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
+and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
+taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
+right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
+votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
+
+“I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
+where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
+
+“Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
+
+“Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+born.' That means men and wimmen both--men and wimmen are both born,
+nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
+Now that means men only--anybody with one eye can see that.
+
+“Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+both--consists--of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
+'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?” sez he.
+
+I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
+hand waitin' for it to bile--“I see a great deal, Josiah Allen.”
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH WORK.]
+
+“Wall,” sez he, “I am glad on't. Now to sum it up,” sez he, with some
+the mean of a preacher--or, ruther, a exhauster--“to sum the matter all
+up, the  words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
+the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
+all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
+missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
+from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
+the meanin' of the word--sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
+both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
+their own idees, preachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?” sez
+he, proudly and loftily.
+
+“Yes,” sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
+biled. “Yes, I see.”
+
+And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
+and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
+anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
+his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
+sect if I tried--clergymen, statesmen and all--so I didn't try, and I
+wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
+idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
+some good cream into it--I merely sez:
+
+“There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+men.”
+
+“Yes,” sez he, “that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,”
+ and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
+and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
+
+And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+question I had put to him--for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
+recuperation, and so I sez agin them words--
+
+“Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?” And Josiah said
+agin, “it wuz suthin' entirely different;” he said barells and rostrums
+wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
+hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
+argument full of Bible quotations and everything.
+
+And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
+the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
+that meetin house.
+
+And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
+we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
+
+Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
+
+Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+and nerved up her body.
+
+Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+“Cleanliness _next_ to godliness.”
+
+So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+with a willin' mind.
+
+Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
+say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
+and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
+workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked--and all of the wimmen who
+wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
+a-workin' hard on articles for the fair--when all of a suddin the
+outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
+bretheren.
+
+They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
+Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
+wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
+
+Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
+to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
+it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
+that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
+derectin'.
+
+And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
+and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
+house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
+me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
+
+And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
+near time for us to go home.
+
+Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
+they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
+then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
+
+I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
+the heat.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE.]
+
+Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
+partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
+manners, and didn't say much.
+
+But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
+way--
+
+“Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+jest like you?”
+
+“No,” sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, “no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
+your days at church work under the direction of us men.”
+
+“Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you,” sez she admirin'ly,
+“I could work jest like you--pass round the bread and wine and the
+contribution box Sundays?”
+
+“Oh, no, Drusilly,” sez he condesendinly, “these hard and arjuous dutys
+belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
+the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc.”
+
+“But,” sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+deacon), “wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers--work for
+the good of the church together--go about doin' good?”
+
+“No, Drusilly,” sez he, “that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
+for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
+
+“We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+generally.”
+
+Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
+of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
+the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
+side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
+usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
+transparent manner of speakin'.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+“he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+Conference, because it would _weaken_ the Conference.”
+
+“Yes,” sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+floor.
+
+“You see,” sez he, “we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
+weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
+her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
+would admit would keep out a man. And that,” sez he (a-leanin' back in
+a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), “that, you see, would
+tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church.”
+
+[Illustration: “WALL,” SEZ I, “MOVE ROUND A LITTLE, WON'T YOU, FOR WE
+WANT TO SET THE BENCH.”]
+
+“Wall,” sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, “move round a
+little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
+under it. And,” sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
+and sweat offen my face, “Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
+holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
+'em? Some of 'em are very hefty,” sez I, “and all of us Sisters almost
+are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
+and bile down; we would dearly love a little help,” sez I.
+
+“I would help,” sez Josiah in a willin' tone, “I would help in a minute,
+if I hadn't got so much work to do at home.”
+
+And all the other male bretheren said the same thing--they had got to
+git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
+and I knew it.)
+
+But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
+his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
+of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
+the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
+the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
+she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
+
+She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
+of his folks that day, over to Loontown.
+
+And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
+and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
+one work--deacon work--and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
+hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
+plain deacon work.
+
+It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
+and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
+piece had convinced her--
+
+She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
+be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
+would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
+
+[Illustration: “SHE SEE THIS WILD AND SKAIRFUL MACHINE APPROACHIN'.”]
+
+When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
+up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
+tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
+bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his.  There was a bet upon these
+two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
+where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
+hollerin'.
+
+And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
+
+His mean wuz wild.
+
+And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
+she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
+old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
+after 'em.
+
+And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
+a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
+
+Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+nuther.
+
+And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
+
+It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+long, long time, and it wuz what he called “A Travellin' Rat Trap.” It
+wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
+
+[Illustration: DEACON HENZY'S RAT TRAP (LIKE A CIRCUS FOR THE RATS).]
+
+It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em--rats
+or mice, or anything--and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
+
+Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
+
+It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
+
+But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
+machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
+
+Deacon Sypher had took the agency for “The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+Boy of the Plain,” and wuz doin' well by it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
+and arneky.
+
+[Illustration: “HE HAD TO LAY BOUND UP IN LINEMENTS A GOOD DEAL OF THE
+TIME.”]
+
+So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
+
+And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
+his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
+
+He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
+away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
+his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
+about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
+as he could, to try it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
+break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
+hardly dast to go nigh 'em.
+
+And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
+to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
+him for “The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain.” And he wanted to show the
+“Leaping Cow Boy” to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
+home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
+wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the “Leaping Cow Boy.”
+
+And then they said--the hull three of the deacons did--that any minute
+them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
+saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
+
+And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+demanded the hull of their time--every minute of it.
+
+So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
+
+We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
+would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
+
+Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
+
+But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
+to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
+
+“Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?”
+
+“It is on account of their minds,” sez Josiah. “Men have got stronger
+minds than wimmen, that is the reason.”
+
+And Sister Meechim sez agin--
+
+“Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
+deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
+if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?”
+
+“Wall,” sez Josiah, “that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+brains hain't so hefty es men's.”
+
+But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+loud, clear tone,
+
+“Oh, shaw!”
+
+And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
+
+“If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
+you are a-standin'.”
+
+“Certainly,” sez Josiah, in a polite axent, “certainly.”
+
+And so the rest of the men said.
+
+And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,
+
+“You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+puddin', and so forth.”
+
+And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, “Have I ever failed, Josiah
+Allen, to have good dinners for you, and on time too?”
+
+“No,” sez he, “but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it,
+and also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+deaconesses.”
+
+And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work
+in the meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister
+Arvilly Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue
+(some think that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had
+chances).
+
+But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,
+
+“I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses.”
+
+[Illustration: “JOSIAH ADDED TO HIS REMARKS.”]
+
+“Wall,” sez Sister Gowdy--she loves to put on Arvilly--“wall, you have
+got one qualificatin', Arvilly!”
+
+“Yes, thank the Lord,” sez she.
+
+And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, _I_ think.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say
+it.
+
+Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me
+to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long,
+so I didn't care.
+
+Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay
+to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+wuz company, or lay out to.
+
+Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
+
+He had jest got home from the city.
+
+It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had
+to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody
+else couldn't sign.
+
+[Illustration: CASPER KEELER.]
+
+His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
+
+Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
+
+He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+cetery, et cetery.
+
+He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in
+the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very
+highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
+
+And I sez, “Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?”
+
+And he acted real scorfin'.
+
+“Wimmen's work!” sez he. “No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and
+too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such
+little trifles as wimmen's work.”
+
+Sez I, “Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if
+it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you
+are a-usin'?” sez I, “who educated you and made your life easy before
+you?”
+
+And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother
+wuz a good woman.
+
+But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin'
+it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
+
+But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over
+with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz
+a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of
+my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc.,
+etc.
+
+[Illustration: “HE SEEMED TO HAVE A HORROW OF WOMAN A-RAISIN' OUT OF HER
+SPEAR.”]
+
+Sez Casper, “It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life,” sez he,
+“when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen
+keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in
+that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+reasons why poor weak wimmen should _not_ be admitted into that sacred
+enclosure--
+
+“When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I
+have ever experienced. Why, he said,” sez Casper, “that if wimmen wuz
+allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The
+next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly
+argument,” sez Casper.
+
+“It must have been,” sez my Josiah.
+
+“He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear.”
+
+“Well he might,” sez Josiah, “well he might.”
+
+Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This
+wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real
+solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only
+more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig
+some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its
+feet--no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of
+truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and
+curius I felt hearin' their talk.
+
+“And,” sez I, “nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I
+have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf,” sez I, “deep
+and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his
+burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his
+unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the
+very depths of my soul at his freedom.
+
+“But,” sez I, “when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
+
+“Yes,” sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
+
+“When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen
+are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach,
+I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and
+where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand
+and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all
+over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody
+says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the
+old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted
+and bring forth freedom.
+
+“If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster
+would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him
+up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought
+and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many
+animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
+him so.”
+
+“Oh, no,” sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', “no, you wouldn't.”
+
+“Yes, I would,” sez I. “And I'd 've enjoyed it _richly_” sez I, es I
+turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
+
+[Illustration: SAMANTHA EXPRESSES HER VIEWS.]
+
+Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+machin' for about the same length of time.
+
+But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+dinner.
+
+After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
+
+But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
+Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
+and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
+several days.
+
+And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
+
+But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
+of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
+own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
+his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
+failure, and such.
+
+[Illustration: “SISTER BOBBET, OUR DEPENDENCE, FELL DOWN ON A APPLE
+PARIN'”.]
+
+And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she--
+
+“Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
+I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
+to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake.” Rosy wuz
+Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+now a father's strong hand.
+
+Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always
+been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the
+savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property
+with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took
+his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
+
+Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
+
+Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz
+lost--a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits,
+and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
+
+[Illustration: RALPH SMITH ROBINSON.]
+
+He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time--he felt
+weak and mauger.
+
+And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got
+in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she
+_needed_ a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else
+she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with
+her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father
+wuz--so wouldn't Ralph come home.
+
+Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked
+and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love
+and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith
+Robinson.
+
+Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that
+the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost
+crazed him.
+
+He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with
+him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The
+world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so
+near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, “he
+walked with God.” Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they
+wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for
+Yankees.
+
+And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+Presidential election.
+
+Ralph suffered.
+
+But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
+
+Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+the droppin's of the sanctuary.
+
+She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered
+up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under
+the steeple.
+
+Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by
+the voice of his soul and his good silver watch--this volume of clamor,
+this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz
+perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin'
+dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he
+come down with nervous fever.
+
+He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he
+wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he
+bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no
+idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got
+it.
+
+I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work
+of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't
+languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the
+female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in
+Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled
+me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel
+divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what
+day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend
+when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear
+a hankerchif pin or not--or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc.,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
+
+Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case
+before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful
+that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence.
+One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder
+deprestin' about it.
+
+But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
+
+We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go
+into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has
+always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice
+to Josiah Allen.
+
+Howsumever, I don't _know_ that. But I do know that they started off
+a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back
+home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
+
+[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS.]
+
+And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+said they bought 'em.
+
+And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either
+one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the
+truth of this. I know what they _said_, they _said_ the huntin' wuz
+excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
+
+And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
+
+But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+bigger ones, and shot more deers.
+
+Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a
+good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and,
+suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our
+journey to Loontown.
+
+[Illustration: “MISS TIMSON AND ROSY SEEMED DRETFUL GLAD TO SEE ME.”]
+
+Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale
+and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been
+there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well
+as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts
+and their souls and their idealized fancies.
+
+Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good
+a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
+
+And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24
+hours I begun to feel some as they did.
+
+But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
+
+But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
+
+His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all,
+had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and
+struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine
+sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
+
+He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost
+as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But
+under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his
+good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire
+that wuz a-consumin' of him.
+
+Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms
+and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+Timson to understand that I wuz there to _help_ 'em if I could.
+
+“For,” sez I softly, “the hull future time is left for us to weep in,
+but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson.”
+
+Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves
+or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all
+through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
+
+Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to
+give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+refused.
+
+Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+sleep, “buzz saw mill.”
+
+[Illustration: “DIDN'T SEE HOW FOLKS NEEDED SO MUCH SLEEP.”]
+
+But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly--
+
+“Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful.” And I wouldn't
+waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+in haste--
+
+“That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+real treat to keep awake all night, now and then.”
+
+No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case
+might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without
+disputin' with my Josiah.
+
+Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
+language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
+feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
+strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
+said:
+
+“And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
+the peace! the peace!”
+
+His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
+wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
+and inside, that he invoked.
+
+Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
+down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
+wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
+
+Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
+he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
+would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
+then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
+
+Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
+excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
+bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
+it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
+tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
+perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
+goes.
+
+Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
+to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
+of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+tenderness and sweetness of nater.
+
+A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
+hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
+Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
+would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
+
+Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
+if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+“business!”
+
+So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
+spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
+then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
+one of 'em good ones).
+
+He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
+or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
+make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
+and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
+to be.
+
+[Illustration: “THE DEACON DID MAKE ME THINK OF A STEEL TRAP.”]
+
+Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
+in the mornin' would roust him up,  and I had come to see if he would
+omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
+
+“Not ring the bells!” sez he, in wild amaze. “Not ring the church bells
+on the Sabbath day?”
+
+His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez--
+
+“Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+bells in the mornin'.”
+
+“A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a _Christian_ to not ring the
+Sabbath bells!”
+
+I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
+the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
+the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
+a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
+a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
+his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
+depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.
+
+But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+anybody ever could, as he sez: “The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
+for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
+broke down and weak?” sez he.
+
+“No,” sez I, honestly. “No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
+trap.”
+
+“Wall,” sez he, “what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else.”
+
+“But,” sez I, “folks are made up different.” Sez I, “The Bible sez so,
+and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you
+ever nervous?” sez I.
+
+“Never,” sez he. And he added firmly, “I don't believe in nerves. I
+never did. There hain't no use in 'm.”
+
+“It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then,” sez I. “As a generel thing the
+Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever,” sez I,
+“there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any
+way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one
+state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the
+sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to
+him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not
+have 'em rung in the mornin'.”
+
+“Are you a professor?” sez he.
+
+“Yes,” sez I.
+
+“What perswaision?” sez he.
+
+“Methodist Episcopal,” sez I.
+
+“And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set
+aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the
+Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause
+of religion languish--I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread
+desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
+
+  “'The sound of the church-going bells,
+  These valleys and hills never heard.'”
+
+“No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances.”
+
+“Why,” sez I, “that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks
+seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and
+better time than they do to meetin',” sez I. “In your opinin' it hain't
+necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz,
+to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear.”
+
+“Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+agrivatin' to saint and sinner.”
+
+“But,” sez I, “they say they do it for the sake of religion.”
+
+“Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks,” sez he bitterly.
+
+“No,” sez I, “nor in a bell clapper.”
+
+“Oh,” sez he, “that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+worshippers together, that is necessary.”
+
+Sez I, “One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion.”
+
+Sez he, “Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded
+out.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I candidly, “and in the sweet past they wuz necessary,” sez
+I. “In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz
+fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what
+is runnin' over with clocks--everybody knows the time; they know it so
+much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals,
+their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their
+visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They
+time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
+through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
+time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
+hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
+no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
+supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
+bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
+started.
+
+“Take a man with the Sunday _World_ jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
+with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
+hain't a-goin' to start him.
+
+“And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
+and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
+won't start 'em.
+
+[Illustration: “BELLS HAIN'T A-GOIN' TO START HIM.”]
+
+“And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
+church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
+trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
+bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
+bell on earth.”
+
+“Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject,” sez he (I had convinced
+him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
+wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). “But,” sez he
+wavin' off that side of the subject, “the observance is so time honored,
+so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past.”
+
+“Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven,” sez I, “that I know every single
+emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony.”
+
+“Agony!” sez he, “talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a
+more heavenly sound on earth.”
+
+[Illustration: “A-LEANIN' OVER THE FRONT GATE ON A STILL SPRING
+MORNIN'.”]
+
+“So it has been to me,” sez I candidly. “To me they have always sounded
+beautiful, heavenly. Why,” sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond
+Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and
+insperation come to me borne out of  the past into my very soul, by the
+tender memories of the bells--thoughts of the great host of believers
+who had gathered together at the sound of the bells--the great army of
+the Redeemed--
+
+  'Some of the host have crossed the flood, and some
+  are crossin' now,'
+
+thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+used to him,
+
+“Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a
+still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier
+roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine
+a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the
+hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over
+all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur
+off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells,
+a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin'
+memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears
+listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer
+beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet
+emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts,
+inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together
+at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the
+children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts
+of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their
+ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to
+their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave
+hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz
+ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed
+out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how
+the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
+(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
+
+“As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+have rung into my very soul.
+
+“But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+lead me round a good deal of the time.
+
+“Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
+step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
+sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
+the year, better than they can without sleep.
+
+“You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
+a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
+it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
+hain't so fortunate as I am.
+
+“I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
+also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
+get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
+I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
+gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
+than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
+in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
+on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
+subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
+of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.
+
+“What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
+from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep--the bells to them seem
+murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: “TOSSIN' ON BEDS OF NERVOUS SUFFERIN'.”]
+
+“To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
+last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
+than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
+instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
+screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
+Religion.
+
+“I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
+sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
+we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
+have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
+So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
+the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
+can sleep in peace.
+
+“Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
+benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
+can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
+can.
+
+“Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
+world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
+the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
+a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
+wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.
+
+“The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
+could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
+to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
+for 'em--the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
+It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.
+
+“Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+coarser, more sensual vision.”
+
+Sez Deacon Garven: “I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
+spread the Gospel.”
+
+“And,” sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+could, “Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without
+the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he
+ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em.”
+
+“Wall,” he said, “he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with
+his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em.”
+
+Sez I, “The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em.”
+
+“Wall,” he said, “it wuz different times now.”
+
+Sez I, “The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+the sick, and tender hearted always.”
+
+“Wall, _I_ will help him,” sez Deacon Garven, “I will watch, and I will
+pray, and I will work for him.”
+
+Sez I, “Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if
+he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?”
+
+“Wall,” sez he kinder meltin' down a little, “I will talk with the
+bretheren.”
+
+Sez I, “Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em.”
+
+Sez he, “I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of
+the church.”
+
+Sez I, “Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+and I believe it is safe to foller 'em.”
+
+But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren,
+and I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out
+afterwuds, I wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon
+Garven in his own smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a
+guard over him, armed nearly to the teeth with clubs.
+
+But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.
+
+Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for
+a few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up
+in bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift
+up his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long
+sermons in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon
+right through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know
+it by the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little
+in that same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless,
+in our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--
+
+[Illustration: “THE LORD BE PRAISED, WE SHALL PULL HIM THROUGH.”]
+
+“Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through.”
+
+She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried
+and wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.
+
+Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks
+to the Lord for his mercy.
+
+As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a
+teaspoon ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if
+he needed it, or medicine.
+
+When all of a sudden--slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the
+bells.
+
+Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+died.
+
+And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it.
+He who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.
+
+[Illustration: “AND I THOUGHT HE WUZ PRONOUNCIN' A BENEDICTION ON THE
+SAVAGES.”]
+
+His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them
+strange words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I
+thought then, and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction
+on the savages. And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from
+on High at that last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all
+benighted savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
+met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
+very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
+
+For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
+scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
+and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift _both_
+arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
+
+I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+homes on the run.
+
+But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
+our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
+in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
+
+[Illustration: “WE HAD TO WAIT FOR THE PASTE TO BILE.”]
+
+Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
+paper--we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
+conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
+bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
+poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+[Illustration: “WE ALL SET AND LAID ON OUR PLANS, AND CUT THE EDGES
+OFFEN THE PAPER.”]
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
+our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
+offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
+very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
+weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
+arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
+next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
+and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
+depend on, and what she had to do with.
+
+And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
+one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
+fair.
+
+And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+melancholy groan all to herself.
+
+[Illustration: “THE HANDLE COME OUT.”]
+
+I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
+I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
+wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
+always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
+
+But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
+us, and the hull of mine wuz.
+
+Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
+sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.
+
+It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
+at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
+foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
+the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
+own livin'.
+
+Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
+very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
+
+[Illustration: “I WOULD MEANDER OUT THERE IN A ICY NIGHT TO FEED IT.”]
+
+We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+there in a icy night to feed it.  But jest as it is always the way with
+wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
+on me, the better I liked it.
+
+Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
+
+So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
+
+That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
+
+And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
+about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
+
+He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
+other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it “horse corset” in a kind of
+a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
+with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
+
+[Illustration: “BEEN OUT TO TEND TO YOUR 'HORSE CORSET,' HAVE YOU?”]
+
+He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+feather piller and say to me:  “Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+have you?”
+
+“_Horse corset_! 'Wall, what if it wuz?”
+
+Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
+a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
+
+And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms--and
+he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took--etc., etc., etc.
+
+(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
+get up and get my feet so cold).
+
+But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
+
+And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
+got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
+stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
+increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.
+
+And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
+
+Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
+least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the
+wants and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female
+sisters wuz a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our
+ingregiencies with for the fair.
+
+He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There
+wuz four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the
+very least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and
+mebby both on 'em.
+
+But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.
+
+[Illustration: “HANDED ME A TEN CENT PIECE.”]
+
+I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+least I said some words  to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of
+how I felt on the subject.
+
+Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't
+want a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+wuz.
+
+Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the
+subject--and spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my
+back to him, a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece
+of mind. And thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be
+repentent, and hand me out a ten dollar bill.
+
+But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:
+
+“Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit.”
+
+I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+hand, and sez I:
+
+“What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?”
+
+[Illustration: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, JOSIAH ALLEN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?”]
+
+“Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I
+dare persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions
+that there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked
+over, and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have
+been worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that.”
+
+“How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?” sez I.
+
+“Why m-i-t-e, mit.”
+
+“I should think,” sez I, “that that spells mite.”
+
+“Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite.”
+
+And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute
+remark, bringin' the “mite” in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no,
+there wuzn't a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement,
+but solemn and bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the
+stove, solemn, and took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his
+shirt collar agin with solemnety and deep earnest. “No,” Josiah Allen
+continued, “there hain't no sense in that--but mit! there you have
+sense. All wimmen wear mits; they love 'em. She most probable had a good
+pair, and lost one on 'em, and then give the other to the church. I tell
+you it takes men to translate the Bible, they have such a realizin'
+sense of the weaknesses of wimmen, and how necessary it is to translate
+it in such a way as to show up them weaknesses, and quell her down, and
+make her know her place, make her know that man is her superior in every
+way, and it is her duty as well as privilege to look up to him.”
+
+And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty
+and over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up
+haughtily at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,
+
+“But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is
+jest my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+wuz fairly hissin' hot. “She most probable had some man to advise her,
+and to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
+house.” Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
+one I keep by me--and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
+necessity.
+
+“Most probable,” sez Josiah, “most probable she did.” He thought I wuz
+praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.
+
+“Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it,” sez he “and I mean to
+mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
+up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me.”
+
+But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:
+
+“If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
+livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you.” And I would, if it wuz the
+last move I ever made.
+
+But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
+every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
+and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
+I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
+carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
+'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.
+
+And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their
+money, told jest how they come by it.
+
+Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
+mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
+cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
+exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
+has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.
+
+Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
+(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
+rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
+had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
+ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
+but she concluded to make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.
+
+And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who
+married a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents
+apiece, and Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the
+feathers offen her own back.
+
+[Illustration: “SHE HAD PICKED TEN GEESE AT TWO CENTS APIECE.”]
+
+And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and
+warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift
+'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she
+picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.
+
+But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over
+to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice
+ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.
+
+Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four
+dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took
+it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and
+sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and
+besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'),
+she gin the hull to the meetin' house.
+
+There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in
+the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.
+
+And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+got in that way.
+
+But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.
+
+But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of
+it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her--she wuz the widder
+Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn
+what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to
+Sister Grimshaw, by right.
+
+Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:
+
+“Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+use, and for church work, and charity?”
+
+“Because he is so hard with her,” sez Sister Lanfear, “and tears round
+so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should
+dress well--wants her to--and live well. But he don't want her to spend
+a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she
+should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin.”
+
+“Wall,” sez I, “what business is it to him what she does with her own
+money and her own property?”
+
+I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more
+openly.
+
+And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled
+three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day
+for contogglin'.
+
+She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a
+old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+would be willin', so it is spozed.
+
+Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz
+kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more
+of'em.
+
+But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.
+
+[Illustration: “SUBMIT TEWKSBURY DID BRING THAT PLATE.”]
+
+And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+part with it, but she did bring _that plate_. That pink edged, chiny
+plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel
+Danker for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in
+front of it.
+
+Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full
+part towerds helpin' the meetin' house along--so she tore up her
+memorial, a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a
+burnt chiny offerin' to the Lord.
+
+Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+begun to affect us like that.
+
+To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand
+in that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she
+didn't, but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we
+all knew the feelin' she felt for the plate.
+
+It affected all on us fearfully.
+
+But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+merely sez, when she wuz thanked: “Oh, you are entirely welcome to it,
+and I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along.”
+
+And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+more pitiful than tears would have been.
+
+Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.
+
+Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em,
+too. Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot
+down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever
+happened in Jonesville, or the world--although it is eppisodin' to tell
+on it now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you
+may say, my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I
+don't know but I may as well tell it now as any time.
+
+Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+the livin' truth.
+
+That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she
+heard a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears
+and opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the
+warm cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin
+Submit a look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look
+that had in it the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of
+faithfulness and heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.
+
+Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white,
+and she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,
+
+“Who be you?”
+
+And he sez,
+
+“I am Samuel Danker.”
+
+And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin'
+chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.
+
+And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair
+cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and
+the feather oozed out.
+
+I don't tell this for truth, I only say that _they say_ thus and so.
+
+[Illustration: “I AM SAMUEL DANKER.”]
+
+But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+that they wuz married that  very night of his return, that too can be
+swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit--superanuated,
+but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the
+ceremony.
+
+It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.
+
+But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I
+don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years
+younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy
+he looks, and how he has renewed his age.
+
+The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+wuz spozed to be envius.
+
+And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+over both religous and seckuler grounds.
+
+One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for
+him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the
+plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself.
+How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of
+extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets
+down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.
+
+[Illustration: “THEY DON'T COME!”] _They don't come!_
+
+But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and
+go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the
+frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to
+her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of
+company at that time of day.
+
+_They come!_
+
+Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin'
+tears on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all
+hope and happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is
+a-standin' right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with
+'em.
+
+Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her--Samuel
+Danker by name.
+
+[Illustration: “THEY COME.”]
+
+Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that  I dropped in the
+Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.
+
+Wall, Submit brought the plate.
+
+Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.
+
+And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse
+takin' 'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala
+Crane, Joe Cranes'es widder.
+
+She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.
+
+She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us
+extremely worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it
+with such a cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz
+so thin and wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin',
+and all darned in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the
+money to get her a new dress.
+
+[Illustration: “SISTER ARVILLY LANFRAR, CANVASSIN' FOR A BOOK.”]
+
+But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I  wouldn't have been the one to
+tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.
+
+Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages--she is a
+millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+day's work wuz done.
+
+And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight
+cents by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: “The Wild,
+Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man.”
+
+And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she
+had to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the
+time, a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She
+said she loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page
+to the back bindin'.
+
+As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had
+some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I
+wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to--sez I,
+“Arvilly, men are _jest_ as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+better.”
+
+And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I
+gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+but'nuts.
+
+[Illustration: “OLD MISS BALCH.”]
+
+Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+the worth on it.
+
+And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't
+no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a
+halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she
+calculated to make the old ones do.
+
+And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years
+old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all
+swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three
+pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have
+laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said
+a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she
+felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very
+strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
+
+She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she _had_ to have to get
+Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
+
+Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now
+he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't
+have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
+
+Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+emergincies or bunnets.
+
+She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out
+of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+Deacon's feet.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
+
+And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and
+gin it to the fair to sell.
+
+We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+needed it.
+
+But she would make us take it; she said “if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+she would say to her,
+
+“Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress
+and mourn fer me in a black calico.”
+
+_That_ Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say
+to her if she wuz alive.
+
+And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything.
+She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps,
+and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
+
+  [Illustration: “I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD.”]
+
+  “I love thy kingdom, Lord,
+  The house of thine abode,
+  The church our dear Redeemer bought
+  With His most precious blood.”
+
+The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes,
+and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse--
+
+  “For her my tears shall fall,
+  For her my prayers ascend,
+  For her my toil and life be given,
+  Till life and toil shall end.”
+
+The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how
+she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought
+of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
+
+Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars;
+the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten
+to the fair.
+
+It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived
+with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+meetin' house.
+
+Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do
+it.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+paperin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best
+qualified to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.
+
+And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet
+es it hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it
+hadn't been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly
+have shirked out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy
+constituent.
+
+Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on
+the ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up
+fur, fur beyond the strength of their sockets.
+
+[Illustration: “WE FELT NERVED UP TO DO OUR BEST.”]
+
+But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen  also, and it wuzn't for
+me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out
+of hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin'
+House wuz at the Bay.
+
+No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped
+holt of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly
+Lanfear and Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur
+a-holdin' up Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our
+two barells, Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy
+for us to mount up on.
+
+Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the
+time but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more
+wearin' and awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it
+day and night for weeks and weeks, every one on us.
+
+The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair
+to loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility
+that laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.
+
+It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+hull life.
+
+Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+eyes--Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).
+
+Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled--smiles broke out on every
+face, about thirty smiles--a half a minute more and it would be done,
+and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate of
+our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.
+
+But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin'
+house that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had
+been standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned.
+But as I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in
+the land wuz there and present.
+
+They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.
+
+They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.
+
+They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen
+that had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't
+set, that they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.
+
+And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+Josiah to read it out to us.
+
+So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us.
+But he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great
+and triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.
+
+[Illustration: “THE METHODIST CONFERENCE HAD DECIDED THAT WIMMEN WUZ
+TOO WEAK TO SET.”]
+
+And so he read it out to us, and as we see that  that
+breadth wuz spilte, we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.
+
+And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend
+with such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men
+in a bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair
+sex had been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they
+sez, some on 'em, “Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for,
+if it hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?”
+
+And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, “cooin' doves” and “sweet
+tender flowerets,” as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in
+too big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction.
+They had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in
+Jonesville and up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.
+
+But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door
+as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the
+nation on the decesion, for, sez they,
+
+“Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the
+time.”
+
+And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits--
+
+“If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on
+anything--a Conference or anything else.”
+
+And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,
+
+“For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so.”
+
+And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+house agin.
+
+[Illustration: The End]
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.
+
+
+In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in
+and preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
+of 1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers
+have deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered
+on the floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.
+
+The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+Conference are held quadrennially.
+
+Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women
+delegates were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral
+Conferences--namely, The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference,
+The Pittsburgh Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was
+made against the admission of these delegates on the ground that the
+admission of women delegates was not in accord with the constitutional
+provisions of the Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive
+Rules. A special Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in
+the General Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members,
+to whom the protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported
+adversely to the admission of the four women delegates, the report
+alleging “that under the Constitution and laws of the Church as they now
+are, women are not eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference.”
+ From the discussion following this report, and lasting several days, the
+following six addresses, three in favor of and three against the
+admission of the women delegates, are selected and presented, with a few
+verbal corrections, as published in the official journal of the
+Conference.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.
+
+I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body,
+ought to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the
+Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules
+is that these women elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this
+General Conference.
+
+Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet
+it was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they
+would be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and
+afterward demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not
+enrolled with the others were called, and the protests were read. Their
+names have been called as members of this body, and they are simply here
+as “challenged” members. From that standpoint this question must be
+discussed, and any disposition of this case under the circumstances must
+be in this direction. These women delegates must be put out of this
+General Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges
+of members here. It is not a question of “admitting” them. Before this
+report, before the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to
+vote and act, and millions of people will hold us responsible, and I
+dare say that our votes will be recorded as to whether they shall be
+“put out” or “stay in.”
+
+Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists
+for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the
+membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was
+made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea
+in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the
+fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers
+and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical
+government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question
+to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of
+petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General
+Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question
+not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble
+man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England
+Conference, moved himself to strike out the word “male” from the report
+of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was
+stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the
+Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay
+delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of
+suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed
+the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be
+questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts
+abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the
+right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law.
+Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government--and it has
+often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United
+States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in
+the government of the Church--you will find that the right of suffrage
+in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the
+most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right
+to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and
+for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American
+citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and
+trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this
+way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member
+of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little
+later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and
+under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the
+right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the “plan”
+ of lay delegation, but on the “principle” of lay delegation. That was
+decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop
+Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences. On the principle
+of lay delegation, the women of the Church were granted the right of
+suffrage; presently they appeared in the Quarterly Conference, to vote
+as class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents; and it
+created a little excitement, a feverish state of feeling in the Church,
+and the General Conference simply passed a resolution or a rule
+interpreting that action on the part of women claiming this privilege
+in the Quarterly Conference as being a “right,” and it was continued.
+Presently, as the right of suffrage of women passed on and grew, they
+voted in the Electoral Conferences, and there was no outcry made against
+it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in the Church, or any presiding
+elder, or any minister challenging the right of women to vote in
+Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and yet for sixteen
+years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to send laymen here
+to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to elect Bishops
+and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to where votes
+count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen years, and
+only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that the
+General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+“constitution of the men,” who challenge these women.
+
+Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should
+be protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was
+placed in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the
+National Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor
+of it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to
+the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
+South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.
+
+Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
+to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
+find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
+their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
+“stop!” “we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality”? No. They
+were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
+been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
+United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
+protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
+States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
+the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
+constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
+the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
+office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
+the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
+to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
+interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
+for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
+interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
+books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
+goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
+find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a
+woman practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back
+through the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and
+you will find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in
+the Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted
+in order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the
+judges of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the
+Constitution of the United States, said, “Women may be officers of the
+Supreme Court, and may practise law there.” The same kind of a spirit,
+in interpreting the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the
+Discipline of the Church, will place these women delegates in this body
+where they have been sent. The same thing is true of the Supreme Court
+of Pennsylvania and in the Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out,
+as my judgment sees, and as my conscience tells me, since before the
+government of God man and woman are equally responsible. There is no way
+out of this dilemma for this General Conference, but to say that these
+women delegates shall sit in this body, where they have been sent, and
+where their names have been called.
+
+Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+this body.
+
+We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor
+of Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+ranks of her membership--(Time called.)
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.
+
+
+Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification
+of a passage of Scripture occurred to me, “The enemy cometh in like
+a flood, but I will lift up a standard against him.” It is somewhat
+peculiar that he should begin by making a statement about one of the
+most honored names in American Methodism, a statement that has been
+published in the papers, and that nine tenths of this body knew as well
+as he did. It must have been intended as a part of his argument, and I
+regard it as of as much force as anything he said after it. But in
+point of fact the question does not turn upon the person, but upon the
+principle. I have received an anonymous letter containing the following
+among other things, “Beware how you attack the holy cause of woman. Do
+you not know that obstacles to progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the
+way?” The signature of that letter is ingenious. I cannot tell whether
+it was a man or a woman, for it reads as follows, “A Lover of your Soul
+and of Woman.” Now, Mr. President, the only candlestick that ought to be
+removed out of its place is the candlestick that contains a candle that
+does not burn the pure oil of truth. And I believe, sir, that with the
+best of intentions the three speakers who have appeared have given us
+three chapters in different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my
+duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says,
+“An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding
+discerneth where he slippeth.” I have no claim to eloquence; never
+pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist
+history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any
+fear of the results, either present or prospective.
+
+Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot
+command the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are
+in, and defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take
+in the full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has
+a certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here,
+they have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a
+contested case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who
+ought to vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing
+up documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read
+it _verbatim_. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read
+_verbatim_ from his letter:
+
+“No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question,
+and, therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact,
+a vote of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when
+the credentials appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no
+notorious and undisputed fact or circumstance against the qualifications
+and election of a senator, to admit him at once and settle the question
+of his right afterward. But there have been cases in which the Senate
+declined to admit a claimant holding a regular certificate upon the
+ground that enough was known to the Senate to justify its declining to
+receive him until an inquiry should be had. Very truly yours,
+
+“GEORGE F. EDMUNDS.”
+
+Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows
+that they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard
+to them at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional
+challenge. I champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion
+their cause against their being introduced into this body without their
+own sex having had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon
+the subject. I stand here to protect them against being connected with
+movements without law or contrary to law, and those who wish to bring
+them in and those who say it is the constitution of the man and
+prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said prejudice), they are persons,
+indeed, to stand up here as, _par excellence_ the champions of women!
+Is it the constitution of the men? Have you read the letter of
+Mrs. Caroline Wright in the _Christian Advocate_, one of our most
+distinguished American Methodist women? She does not wish to see them
+here. It is the constitution of the woman in that case, and I am opposed
+to their being admitted until the general sentiment of the women and the
+men of our Church have an opportunity of being heard upon it.
+
+Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but
+my opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the
+Methodist Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is
+to-day, not on account of the admission of these women, two of whom I
+believe to be as competent to sit in judgment on this question as any
+man on this floor. That is not the question, as I propose to show. I
+assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
+Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
+Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
+upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
+has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
+thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
+delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
+intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
+we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
+cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
+not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
+capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
+goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word “layman.” There
+is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
+the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
+Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
+history of the Church. Who is the “General Superintendent” by Webster or
+Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
+the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
+Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
+seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
+not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
+the word “layman” ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
+clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
+world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
+for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
+from the _clergy_men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
+laywomen. The “laity” means all the people, men, women, and children. A
+woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
+the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit
+he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham
+Lincoln said, “All these things are done and suffered, that government
+of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish
+from the earth.” Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women, and
+children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this.
+When he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, “The
+intent of the lawmaker is the law.”
+
+I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived
+to think of awhile--John Selden: “The only honest meaning of any word is
+the intent of the man that wrote it.” At the time that the plan of lay
+delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church
+on this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and
+the laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body.
+Some one will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the
+Church, the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between
+the ministry and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever
+one Church in the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make
+its laws. There is not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name
+one that has allowed women in its law-making body; and yet such is the
+blinding power of gush that men will say that our fathers all understood
+it and proposed to put women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to
+allow them to put us in. As soon as the General Conference adjourned the
+women made an appeal in a public statement. They were asked to vote for
+lay delegation, and were told that then they could set the Church right.
+The opponents appealed to them to vote against it on the ground that it
+would not make any difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr.
+Hodgson (Professor Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote
+a series of articles in the _Advocate_, and it never occurred to them
+that the women could come into the General Conference. Lay delegation
+was only admitted by 33 votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they
+would not have come in. Every member of the New York East Conference
+knows that Dr. Curry's influence was so powerful that he could almost
+get a majority against it. And they know if any one had set up an
+opposition to it on this ground, the whole Conference would have voted
+against the movement, and that if it had not been for Bishop Ames and
+Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming Conference where the majority was
+opposed to lay delegation, and by their influence there converted my
+friend Olin and others, he knows that if this matter of the women had
+been in or understood, the whole Conference would have been against it.
+It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that it is prejudice.
+Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000 Methodist ministers
+that are ciphers all the time except when they vote for delegates? Are
+you going to presume that when the Church has a multitude of members,
+that it is going to sit here and change, by an interpretation, a
+Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never understood to
+be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial delegates. Every
+time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject has never come
+up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive Rules mean
+anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the fathers did
+not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can read those
+Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the Restrictive
+Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if you do
+it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do
+is to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then
+put any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this
+you call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress,
+and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
+a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
+believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
+said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
+that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction--they must be
+interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
+despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
+the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
+house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
+Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.
+
+If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, “I think it
+best to send the question around.” True progress is not gained in any
+other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, “He that cometh
+in by the door,” the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.
+
+
+Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous
+letters. And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with
+which to introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under
+any fear of being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future
+prospects blasted. It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this
+morning upon this subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive
+to either suppress or exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr.
+Buckley, threatening to remove him as an obstruction, must be highly
+gratified to know that that obstruction has already been removed.
+Brother Hughey removed the obstruction, extinguished the candle, and
+destroyed the candlestick.
+
+We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will
+be heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It
+remains for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here
+and there, or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a
+new point of view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be
+helpful to some that has already been presented in part touching the
+administration of our law and the interpretation of terms that is
+worthy, I think, of still further consideration.
+
+Dr. Buckley said in the New York _Christian Advocate_ of March 15th,
+1888:
+
+“The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of
+the Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five
+years of age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If
+women are found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the
+same plane with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five
+years, etc.”
+
+Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law
+by a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+would say) the “subtle insinuations” of the Episcopal Address, which
+declares that no definition of “layman” settles the question of
+eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as
+laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it
+officially as laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well,
+in this case, we have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both
+are right and both are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a
+woman, if she be a lay member her right is clear as that of any duly
+elected man. But he is wrong when he denies to her a right to a seat in
+this body as a layman. The Episcopal Address is wrong when it says
+that “no definition of the word 'layman' settles the question of
+eligibility.” But it is right when it says, “Many are classed as laymen
+for purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+lay members who are not themselves eligible as delegates.”
+
+In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and
+if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
+over the “Million dollars for Missions.” They pray and testify in our
+class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
+us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
+amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
+are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
+they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
+laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
+two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
+one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
+General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
+marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
+this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
+step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
+question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
+over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
+if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
+this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
+and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
+misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
+out the word “male” was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
+“rider” on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
+known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
+it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
+amendment would let women into the General Conference.
+
+Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the “women coming
+in” being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
+lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment
+and the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow
+women to come in also.
+
+L. C. Queal said:
+
+I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.
+
+Bishop Foss:
+
+Are you misrepresented?
+
+L. C. Queal:
+
+I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman
+put that on as a “rider,” with a view to defeating the bill, that
+immediately after thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of
+securing the approval of the principle in the laity of the Church. That
+is all I stated. All the rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own
+inference--a misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:
+
+I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to
+the speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the
+privilege of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in
+reference to this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the
+idea of the possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds
+that were both in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.
+
+Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of
+1868, laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this
+body. That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by
+the laity of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity
+here, why allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And,
+having allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the
+very foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow
+them a place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened
+the way for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not
+remember that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that
+the lay delegation scheme was defeated, and the _Methodist_, that was
+published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+that “votes ought to be weighed, not counted”? And then the question was
+sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of
+construing pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences
+previously to that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard
+to their legality there. The General Conference by its action did not
+propose to admit women to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed
+to clear away the mist and recognize their legal right to sit in the
+Quarterly Conference. Being in the Quarterly Conference, and in the
+District Conference, they have the right to vote on every question that
+comes before such bodies. They vote to license ministers, to recommend
+ministers to Annual Conferences, to recommend local preachers for
+deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on sending delegates to our Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates to Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates from Lay
+Electoral Conferences to this General Conference. And there are men
+on this floor to-day that would not be in this at all if they had
+not received the support of women in Lay Electoral Conferences. Now,
+brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the women to send
+delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never challenged until
+they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to elect laymen
+to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen in this
+body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes of the
+women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some of
+the “subtle insinuations” of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to
+vote there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would
+be consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+“foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection.”
+ And I am not in favor of going back.
+
+If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed
+for altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General
+Conference has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary.
+Every paragraph of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning
+with §63, and closing with §69, was put into that Constitution without
+any voice from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single
+one of them was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; §20, ¶183, stood
+for many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred
+bodily from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position
+it now occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was
+not submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely
+stated when he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote
+ordered in 1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the
+laity into the General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the
+laity and by the Annual Conferences, but the “plan” was not submitted
+to either to be voted upon, and the “plan” for lay delegation by which
+these lay brethren occupy their seats here this morning was made in
+every jot and tittle by the General Conference without any reference to
+the Annual Conferences at all.
+
+I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once
+a legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law;
+in the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.
+
+It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme
+court to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General
+Conference, we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing
+the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions
+on the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision
+of the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so
+we construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we
+touch the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the
+Annual Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.
+
+What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to
+limit the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for
+illustration, we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our
+Legislature to license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a
+license under the guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license
+law in form. The Constitution prevents it. There are States that have
+Constitutions that have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all,
+while they may either tax, license, or prohibit.
+
+This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a
+limitation of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation
+there is no restriction.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.
+
+
+Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question
+of law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as
+those who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I
+understand it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by
+those who are advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not
+a matter of sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place
+for knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.
+
+There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of
+the Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+circumstances, oppose their coming in.
+
+It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.
+
+Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I
+do not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the
+history of lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the
+most remote intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the
+General Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the
+field now toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last
+ten or fifteen years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism
+that would be fatal to all just interpretation of law.
+
+I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in
+1868. And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I
+know, the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in
+to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
+that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
+have embraced this design--the design of bringing women into the General
+Conference. I leave that.
+
+Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
+of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
+the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
+General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
+argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
+Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
+introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
+according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
+General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
+endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
+prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
+been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
+interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
+The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
+placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
+accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
+that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
+_personnel_ of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
+Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
+consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
+that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
+is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
+law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
+peril ahead of us.
+
+A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an
+organic body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its
+own security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the
+law that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.
+
+Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said,
+it has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences
+must be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of
+1872. I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One
+is, that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it
+is also a judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as
+a legislative body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872
+interpreted law, and the General Conference may reverse itself with
+just as much propriety as a court can reverse itself. And if it be
+the judgment of this General Conference that that interpretation was
+incorrect, it is perfectly competent for this Conference to say so, and
+have its action correspond with its own decision.
+
+There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference
+of 1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that
+local preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the
+principle of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is
+decided in general terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision
+must be limited to the particular case itself. And if a court in its
+decision embraces more than was involved in the particular case, it has
+no force whatever. And as this was a particular case submitted to
+the General Conference, and the decision was in general terms, it
+comprehends simply the case that was before it, and cannot be advanced
+to comprehend more. And the reason of this is very obvious; for if it
+was not the case, then cases might be brought before the court for its
+decision that had never occurred.
+
+There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women
+to certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when
+it says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to
+sell in quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880
+decided that women should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as
+superintendents of Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by
+that very affirmative conclusion, the subject was passed upon about
+their taking any other position. That, I think, must be regarded as
+sound, and a just interpretation of the law.
+
+But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands,
+that the pronoun “he,” wherever employed, shall not be considered
+as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school
+Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward.
+
+Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing
+the _personnel_ of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a
+suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as
+soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and
+so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and
+I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard
+with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The
+only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the
+relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference,
+and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect,
+honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same
+way that their husbands and brothers are here.
+
+There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of
+those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful?
+You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and
+pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect
+their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus
+lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this
+suggestion, but it is an _in posse_, and it may easily be made an _in
+esse_. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they
+have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make
+them more perfect.
+
+No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement
+or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the
+Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe
+course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious,
+and conservative--I mean every word--and conservative course we have
+heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what
+Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is
+because of her firm adherence to law.
+
+It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon
+race--everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we
+pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.
+
+
+Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene,
+this great debate now in the third day of its progress must be
+suggestive of some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have
+made the hearts of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place
+of meeting in the past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear
+as to the outcome of the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The
+visitors to this General Conference, seated in their boxes and in the
+family circle, Will say surely these honored men of God who have been
+called as Superintendents of the affairs of our great conquering Church,
+these chosen ministers of reconciliation and peace, these _male_
+laymen called by their brethren to their high places in this General
+Conference, whose names at home are the synonym of chivalrous
+goodness--surely all these of rank and talent and authority, whose able
+and eloquent words have been ringing through the arches and dome of this
+temple of music on the wrong side of the question, are but simply acting
+the parts assigned them. In the final scene they will join hands around
+the eligible women elect, who, in obedience to the call of the laity in
+their several Conferences, are in their seats with us, and say, “Whom
+God hath joined, let not _male_ put asunder.” My brothers, let us
+briefly restate the case. Five noble women of the laymen of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as delegates to this General
+Conference under the Constitution and by the forms prescribed by the
+laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to enter, the portals of
+this great assemblage they hear a voice from the platform, in words not
+to be misunderstood, “Thou shalt not,” and voices from all parts of the
+house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement the voices of the
+Bishops, “Thou shalt not.” And one would think, from the vehement
+oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference, that the
+foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence of
+these “elect ladies” among us.
+
+Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and
+in all its battles fought until the day of victory.
+
+In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question
+of lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it
+carried, there would have been plausibility in the argument this
+day made against the eligibility of women to seats in this General
+Conference. The evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to
+a higher appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her
+rights and privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the
+bounds of the Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent
+man, that grand old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this
+question, said:
+
+“If it is _rights_ they talk of, every competent member of the Church of
+Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained.”
+
+And in answer to the expected fling, “But you are a woman's rights man,”
+ he replied:
+
+“We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the
+question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living
+God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When
+that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal
+righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the
+ground!”
+
+The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the
+Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as
+belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in
+the government of the Church, and having rights under that government.
+During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for
+submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman
+moved to strike out the word “male.” While that motion was under
+consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, “If it were the last
+moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter,
+I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, _wherever church
+privileges are concerned_.”
+
+Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the
+question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the
+Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask
+women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church
+should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then
+enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived
+of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few
+noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, “No, no,” but
+they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the
+right thinking, orderly delegates.
+
+What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+out the word “male,” now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:
+
+“Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed
+in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that
+women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The
+Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take
+these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried
+with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter
+interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences
+laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the
+moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it,
+but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go
+back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?”
+
+It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore
+the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could
+the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+General Conference when it said, “The General Conference holds that
+in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who
+are not members of the Annual Conferences”? This decision must include
+women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means
+the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears
+from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle
+in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the
+membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would
+have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted
+women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, “The
+General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election
+of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the
+members of the Annual Conferences, _and who are not women_.” We would
+have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an
+utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its
+membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and
+the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and
+interchangeably. See Bingham's “Antiquities,” Blackstone's
+“Commentaries,” Schaffs “History,” and kindred authorities. It is sheer
+trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between lay_men_
+and lay_women_.
+
+Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before
+the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so
+appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the
+pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the
+voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from
+the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this
+debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.
+
+It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+there be a _specific enactment discriminating against the elector_. Our
+law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five
+years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a
+delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.
+
+Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited.
+We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the
+just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from
+membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual
+Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to
+send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their
+action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will
+say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our
+Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot
+be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very
+front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the
+spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the
+banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and
+righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon
+tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's
+Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now
+waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not
+cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse
+of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church
+of the Redeemer.
+
+Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among
+the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous
+productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in
+that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries
+old. In it you may read as follows: “Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has
+a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a
+Saviour for which I gave a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could
+do so much.” Three and a half centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her
+master-piece in the chief places of the galleries of the world, and
+Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many of the best marbles that adorn
+the parlors of Europe and America, and no one wonders that a woman can
+do so much. From that day when Martin Luther, the protesting monk, and
+Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at the altar and the
+twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her faith in her sex
+and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the organized
+selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or privilege
+to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery and
+barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do
+ought that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from
+our advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us
+rather strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and
+privilege of every member of our Church, without distinction of race,
+color, or sex. Amen and Amen.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.
+
+
+Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have
+now, a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work.
+No man on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them
+by all lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every
+privilege enjoyed by men.
+
+But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.
+
+That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of
+the Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in
+this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by
+Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their
+right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this
+body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.
+
+It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After
+the most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+body.
+
+Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when
+the General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the
+entire membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was
+not the intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a
+large number of men of business experience, who could render service
+by their knowledge and experience touching the temporal affairs of the
+Church. When the principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon
+by the laity, this idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual
+Conferences voted for the principle and the plan, this and this only was
+their intent.
+
+When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea,
+and none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit
+women, but to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+Constitution.
+
+Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by
+allowing sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.
+
+Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.
+
+In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+Board of Bishops, he says:
+
+
+“For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear
+that any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The
+Electoral Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action,
+being guided, as we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the
+General Conference of 1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen,” in
+answer to a question touching the classification and rights of ordained
+local and located ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution
+is carried beyond its original design when applied to a subject not
+before the body when it was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the
+language itself. This also should be understood, that no definition of
+the word 'laymen' settles the question of eligibility as to any class
+of persons, for many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay
+representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, who are
+themselves not eligible as delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly
+ineligible, who are not old enough to be delegates, or have not been
+members long enough, may be stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local
+preachers and exhorters, and, as such, be members of the Quarterly
+Conference, and vote for delegates to the Electoral Conference without
+themselves being eligible.
+
+“The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by
+a resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here
+by constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the
+power of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the
+formal amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in
+their enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their
+power to work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval
+of the high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments
+of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved
+in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the
+assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they
+were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of
+law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible,
+by special enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+Sunday-school superintendent, and naturally the question arises as
+to whether the necessity for special legislation, in order to their
+eligibility to those specified offices, does not indicate similar
+necessity for special provision in order to their eligibility as
+delegates, and if so it is further to be considered that the offices of
+steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school superintendent may be created
+and filled by simple enactments of the General Conference itself; but to
+enter the General Conference, and form part of the law-making body
+of the Church, requires special provision in the Constitution, and,
+therefore, such provision as the General Conference alone cannot make.”
+
+
+Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from
+whom I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on “Constitutional
+Limitations,” says:
+
+
+“A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another
+at some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as
+perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal
+share of the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be
+lost, if the rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to
+circumstances, or be modified by public opinion.
+
+“The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+different at any subsequent time.”
+
+
+This same great author says:
+
+“Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting
+it. In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is
+to be enforced.
+
+“But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in
+many particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great
+charters of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights
+of the subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people
+must be supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot
+understand these unless we understand their history.
+
+“It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the
+common law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.
+
+“It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+law shall be construed strictly.”
+
+Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear
+as the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine
+that the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when
+it is adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject
+anything into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when
+adopted. And you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to
+give it the construction which was intended when adopted. No man of
+common honesty and common sense dares to assert on this floor that it
+was the intent when the Constitution was amended to admit women as lay
+delegates. It follows inevitably that they are not constitutionally
+eligible, and to admit them is to violate the Constitution of the
+Church, which, as a Court, we are in honor bound not to do.
+
+It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person
+for office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited
+by positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been.
+We have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended,
+the intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference
+can, by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules. Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action
+in 1880, had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as
+stewards and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay
+delegate in the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay
+delegates to this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules, according to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is
+fundamental law that where general disabilities exist, not simply by
+statute, but by common law, the removal of lesser disabilities does not
+carry with it the removal of the greater ones.
+
+Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I
+defy any lawyer to show the contrary.
+
+§3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:
+
+“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty
+years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall
+not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be
+chosen.”
+
+
+These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the
+Constitution of the United States touching the qualification of
+Senators. Is there a layman on this floor who will dare assert that
+under the Constitution of the United States women are eligible as
+Representatives or Senators? Words of common gender are exclusively
+used as applied to the qualification of Senators. The words persons and
+citizens include women the same as they include men. Nevertheless, in
+the light of the past, I am bold to assert, that any man who would dare
+stand in the Senate of the United States, and contend that women are
+eligible to the office of United States Senators, would be regarded by
+the civilized world as a person of gush and void of judgment.
+
+Article 14, United States Constitution, §1:
+
+
+“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+_privileges_ or _immunities_ of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law, _nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws_.”
+
+
+(Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor _vs_. Judges of Election.
+53 Mo. 68.)
+
+The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+rights includes corporations.
+
+The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.
+
+The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United
+States. Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did
+not entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri
+held the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able
+opinion written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively
+demonstrated that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon
+woman the right to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right
+had not obtained in favor of woman, and these words of common gender
+should not be so construed as to confer this right, since it was not
+intended when made to affect their status in this regard.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+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, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9450]
+[Last updated on February 9, 2007]
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration] SAMANTHA
+
+AMONG THE BRETHREN.
+
+BY
+
+"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"
+
+(MARIETTA HOLLEY).
+
+
+_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_.
+
+
+
+
+1890
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+All Women
+
+WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES
+
+THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A
+
+BETTER COUNTRY,
+
+_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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:
+
+"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"
+
+And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal
+Justice, Josiah Allen."
+
+"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.)
+
+"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."
+
+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:
+
+"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he."
+
+And sez I, "How do you know?"
+
+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?"
+
+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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
+work and back combs."
+
+I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
+reasonable:
+
+"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.
+
+"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
+Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."
+
+"Wall, hain't _he_?" sez Josiah.
+
+"No, _she_ hain't," sez I.
+
+"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to
+rile you up?"
+
+Sez I, "_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
+Conference."
+
+"Wall, I say _he_ wuz right," sez Josiah. "_He_ knew, and I knew, that
+wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."
+
+"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."
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't
+be too severe with the Meetin' House."
+
+And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head
+in and sez:
+
+"Don't be too hard on _him_"
+
+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.
+
+  JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE,
+  Bonny View,
+  near Adams, New York,
+  Oct. 14th, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_Publishers' Appendix_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
+
+And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
+our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze
+because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
+
+Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
+from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
+our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
+particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.
+
+It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
+answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
+
+The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
+other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
+
+As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own
+particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all  on 'em to be divided
+up equal among the five deacons.
+
+[Illustration: "A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME."]
+
+They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
+that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
+the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
+not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
+and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+salvation.
+
+I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+deacons ought to cultivate.
+
+But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
+to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the
+deed."
+
+They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
+wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.]
+
+But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--"If bein' set
+apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to
+go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+enterprise?"
+
+And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man,
+the better the deed. We need buzz saws."
+
+And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+high-headed.
+
+And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
+
+But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
+prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
+of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
+
+And I sez to him in solemn axents:
+
+"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
+your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"
+
+And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
+he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
+I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+religious duties.
+
+And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+said, "he didn't dumb 'em."
+
+"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.
+
+"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he
+has a chance to."
+
+But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
+
+"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
+farms.
+
+"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
+of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
+interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
+prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
+works generally?"
+
+And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
+
+"Dumb good works!"
+
+[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"]
+
+But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"
+
+And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
+a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
+
+"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+will 'tend to it."
+
+And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+have put the question to him.
+
+For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
+go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
+there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
+and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
+bimeby).
+
+There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
+mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
+brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
+and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
+theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
+
+But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
+
+Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
+this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+Henzy.
+
+Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
+
+"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez,
+"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."
+
+Some sez he duz.
+
+Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
+And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
+begin to feel bad.
+
+She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
+me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
+the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
+she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
+Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
+had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
+dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
+his face till dinner time.
+
+And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
+because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
+
+She is a dretful admirin' woman.
+
+She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls
+her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
+when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as
+Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
+
+[Illustration: "THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'"]
+
+But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+dreams is a place where you can't slip on  your sun-bonnet and foller
+neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+from hour to hour.
+
+No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
+into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
+
+No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
+
+But, as I said, this had been spozen.
+
+But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day
+what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+Drusillia Sypher.
+
+And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+"Miss Deacon Sypher."
+
+Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
+hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
+the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
+good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
+
+Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+into the buzz saw-mill business.
+
+But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
+every time he came in sight.
+
+They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest
+smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
+step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."
+
+But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+low.
+
+But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
+and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
+books. And he sez:
+
+"Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_"
+
+I guess he did say as much as that.
+
+But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to
+stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
+
+[Illustration: "ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT
+HIM."]
+
+And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
+smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
+effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
+was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
+get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
+and he makes a good deal of her.
+
+I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
+this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
+
+Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
+the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
+
+Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
+foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
+that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin'
+article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
+fun of the projeck.
+
+We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
+fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
+store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
+He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
+worshipped him.
+
+They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
+
+The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to
+work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+in the shop.)
+
+He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
+doubt of that.
+
+Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
+educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
+born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
+in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
+Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
+any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
+syllables wuz common in it.
+
+His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
+to be disseminated abroad.
+
+The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
+ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
+up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
+sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
+guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
+from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
+howsumever."
+
+Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
+painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
+strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would
+weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
+herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
+tottlin' eminence.
+
+The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+letters over each one.
+
+The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
+
+_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER;
+
+_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
+
+The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares
+and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+wimmen to do--not a single thing.
+
+Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors
+and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
+_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
+farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
+sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
+_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
+even the lightest and slightest.
+
+Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could
+be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
+great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
+place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
+
+And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
+Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
+the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
+in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
+posture as settin' up on a Conference.
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."]
+
+"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would
+endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
+would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
+It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm."  Why, Josiah Allen
+handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
+as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we
+had some words about it.
+
+And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second
+Galatians.
+
+And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+bed rid.
+
+Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
+
+And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+very first.
+
+Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
+next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
+it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
+idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
+so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
+
+And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
+
+But of this, more anon and bimeby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for
+I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays
+bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
+and so forth.
+
+But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
+old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
+on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
+
+(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
+
+Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
+there for some time alone.
+
+Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
+first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I
+had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
+oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
+
+Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
+sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a
+difference, a difference in visitors?
+
+Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
+
+And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose."
+
+I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+brung me startlin' intelligence.
+
+It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
+
+And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote
+dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."
+
+But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
+see it wuz writ on duty.
+
+She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
+and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
+in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
+on't.
+
+She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
+any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
+was mistook.
+
+She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
+for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
+said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
+had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
+own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
+man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
+round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
+two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
+mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
+couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
+broke in on her serenity.
+
+Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
+
+[Illustration: "FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM."]
+
+Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
+affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths
+emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
+actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
+impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
+accustomed to 'em.
+
+The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
+they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work.
+And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
+The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
+
+_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz
+small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
+got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
+as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
+near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
+of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
+lambs callin' on their dams.
+
+It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."
+
+[Illustration: THE LECTURE.]
+
+The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
+of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
+snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
+I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
+events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
+yesterday.
+
+I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
+there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
+the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
+
+And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
+Josiah hitched the mair.
+
+We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+life.
+
+And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
+lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."
+
+A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
+all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
+rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
+first rate.
+
+I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
+the heads of it.
+
+It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+bare heads.
+
+She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
+the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"
+
+She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
+hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+privilege, to speak in its praise.
+
+I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
+no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
+whose name vuz once Smith.
+
+I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
+time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
+side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
+Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+every word she said.
+
+But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
+school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
+how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
+
+How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
+
+And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+souls bathed in blissful repose!
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]
+
+It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'.  There wasn't a dry
+eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
+vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
+slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
+(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
+And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
+vest.
+
+Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
+
+And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
+
+I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
+
+And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
+see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
+fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+me.
+
+[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]
+
+Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
+over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
+foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
+lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
+a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
+miserable.
+
+Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
+
+And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
+bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
+broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
+cloud.
+
+And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
+
+She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
+of 'em brought the school-house down.
+
+And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
+together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
+forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
+
+And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
+hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
+perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
+
+Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
+
+He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
+
+But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
+
+I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
+deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
+lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
+its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
+stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
+wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
+occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
+sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
+
+And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very
+sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
+
+Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
+me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
+
+Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
+over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.
+
+She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
+spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
+day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
+have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
+as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
+hold of my opinion.
+
+Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
+her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
+
+I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
+meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey.
+
+But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How
+I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up
+against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+with every word of it."
+
+Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.
+
+And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of
+beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."
+
+"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."
+
+She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
+she didn't go too far."
+
+And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she
+didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."
+
+Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
+it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+hain't _all_ happiness."
+
+"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."
+
+[Illustration: "YOU GO TOO FUR."]
+
+And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I  wuz mistaken, "she
+thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said:
+
+"He _knew_ it wuz, and he would take his oath to it."
+
+But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most
+peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+But," sez I, "marriage hain't _all_ peace."
+
+Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it."
+
+Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds
+the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+hain't all radiance."
+
+"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it."
+
+And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+right; I think it is."
+
+"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married
+you will change your opinion, you mark my word."
+
+And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't;
+she guessed she was in the right of it."
+
+Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all
+earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?"
+
+And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called
+a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.
+
+"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care
+of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid,
+a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.
+
+"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+haint if you are ever married."
+
+But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken--she
+thought it wuz."
+
+"You do?" sez I.
+
+"Yes, mem," sez she.
+
+I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'."
+I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.
+
+She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+and have me criticise it. Sez she:
+
+"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have."
+
+"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way."
+
+And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two
+rocks that couldn't be moved."
+
+And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my
+advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where
+there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she
+was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed
+that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on."
+
+And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could."
+
+It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to
+drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and
+come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.
+
+And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped
+and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees
+of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand
+the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face
+a Greenland winter in.
+
+And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back
+and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's
+call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:
+
+She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and
+stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the
+lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a
+place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and
+she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and
+forth and try to convince each other.
+
+And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+my frame, though dreadin' the job some.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture--crazy as a loon. He
+raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it
+to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in
+a serene calm--a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew
+that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they
+wuz till to-night."
+
+"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents--not so dry as I keep by
+me, but pretty dry--"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel
+labor."
+
+"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger
+in emanuel labor."
+
+"Manuel, Josiah."
+
+"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?"
+
+"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I,
+firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+along without some work and care."
+
+"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care,
+not a single care. Not as long as I live--if it wuzn't for me, you might
+have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live."
+
+I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly
+anon--
+
+[Illustration: "OH, WHAT A LECTURE THAT WUZ."]
+
+"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life--did you
+notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified
+to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands."
+
+"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap
+on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been
+a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have
+never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and
+tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs,
+jest like any other human states."
+
+Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and
+I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea
+by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold
+their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies
+blow--and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It
+is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into
+billows. But our sea--the sea of married life--is not like that, it is
+ofttimes billowy and rough."
+
+"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the
+lecture, and enthused. "We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen,
+for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly
+smooth?"
+
+"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."
+
+"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"
+
+"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."
+
+Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+if I was in your place."
+
+"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
+till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
+
+"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
+Allen."
+
+"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or
+ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+lecture."
+
+Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
+and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
+company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
+did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
+have come in a much worse time.
+
+It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.
+
+Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish
+to have showed off to the public.
+
+He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward
+with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.
+
+He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
+and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
+see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.
+
+There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
+and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
+frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
+be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
+language he hurled at me acrost that stove.
+
+"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
+this side."
+
+And then he hollered at me, and asked me:
+
+"How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in." And then he wanted to know
+"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or
+if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
+of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He
+hollered wildly.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
+you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It
+would go in all right if you had started it the other way."
+
+"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
+with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
+perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
+But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
+out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
+be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the
+breath of life in me."
+
+Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."
+
+"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at
+that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."
+
+[Illustration: "WON'T YOU BE STILL?"]
+
+Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'."  "Wall, I want 'em to
+ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
+every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do
+I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I
+said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."
+
+Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:
+
+"Won't you be still?"
+
+"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go
+through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."
+
+I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
+stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
+she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
+awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
+took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
+to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
+to Josiah.
+
+And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
+about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"
+
+But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
+he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much
+repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
+tore to pieces to get that stove started."
+
+Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
+door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."
+
+"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
+for two hours as I have, and then see."
+
+Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who
+is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."
+"Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself."
+
+I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
+
+[Illustration: "AND HE SAID I HAD RUBBED 'EM OUT."]
+
+Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't
+go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with
+chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out."
+I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I
+see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'.
+
+But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose
+to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out
+for years and years--why, then I _had_ to correct him on the subject,
+and we had a little dialogue.
+
+I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple
+sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+machine a-comin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half
+an hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected
+onto him as it did onto me.
+
+Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they
+had to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.
+
+They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to
+go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get
+to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they
+wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
+heard that was the cap sheaf.
+
+Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
+enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
+the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
+and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
+every minute.
+
+Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
+wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
+three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
+the author of "Peaceful Repose," and me, almost to death.
+
+The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.
+
+I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.
+
+[Illustration: "IT DIDN'T FALL OUT ONLY THREE TIMES."]
+
+Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+beginnin'. If you'll believe it,  I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
+by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
+pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all
+kinds.
+
+The author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" came out into the kitchen. I
+told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.
+
+She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked
+it, to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement,
+to hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.
+
+But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to
+lift my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my
+hands.
+
+And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild
+man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by
+havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he
+couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And
+then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.
+
+[Illustration: "TO FIND A PIECE OF OLD ROPE TO TIE UP THE HARNESS."]
+
+Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's
+legs, where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I
+took my hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up
+the harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on
+Josiah Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or
+else to do somethin' for him that he couldn't do.
+
+Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm
+holt of my principles, and didn't groan--not when anybody could hear me.
+I won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a
+groan or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after,
+I was calm again.
+
+Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed
+a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
+had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+dinner.
+
+I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
+the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
+and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
+little piece of brown paper, or full cloth--everything, he said, that
+wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.
+
+And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+right by the notch.
+
+And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)
+
+But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
+shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
+and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
+when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED CURIUS, CURIUSER THAN THE FLOOR LOOKED."]
+
+But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must--for
+I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the  author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
+curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
+curosity, and metafor.
+
+Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
+to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+stay to dinner.
+
+I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
+Zoar--it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
+only made fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along.
+And I had a good dinner and enough of it.
+
+I had to wait on the table, of course--that is, the tea and coffee. And
+I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that wore
+out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.
+
+And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my
+lips, the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em--good,
+strong Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't
+fairly got it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had
+drinked a drop, for the case demanded help at once.
+
+Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+the company wuz very genteel--a minister and a Justice of the Peace--so
+she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.
+
+She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to
+get 'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house
+and onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse
+barn, for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the
+very second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her
+husband to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to
+let the cat out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em
+and comparin' 'em with hern.
+
+I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the
+shelf, so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the
+most went onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that
+that wuz tricklin' down my backbone.
+
+[Illustration: "I SEE THE NECESSITY FOR URGENT HASTE."]
+
+Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread,
+and then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for
+I wuz wet as sop--as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz a-waitin' for me to
+the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by
+me, and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than
+ever, and more sad like.
+
+She said, "she was dretful sorry for me," and I believed her.
+
+She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, "if I had such trials every day?"
+
+And I told her "No, I didn't." I told her that things would run along
+smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody
+to once. Sez I, "You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of
+'em,' or words to that effect."
+
+Sez I, in reasonable axents, "Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good
+things happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful
+agreeable days, and easy."
+
+Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', "Did you ever have
+another day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin'
+through?"
+
+"Oh, yes," sez I, "lots of'em--some worse ones, and," sez I, "the day
+has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever
+stop."
+
+Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:
+
+"You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+changin' your dress."
+
+"Oh, wall," sez I, "I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and
+get the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have
+got to do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and
+cakes and such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men."
+
+So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg "that
+the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things
+to happen before night," for I had only jest got well to work on the
+ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over "to see if I
+could let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her--she wanted
+'em to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through
+the winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots
+and seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+perfectly convenient," so the boy said.
+
+Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+said, "either make or break me."
+
+So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before
+I could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the
+total deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the
+last bag of seeds that I overhauled.
+
+But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.
+
+But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of
+garden and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent
+Submit the sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I
+possibly could.
+
+But I sez to the author of "Peaceful Repose," I sez to her, sez I:
+
+"I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will
+try to," sez I.
+
+"Oh," sez she, "it hain't no matter about that; I--I--I somehow--I don't
+feel like rehearsin' it as it was." Sez she, "I guess I shall make some
+changes in it before I rehearse it agin."
+
+Sez I, "You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum."
+
+"Yes," sez she, in faint axents, "I am a-thinkin' of it."
+
+[Illustration: "AS I STARTED FOR THE BUTTERY."]
+
+"Wall," sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of
+cups in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+napkins under my arm, "I believe I shall like it as well again if you
+do, any way," sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my
+dress, and opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.
+
+"Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it."
+
+Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my
+work quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the
+effort.
+
+And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised
+New Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as
+mebby I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk
+more'n an hour and three quarters.
+
+He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk;
+he'll make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles
+such large, curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz
+a-answerin' his questions.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WUZ SOMETHIN' WRONG ABOUT 'EM."]
+
+Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board
+in  her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had
+got another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.
+
+I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said "there wuz
+somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what."
+
+She said "she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much
+round, but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of
+the barriers, and he must have his coat."
+
+Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time,
+and took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it
+I see what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows
+come right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition
+to the funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms
+right acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.
+
+And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot
+the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it--and
+she went home feelin' first rate.
+
+I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would
+miss me if any thing should happen.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE IS APT TO GET THINGS WRONG."]
+
+I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little
+boy's pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would
+have to set down from the front side, or else stand up.
+
+And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way
+to get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the
+legs. But I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and
+bastin', and settin' her right, and I did now.
+
+Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an
+old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and
+the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he
+wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the
+first thing that "he wanted some of Hall's salve." And I told him "there
+wuzn't a mite in the house."
+
+And he hollered up and says, "There would be some if there wuz any sense
+in the head of the house."
+
+[Illustration: "HE WANTED SOME OF HALL'S SALVE."]
+
+I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for
+I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, "Why hain't there any
+Hall's salve?"  Sez I, "Because old Hall has been dead for years and
+years, and hain't made any salve."
+
+"Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,"
+he yelled out.
+
+"Why," sez I, "he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely
+onexpected five years ago last summer."
+
+"Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will
+become of me!" he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
+
+Sez I, "Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah."
+
+"Pond's Extract!" he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
+
+And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of
+man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to
+take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me
+all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him
+a-purpose.
+
+He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" would hear him, and he hollered
+back "he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he
+shouldn't live to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up."
+
+His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had
+brung down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back--a hull
+lot of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.
+
+There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children,
+and the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+a-visitin', and the editor of the _Augur'ses_ wife (she wuz related to
+the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go
+to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the
+West's bosom friend, or used to be.
+
+Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The author of "Peaceful Repose" sez to me, and she looked pale and
+skairt; she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful
+skairt and shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin',
+as I said prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as
+good as the very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I
+would allow spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she
+proposed, Miss Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man.
+And though I urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard
+as I would otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of
+visitors had reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE PROPOSED THAT SHE SHOULD RIDE BACK WITH THE LIVERY
+MAN."]
+
+I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I
+have got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different
+occasions, every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and
+curiusest ones.
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose" insisted on
+goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, "That
+if she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much
+work round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her
+rehearse the lecture."
+
+But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as
+wan agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): "That she should make
+_changes_ in it before she ever rehearsed it agin--_deep changes_!"
+
+And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+till I got this letter.
+
+Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all
+on the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot
+down to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens
+make a practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if
+they did--and have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt
+well, and the supper tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I
+told him Lodema wuz approachin' and would be there that very night or
+the next day--still the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin'
+mellowness of the hot tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other
+good things.
+
+[Illustration: "MY PARDNER ENJOYS GOOD VITTLES."]
+
+My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz
+enjoy good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.
+
+And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+lawyers would almost entirely disappear.
+
+For truly it seems that _no_ human man _could be_ more worrysome, and
+curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at times; still,
+by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from day to day,
+and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him to me by
+ties that can't never be broken into.
+
+He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.
+
+He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it
+in his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are
+the ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a
+cheerful countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright
+room, on a snowy table-cloth!
+
+Great--great is the mystery of men's love.
+
+I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that
+underlies married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much
+cannot be said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of
+female and male humanity--and it _cannot_ be too closely followed up and
+practised by female pardners.
+
+But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.
+
+Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early--I mean
+the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema--oh no, fur from it; Lodema is never
+bright and cheerful--she is the opposite and reverse always.
+
+She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to
+call 'em so rather than "old maid" (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful
+sharp before I could get him into it).
+
+I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of
+old maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that
+would but couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the
+"would-but-couldn't's," though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said
+so, not for the world.
+
+Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:
+
+"She hain't to blame, Josiah."
+
+And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.
+
+Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we
+had our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of
+makin' awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down
+onto us sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along--jest
+like a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind
+to bring up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.
+
+And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I
+done well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved
+to put on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for
+either on 'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time
+a'most. And it come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand
+the brunt on it.
+
+But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them
+that can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide
+world to suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather,
+and if the weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT SHE IS A DISAGREEABLE CREETER."]
+
+If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+groans aloud and says "she can't see."
+
+And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she
+spends the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at
+'em.
+
+You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of
+game you set out to hunt in the mornin'.
+
+If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+perseverin'--if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
+such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
+cattle--why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
+will be a noble and happy hunter.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT FIT WITH THEIR TONGUES, FEARFUL."]
+
+At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
+night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
+right along and chase 'em down.  Wall, Lodema never got led away from
+her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
+and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.
+
+But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
+always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
+huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
+It wuz! It wuz!
+
+And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
+wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
+visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
+the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues--they didn't
+fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
+tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
+themselves--boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
+boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
+it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
+and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
+truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
+had got to thinkin' so.
+
+But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
+
+Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+pious.
+
+[Illustration: "HIS FACE WUZ A GOOD MORAL FACE."]
+
+But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
+
+But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
+that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
+carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
+actin'.
+
+And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+found that he had always been a pattern man--never had done a single
+mean act, so fur as wuz known.
+
+Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
+talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
+wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
+told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
+
+Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+comin' to a end.
+
+She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
+her--and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
+extremely sot.
+
+But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+quite good ones.
+
+That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+and above disagreeable to me.
+
+Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
+they would be better off.
+
+But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+fur, they hain't megum enough.
+
+Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
+
+It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
+mebby will be agin.
+
+But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
+
+You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+even whip 'em.
+
+No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
+truth in it.
+
+[Illustration: "EF I FELL ON A STUN."]
+
+Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
+Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
+on a stun--I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
+and there hain't no stun--and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
+achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
+no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.
+
+No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
+subject.
+
+But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way--so nigh to it that
+seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
+
+I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+frequently, "before and after takin'."
+
+Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+calmness, and joy--refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
+
+Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
+brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
+so much peace and happiness.
+
+Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
+question, or ort to be.
+
+And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+lookin' at it, and commandin' it to--or call some posys to fall down
+into my lap, right through, the plasterin'--
+
+Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
+me stayed to Jonesville.
+
+Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
+do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
+deal of the time.
+
+I most know I couldn't.
+
+But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
+Natur.
+
+And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+it.
+
+And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
+of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
+breath leaves their body.
+
+Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
+beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
+
+Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
+never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
+
+And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
+meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
+felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
+lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
+
+They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
+at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of their
+childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
+
+I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
+or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
+imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
+imperfect world.
+
+But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+about 'em--you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
+
+Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
+last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
+end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
+didn't either. And I sez to her, "The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
+to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
+Father when that great day shall be." And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
+I, "How should _you_ be expected to know it?"
+
+Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, "My name
+wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that _wuzn't_ to know it!"
+
+And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side--you
+know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+side--you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
+did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
+use in disputin' back and forth.
+
+But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
+old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+naterally wanted to be round at the time.
+
+She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
+his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
+wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
+up as any way.
+
+Josiah didn't like it at all.
+
+Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance--not fierce, you know,
+or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
+ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
+fierce.
+
+[Illustration: "BURIED IN THE OLD RISLEY DEESIRICT."]
+
+Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
+
+And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
+jest _knew_ the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
+of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
+to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
+made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns--so she told me in
+confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
+
+She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
+for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
+
+But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
+old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
+
+His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length--Joe is
+tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
+for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
+likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
+what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
+she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
+human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
+joke, Jenette duz: "I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
+got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
+would be glad the world _wuz_ comin' to a end."
+
+But he _didn't_ look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
+see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
+have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
+everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
+
+He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
+reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
+'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
+house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
+handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
+barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
+order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
+more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
+
+He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+too.
+
+But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
+Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
+honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
+And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
+subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
+she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
+the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
+bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
+eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
+have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
+a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
+to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
+
+And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
+always said.
+
+She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
+girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
+said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
+gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
+said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
+said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
+goodness to 'em.
+
+That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
+pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
+to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
+and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
+life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
+enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
+night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
+little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
+comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
+and thought her eyes on him.
+
+And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
+home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
+weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
+
+That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+prior and beforehand.
+
+Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
+
+He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
+
+And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
+
+For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+think such a girl as Jenette had been--such a patient, good creeter, and
+such a good-tempered one, and everything--to think her pa should have
+forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+their money and make Jenette trouble.
+
+But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
+I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
+
+But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
+day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
+and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
+
+That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
+
+Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
+a bright face.
+
+If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
+dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
+locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
+laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
+to the rattle of a bone.
+
+And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
+
+The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
+by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
+the qualities kinder struck in and she _wuz_ happy, and she _wuz_
+contented--that is, I s'poze so.
+
+Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
+to home--not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+like a meteor.
+
+Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+movin' constantly through space--but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
+meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
+I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
+
+Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
+who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
+One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
+of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
+admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
+good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
+'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
+
+And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+got to goin'.
+
+[Illustration: "Dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz."]
+
+Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
+and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
+curls all over her head.
+
+Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
+a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
+on the other side, and got through with it.
+
+Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
+
+A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
+had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
+But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
+was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
+afternoon.
+
+Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
+case of the world's endin'.
+
+And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, "that
+she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
+the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes."
+
+And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
+
+She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
+time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
+Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
+in front.
+
+Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
+
+She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
+
+But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
+get better and she did.
+
+One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
+the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
+month.
+
+[Illustration: "Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur."]
+
+He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley
+school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the
+next mornin' Miss  Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that
+evenin'. It wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah
+had to be away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy
+loaded, and wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
+
+But she said "that she felt that the walk would do her good."
+
+I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said "stanchils and
+religion wuz two separate things." Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
+to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
+And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
+another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
+or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
+in onxiety--it hain't my way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
+Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
+carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
+his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
+Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
+with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
+her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
+size.
+
+Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
+enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
+been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach--a sort of
+a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
+her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
+old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
+thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
+wuz tightenin'.
+
+And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
+And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
+head and said, "she didn't approve of it--she thought a chicken ought to
+be brung up by a hen."
+
+But Miss Charnick said, "Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+perished right there in the nest."
+
+But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, "that it wuz
+a hen's business, and nobody else's."
+
+And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
+hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
+if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to--they ought to
+be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
+wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
+the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
+to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
+
+And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+and she said "that basks had gone out."
+
+And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
+Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
+
+"Basks _wuz out_, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+polenay."
+
+And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+"Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
+got so little time to wear 'em."
+
+And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+somethin' about "hired girls keepin' their place."
+
+And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
+
+They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
+their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
+others.
+
+It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
+
+And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
+her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
+fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
+in--I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
+knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
+
+Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
+do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
+sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
+his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
+her belief.
+
+But Josiah said, "he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
+if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
+guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand."
+
+Sez I, "Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself." And he owned up that
+he wuz.
+
+Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
+breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
+overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
+come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
+and press the seams.
+
+I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
+had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
+
+She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
+that day. She sez, "The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
+a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
+riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
+commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
+Hubbard."
+
+"It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.
+
+And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+bitterly reproved him. But he sez, "If the world don't come to a end,
+the corn will be needed."
+
+"But it will," she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ HE, "IF IT DOES, I MAY AS WELL BE DOIN'
+THAT AS TO BE SETTIN' ROUND."]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+settin' round." And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+jawed me for upholdin' him.
+
+And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+previous to eatin' it, sez she, "I should think _respect_, respect for
+the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+of the idea of goin' on with your work."
+
+Sez I calmly, "Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?"
+
+"Wall, not exactly scare," sez she, "but lift up, lift up far above
+bread and other kitchen work."
+
+And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, "I don't s'poze
+I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
+of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
+that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
+would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
+ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+grandchildren." (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
+to dinner.)
+
+"Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
+have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
+soar up above riz biscuit."
+
+And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
+another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, "What did
+they do there?"
+
+"Do!" sez she, "why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile."
+
+I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
+I do say it), and sez calmly, "Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
+have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
+_some_ things, things He has _commanded_. Everybody to their own way.
+I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever," sez I,
+"I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz _my_ way to lay speechless
+or holler much--not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
+principle, but I never seemed to have a call to."
+
+"You would be far better if you did," sez Trueman's wife, "far better.
+But you hain't good enough."
+
+"Oh!" sez I, reasonably, "I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
+the _use_ in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
+all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
+you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
+_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
+"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
+'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
+temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
+regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
+our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
+life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"
+
+"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
+attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."
+
+That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
+with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
+one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
+biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."
+
+Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
+agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
+years.
+
+But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
+
+But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
+companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
+her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+be sent up.
+
+Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
+in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
+by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
+had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
+
+The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
+it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
+goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
+enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
+
+The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
+stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
+talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
+had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
+
+But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+on white book muslin robes. Good land!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+about 3 o'clock P.M.--afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
+
+We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
+wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
+kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
+top of the him book.
+
+Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
+a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
+and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known--Miss Charnick is a
+smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
+
+Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through--as mournful,
+skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
+out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
+way, and wierd--dretful wierd.
+
+And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
+days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
+men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
+and wept and cried.
+
+I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
+serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought--jest
+as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
+very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
+mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
+the certainties of the other.
+
+[Illustration: "A SORT OF A LURID, WILD-LOOKING CHAP."]
+
+For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
+big that the hull world must pass through it--and yet so small that the
+hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.
+
+My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+mysterious arches, alone--and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
+onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had _got_ to be
+parted.
+
+And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+the bendin' heavens--we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
+on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.
+
+Not that I really _wanted_ the world to come to a end that day. No,
+I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
+for the _sake_ of livin'. I enjoy it.
+
+But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+a-shinin' in his'n.
+
+Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+three to quarter to 4--and so on--they shouted, they sung, they prayed,
+they shook each other's hands--they wuz fairly crazed with excitement
+and fervor, which they called religion--for they wuz in earnest, nobody
+could dispute that.
+
+Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time--though I ketched
+him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say, "Oh, how
+I hate to leave you, Jenette!"
+
+But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.
+
+Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on
+the puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say
+this, that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's
+time. And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep
+calm and serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there--no sign, no
+change--and Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.
+
+But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe,
+more than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been
+in for a week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this
+day, he jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and
+stood there in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had
+been calm enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice--his
+voice always did have a good honest ring to it:
+
+  Farewell my friends,
+  Farewell my foes;
+  Up to Heaven
+  Joe Charnick goes.
+
+And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he
+waved his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and
+sprung upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller
+him--and go right up into the heavens.
+
+And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+too--jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a camp
+chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred her
+dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks,
+and lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her
+way of applyin' of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "FAREWELL MY FRIENDS, FAREWELL MY FOES."]
+
+I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+only to put 'em on it.  But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.
+
+Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world--not a
+word--but a-naggin' about everything else.
+
+Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her
+healed, and started off.
+
+But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.
+
+He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+love--Joe never could be megum.
+
+Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell--but
+when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die,
+then she owned up to him that she worshipped him--and always had.
+
+And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death
+at the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl--she thinks her eyes on
+her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever
+wuz all around, if not agreeabler.
+
+Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of
+his bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin'
+her so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad
+on't, so they say.
+
+Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when
+Trueman's wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house
+still; that is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that
+Ma Charnick offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the
+ones she had brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please
+her, so's to get in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14
+of 'em, all fat and flourishing--they wuz well took care of. And Miss
+Charnick looked down on 'em fondly, and sez:
+
+"I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+married."
+
+[Illustration: "I LAY OUT TO HAVE A GOOD CHICKEN PIE THE DAY THAT JOE
+AND JENETTE ARE MARRIED."]
+
+"Married!" sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. "Yes,
+they are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough.
+Jenette is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'--with a
+bask," sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped
+down and gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much
+store she set by it for sickness.
+
+But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered
+and sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before
+the weddin'.
+
+They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here
+a-visitin'--and she asked me in confidence (and it _must_ be kep, it
+stands lo reason it must), "if I s'posed that book muslin robe would
+make two little dresses?"
+
+And I told her, "Good land! yes, three on 'em," and it did.
+
+She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would
+want the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the
+materials--
+
+It looks some like her and some like Joe--and they both think their eyes
+on it--but old Miss Charnick worships it--Wall, though es I said (and I
+have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and onheard on).
+
+Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a _plow_, that
+time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on--
+
+He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+(He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it,
+and don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)
+
+He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+from hour to hour.
+
+He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle
+the wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist
+wimmen wuz to work.
+
+After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+post-office for his daily _World_, and then he would stop on his way
+back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+give us his idees on't.
+
+[Illustration: "HE NEVER HAD TIME TO HELP."]
+
+And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the  very bone, with his
+dretful imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo
+herself, and ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to
+set!
+
+Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.
+
+He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do
+some little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.
+
+But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work.
+He wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about
+that buzz saw mill.
+
+And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz
+able to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and
+their buzz saws, and their inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc.,
+etc.
+
+And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+meetin' house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said
+they had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't
+do any more, any way.
+
+As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the
+male brethern.
+
+Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+come right out plain and said so.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said "he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right
+to his face that he hadn't done his share," and he said "he wuzn't the
+man either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things." I don't
+believe he wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like
+death to have him so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the
+tex' wuz; it wuz these words:
+
+"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."
+
+The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached
+about it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat
+to several of the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly
+pinched 'em.
+
+But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said "he
+wouldn't give a _darn_ cent."
+
+But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+that he had demeaned himself to that extent.
+
+Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain
+members of the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin'
+slightin' about buzz saws.
+
+I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws
+had a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I
+believe the subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these
+various hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the
+men kinder joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other,
+and they all baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the
+minister wuz, good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of
+life, and most half a year's salery due.
+
+I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her
+own sirname about how her Metilda had been used.
+
+The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.
+
+She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny
+it, and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said,
+and stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been
+to save her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when
+some of the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:
+
+"The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+unless it is when you can't help it."
+
+What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:
+
+There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+evenin' meetin's.
+
+She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it
+wuz s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.
+
+She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+a-cryin' before she got it all out.
+
+She always said "she wanted to be found always at the foot of the
+Cross."
+
+She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical,
+and then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out
+into tears somewhere through it from first to last.
+
+But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz
+present for the first time after his wive's death.
+
+But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly--she was most a
+head taller than any man there--and she sez out loud and strong:
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some
+time. And then she begun agin,
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted out agin.
+
+And so it went on for some time--she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+and firm, "that she wanted to be found--" and then bustin' into tears.
+
+Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+right out onto the him--
+
+  "Oh, that will be joyful!"
+
+And Sister Lum sot down.
+
+Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+bring forward that verse of scripter. That the Bible said "'there wuz a
+time to laugh,' and I didn't know when it wuz unless it wuz when you
+couldn't help it--"
+
+But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda--no, indeed. I only said it
+because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin'
+house down on her so heavy.
+
+But Josiah said, "What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+punish its unruly members?"
+
+And I sez to Josiah, "Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of,
+and the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it,
+Josiah Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And
+Miss Henn is a widder and poor."
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah, calmly, "she hain't been able to help the meetin'
+house much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely."
+
+Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, "I hearn he did at the time he wuz
+up--I hearn he contributed _lots_ to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+him--but," sez I, "do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay
+in the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that
+is sendin' men to ruin all round him--
+
+"Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way
+so it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every
+low saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and
+boy that wants it.
+
+"And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm--so he jest
+entices 'em down into the road to ruin--doin' as much agin harm as a
+whiskey seller.
+
+"And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are
+always appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by
+their peers, but wimmen never are.
+
+"I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked
+it to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+about Metilda's case--thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.
+
+[Illustration: "SUPPLYIN' EVERY LOW SALOON FUR AND NEAR."]
+
+"I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's
+mother set on him? She is a Sister  in the meetin' house and Charley is
+a ruined boy--and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin--
+jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if
+he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon."
+
+Sez I, "In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who
+have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of
+their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red
+with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and
+deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.
+
+"What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there
+and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other
+young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young
+hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that
+wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink.
+Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
+changed the smiles to curses?
+
+"Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+easy.
+
+"They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
+down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
+
+"Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
+But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
+no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
+downward?
+
+"How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+love, a divine purity?"
+
+Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
+
+And sez I, "Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
+Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
+the first cause of her goin' astray kep in--the handsome,
+smooth-faced hypocrite?--it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
+plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
+speeches and his money."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH LOOKED UP AND SEZ, 'HOW A STEEPLE WOULD LOOK
+A-PINTIN' DOWN'"]
+
+"Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
+pinted the other way."
+
+Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+sez he,
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
+most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
+anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
+storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
+
+Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+gently sarcestickle.
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."
+
+[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]
+
+Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
+that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
+that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."
+
+"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.
+
+Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
+man that led her astray."
+
+"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
+at the advertisement on the back side on't.
+
+"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
+against the mouths of the witnesses."
+
+"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+some composed.
+
+"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
+all to try her faith."
+
+I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+well what the story wuz he referred to.
+
+It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
+
+She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
+
+And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
+all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
+right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
+while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
+he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
+bitterly.
+
+She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
+
+And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
+it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
+'em.
+
+And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, "Bretheren and
+sisters, let us sing these lines:
+
+  "He did it all to try her faith."
+
+I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
+by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes--nor I didn't
+smile--oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+indignatin in my axents, and sez I, "Josiah Allen, can you look me in
+the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
+such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?" Sez
+I, "If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
+the influence of men that like hard drink?"
+
+"Wall, as it were," sez Josiah, "I--that is--wall, it is a-gettin'
+bed-time, Samantha."
+
+And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
+
+And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour--and I
+dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
+did.
+
+But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
+
+Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+we felt that she wuz a great loss.
+
+Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
+hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
+had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
+etc.
+
+And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
+a little help gin her when she needed it.
+
+And Miss Bobbet said "she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+bein' cast down." And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
+of 'em did. But I sez to 'em--
+
+"Good land!" sez I. "We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+and we can do it agin."
+
+Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
+jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
+the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
+spell.
+
+But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
+
+We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
+other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
+prayed--we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
+rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
+Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
+and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
+to nothin' or not.
+
+Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
+our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
+had a right to).
+
+After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+enough to raise some money.
+
+It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
+the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
+
+It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
+at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
+makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
+
+But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
+we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
+
+The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+fix up the old house a little.
+
+The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
+half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
+aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
+always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
+when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
+'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
+be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
+ways--nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
+meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
+resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
+which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
+meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
+approvals--and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint--we could
+_work_ all we wanted to.
+
+So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
+had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
+we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
+be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
+wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
+to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
+and the scrapin' had begun.
+
+[Illustration: "APPEARIN' IN PUBLIC."]
+
+The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+together, and raised enough money to get the paper--it wuz very nice,
+and fifty cents a roll (double roll).  These young females appearin' in
+public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
+and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
+I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
+sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
+our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
+
+I sez, "I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
+es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
+of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
+sights of quavers."
+
+But they all said that wuz a _very_ different thing.
+
+And sez I, "How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
+of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
+congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
+'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
+see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"--and
+sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
+had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and I
+wouldn't nuther.
+
+But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
+scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
+could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
+say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
+And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.
+
+Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
+have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
+and 'Piscopals.
+
+No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
+do the scrapin' with case knives.
+
+It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
+as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
+fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
+standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
+strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
+got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
+that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
+is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
+before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
+to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
+
+But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
+there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
+what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
+Methodist Meetin' House.
+
+Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
+all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
+to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
+strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
+we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.
+
+[Illustration: "EVERY NIGHT JOSIAH WOULD TACKLE ME ON IT."]
+
+And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+thought quelled us down a sight.
+
+Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
+and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
+up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.
+
+And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
+the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
+house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
+to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
+Conference.
+
+It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+Jonesville with a extra grip.
+
+So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
+
+Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
+from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
+
+I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
+brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
+
+He would talk _very_ skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
+of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
+by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
+
+I suffered.
+
+Josiah would set with the _World_ and other papers in his hand,
+a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
+left off, the nite mairs would begin.
+
+I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
+
+The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
+wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
+rostrums. And sez he, "That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
+stand."
+
+[Illustration: "IS ROSTRUMS MUCH HIGHER THAN THEM BARELLS TO STAND ON?"]
+
+And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
+not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
+work, I sez to him:
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+meetin' house?"
+
+And Josiah said, "it wuz suthin' altogether different." And he assured
+me agin,
+
+"That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
+to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
+why," sez he, "that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
+most all the hard work in the church--such as raisin' money for church
+work--earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
+of charity work connected with it--teachin' the children, nursin' the
+sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But," sez he, "this is
+fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
+Conference. Why," sez he, in a haughty tone, "I should think they'd know
+without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women."
+
+Sez I, "Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
+wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
+vote for them?"
+
+"That is the pint," sez Josiah, "that is the very pint I have been
+tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
+help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+explain it to you that the word laymen _always_ means woman when she can
+help men in any way, but _not_ when he can help her, or in any other
+sense."
+
+Sez I, "It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+meetin' house."
+
+"Oh, yes," sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, "the word laymen always means
+wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+men."
+
+Sez I, in a very dry axent, "Then the word man, when it is used in
+church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
+and drowdgin' round?"
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah haughtily, "And it always means men in the higher and
+more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
+on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so," sez he.
+
+"Who settled it?" sez I.
+
+"Why the men, of course," sez he. "The men have always made the rules
+of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+difficult," sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, "It
+seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+and when it means wimmen."
+
+"That is so," sez Josiah. "It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
+and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
+taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
+right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
+votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
+
+"I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
+where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
+
+"Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
+
+"Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+born.' That means men and wimmen both--men and wimmen are both born,
+nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
+Now that means men only--anybody with one eye can see that.
+
+"Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+both--consists--of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
+'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?" sez he.
+
+I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
+hand waitin' for it to bile--"I see a great deal, Josiah Allen."
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH WORK.]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "I am glad on't. Now to sum it up," sez he, with some
+the mean of a preacher--or, ruther, a exhauster--"to sum the matter all
+up, the  words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
+the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
+all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
+missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
+from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
+the meanin' of the word--sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
+both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
+their own idees, preachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?" sez
+he, proudly and loftily.
+
+"Yes," sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
+biled. "Yes, I see."
+
+And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
+and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
+anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
+his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
+sect if I tried--clergymen, statesmen and all--so I didn't try, and I
+wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
+idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
+some good cream into it--I merely sez:
+
+"There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+men."
+
+"Yes," sez he, "that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,"
+and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
+and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
+
+And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+question I had put to him--for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
+recuperation, and so I sez agin them words--
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?" And Josiah said
+agin, "it wuz suthin' entirely different;" he said barells and rostrums
+wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
+hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
+argument full of Bible quotations and everything.
+
+And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
+the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
+that meetin house.
+
+And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
+we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
+
+Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
+
+Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+and nerved up her body.
+
+Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+"Cleanliness _next_ to godliness."
+
+So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+with a willin' mind.
+
+Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
+say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
+and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
+workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked--and all of the wimmen who
+wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
+a-workin' hard on articles for the fair--when all of a suddin the
+outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
+bretheren.
+
+They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
+Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
+wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
+
+Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
+to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
+it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
+that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
+derectin'.
+
+And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
+and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
+house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
+me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
+
+And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
+near time for us to go home.
+
+Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
+they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
+then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
+
+I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
+the heat.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE.]
+
+Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
+partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
+manners, and didn't say much.
+
+But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
+way--
+
+"Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+jest like you?"
+
+"No," sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, "no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
+your days at church work under the direction of us men."
+
+"Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you," sez she admirin'ly,
+"I could work jest like you--pass round the bread and wine and the
+contribution box Sundays?"
+
+"Oh, no, Drusilly," sez he condesendinly, "these hard and arjuous dutys
+belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
+the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc."
+
+"But," sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+deacon), "wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers--work for
+the good of the church together--go about doin' good?"
+
+"No, Drusilly," sez he, "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
+for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
+
+"We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+generally."
+
+Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
+of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
+the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
+side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
+usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
+transparent manner of speakin'.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+"he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+Conference, because it would _weaken_ the Conference."
+
+"Yes," sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+floor.
+
+"You see," sez he, "we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
+weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
+her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
+would admit would keep out a man. And that," sez he (a-leanin' back in
+a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), "that, you see, would
+tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church."
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ I, "MOVE ROUND A LITTLE, WON'T YOU, FOR WE
+WANT TO SET THE BENCH."]
+
+"Wall," sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, "move round a
+little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
+under it. And," sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
+and sweat offen my face, "Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
+holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
+'em? Some of 'em are very hefty," sez I, "and all of us Sisters almost
+are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
+and bile down; we would dearly love a little help," sez I.
+
+"I would help," sez Josiah in a willin' tone, "I would help in a minute,
+if I hadn't got so much work to do at home."
+
+And all the other male bretheren said the same thing--they had got to
+git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
+and I knew it.)
+
+But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
+his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
+of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
+the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
+the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
+she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
+
+She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
+of his folks that day, over to Loontown.
+
+And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
+and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
+one work--deacon work--and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
+hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
+plain deacon work.
+
+It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
+and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
+piece had convinced her--
+
+She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
+be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
+would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SEE THIS WILD AND SKAIRFUL MACHINE APPROACHIN'."]
+
+When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
+up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
+tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
+bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his.  There was a bet upon these
+two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
+where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
+hollerin'.
+
+And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
+
+His mean wuz wild.
+
+And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
+she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
+old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
+after 'em.
+
+And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
+a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
+
+Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+nuther.
+
+And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
+
+It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+long, long time, and it wuz what he called "A Travellin' Rat Trap." It
+wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
+
+[Illustration: DEACON HENZY'S RAT TRAP (LIKE A CIRCUS FOR THE RATS).]
+
+It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em--rats
+or mice, or anything--and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
+
+Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
+
+It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
+
+But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
+machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
+
+Deacon Sypher had took the agency for "The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+Boy of the Plain," and wuz doin' well by it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
+and arneky.
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD TO LAY BOUND UP IN LINEMENTS A GOOD DEAL OF THE
+TIME."]
+
+So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
+
+And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
+his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
+
+He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
+away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
+his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
+about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
+as he could, to try it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
+break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
+hardly dast to go nigh 'em.
+
+And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
+to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
+him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the
+"Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
+home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
+wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping Cow Boy."
+
+And then they said--the hull three of the deacons did--that any minute
+them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
+saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
+
+And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+demanded the hull of their time--every minute of it.
+
+So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
+
+We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
+would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
+
+Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
+
+But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
+to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
+
+"Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?"
+
+"It is on account of their minds," sez Josiah. "Men have got stronger
+minds than wimmen, that is the reason."
+
+And Sister Meechim sez agin--
+
+"Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
+deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
+if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?"
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, "that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+brains hain't so hefty es men's."
+
+But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+loud, clear tone,
+
+"Oh, shaw!"
+
+And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
+
+"If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
+you are a-standin'."
+
+"Certainly," sez Josiah, in a polite axent, "certainly."
+
+And so the rest of the men said.
+
+And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,
+
+"You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+puddin', and so forth."
+
+And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, "Have I ever failed, Josiah
+Allen, to have good dinners for you, and on time too?"
+
+"No," sez he, "but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it,
+and also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+deaconesses."
+
+And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work
+in the meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister
+Arvilly Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue
+(some think that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had
+chances).
+
+But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,
+
+"I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH ADDED TO HIS REMARKS."]
+
+"Wall," sez Sister Gowdy--she loves to put on Arvilly--"wall, you have
+got one qualificatin', Arvilly!"
+
+"Yes, thank the Lord," sez she.
+
+And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, _I_ think.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say
+it.
+
+Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me
+to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long,
+so I didn't care.
+
+Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay
+to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+wuz company, or lay out to.
+
+Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
+
+He had jest got home from the city.
+
+It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had
+to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody
+else couldn't sign.
+
+[Illustration: CASPER KEELER.]
+
+His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
+
+Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
+
+He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+cetery, et cetery.
+
+He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in
+the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very
+highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
+
+And I sez, "Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?"
+
+And he acted real scorfin'.
+
+"Wimmen's work!" sez he. "No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and
+too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such
+little trifles as wimmen's work."
+
+Sez I, "Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if
+it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you
+are a-usin'?" sez I, "who educated you and made your life easy before
+you?"
+
+And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother
+wuz a good woman.
+
+But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin'
+it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
+
+But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over
+with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz
+a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of
+my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc.,
+etc.
+
+[Illustration: "HE SEEMED TO HAVE A HORROW OF WOMAN A-RAISIN' OUT OF HER
+SPEAR."]
+
+Sez Casper, "It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life," sez he,
+"when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen
+keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in
+that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+reasons why poor weak wimmen should _not_ be admitted into that sacred
+enclosure--
+
+"When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I
+have ever experienced. Why, he said," sez Casper, "that if wimmen wuz
+allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The
+next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly
+argument," sez Casper.
+
+"It must have been," sez my Josiah.
+
+"He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear."
+
+"Well he might," sez Josiah, "well he might."
+
+Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This
+wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real
+solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only
+more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig
+some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its
+feet--no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of
+truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and
+curius I felt hearin' their talk.
+
+"And," sez I, "nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I
+have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf," sez I, "deep
+and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his
+burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his
+unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the
+very depths of my soul at his freedom.
+
+"But," sez I, "when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
+
+"Yes," sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
+
+"When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen
+are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach,
+I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and
+where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand
+and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all
+over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody
+says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the
+old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted
+and bring forth freedom.
+
+"If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster
+would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him
+up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought
+and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many
+animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
+him so."
+
+"Oh, no," sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', "no, you wouldn't."
+
+"Yes, I would," sez I. "And I'd 've enjoyed it _richly_" sez I, es I
+turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
+
+[Illustration: SAMANTHA EXPRESSES HER VIEWS.]
+
+Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+machin' for about the same length of time.
+
+But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+dinner.
+
+After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
+
+But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
+Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
+and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
+several days.
+
+And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
+
+But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
+of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
+own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
+his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
+failure, and such.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER BOBBET, OUR DEPENDENCE, FELL DOWN ON A APPLE
+PARIN'".]
+
+And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she--
+
+"Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
+I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
+to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake." Rosy wuz
+Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+now a father's strong hand.
+
+Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always
+been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the
+savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property
+with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took
+his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
+
+Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
+
+Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz
+lost--a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits,
+and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
+
+[Illustration: RALPH SMITH ROBINSON.]
+
+He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time--he felt
+weak and mauger.
+
+And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got
+in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she
+_needed_ a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else
+she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with
+her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father
+wuz--so wouldn't Ralph come home.
+
+Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked
+and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love
+and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith
+Robinson.
+
+Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that
+the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost
+crazed him.
+
+He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with
+him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The
+world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so
+near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, "he
+walked with God." Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they
+wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for
+Yankees.
+
+And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+Presidential election.
+
+Ralph suffered.
+
+But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
+
+Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+the droppin's of the sanctuary.
+
+She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered
+up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under
+the steeple.
+
+Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by
+the voice of his soul and his good silver watch--this volume of clamor,
+this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz
+perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin'
+dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he
+come down with nervous fever.
+
+He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he
+wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he
+bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no
+idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got
+it.
+
+I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work
+of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't
+languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the
+female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in
+Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled
+me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel
+divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what
+day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend
+when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear
+a hankerchif pin or not--or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc.,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
+
+Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case
+before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful
+that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence.
+One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder
+deprestin' about it.
+
+But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
+
+We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go
+into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has
+always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice
+to Josiah Allen.
+
+Howsumever, I don't _know_ that. But I do know that they started off
+a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back
+home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
+
+[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS.]
+
+And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+said they bought 'em.
+
+And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either
+one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the
+truth of this. I know what they _said_, they _said_ the huntin' wuz
+excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
+
+And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
+
+But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+bigger ones, and shot more deers.
+
+Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a
+good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and,
+suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our
+journey to Loontown.
+
+[Illustration: "MISS TIMSON AND ROSY SEEMED DRETFUL GLAD TO SEE ME."]
+
+Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale
+and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been
+there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well
+as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts
+and their souls and their idealized fancies.
+
+Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good
+a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
+
+And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24
+hours I begun to feel some as they did.
+
+But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
+
+But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
+
+His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all,
+had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and
+struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine
+sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
+
+He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost
+as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But
+under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his
+good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire
+that wuz a-consumin' of him.
+
+Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms
+and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+Timson to understand that I wuz there to _help_ 'em if I could.
+
+"For," sez I softly, "the hull future time is left for us to weep in,
+but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson."
+
+Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves
+or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all
+through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
+
+Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to
+give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+refused.
+
+Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+sleep, "buzz saw mill."
+
+[Illustration: "DIDN'T SEE HOW FOLKS NEEDED SO MUCH SLEEP."]
+
+But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly--
+
+"Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful." And I wouldn't
+waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+in haste--
+
+"That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+real treat to keep awake all night, now and then."
+
+No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case
+might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without
+disputin' with my Josiah.
+
+Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
+language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
+feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
+strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
+said:
+
+"And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
+the peace! the peace!"
+
+His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
+wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
+and inside, that he invoked.
+
+Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
+down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
+wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
+
+Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
+he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
+would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
+then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
+
+Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
+excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
+bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
+it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
+tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
+perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
+goes.
+
+Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
+to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
+of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+tenderness and sweetness of nater.
+
+A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
+hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
+Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
+would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
+
+Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
+if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+"business!"
+
+So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
+spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
+then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
+one of 'em good ones).
+
+He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
+or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
+make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
+and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
+to be.
+
+[Illustration: "THE DEACON DID MAKE ME THINK OF A STEEL TRAP."]
+
+Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
+in the mornin' would roust him up,  and I had come to see if he would
+omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
+
+"Not ring the bells!" sez he, in wild amaze. "Not ring the church bells
+on the Sabbath day?"
+
+His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez--
+
+"Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+bells in the mornin'."
+
+"A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a _Christian_ to not ring the
+Sabbath bells!"
+
+I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
+the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
+the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
+a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
+a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
+his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
+depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.
+
+But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+anybody ever could, as he sez: "The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
+for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
+broke down and weak?" sez he.
+
+"No," sez I, honestly. "No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
+trap."
+
+"Wall," sez he, "what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else."
+
+"But," sez I, "folks are made up different." Sez I, "The Bible sez so,
+and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you
+ever nervous?" sez I.
+
+"Never," sez he. And he added firmly, "I don't believe in nerves. I
+never did. There hain't no use in 'm."
+
+"It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then," sez I. "As a generel thing the
+Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever," sez I,
+"there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any
+way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one
+state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the
+sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to
+him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not
+have 'em rung in the mornin'."
+
+"Are you a professor?" sez he.
+
+"Yes," sez I.
+
+"What perswaision?" sez he.
+
+"Methodist Episcopal," sez I.
+
+"And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set
+aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the
+Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause
+of religion languish--I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread
+desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
+
+  "'The sound of the church-going bells,
+  These valleys and hills never heard.'"
+
+"No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances."
+
+"Why," sez I, "that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks
+seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and
+better time than they do to meetin'," sez I. "In your opinin' it hain't
+necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz,
+to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear."
+
+"Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+agrivatin' to saint and sinner."
+
+"But," sez I, "they say they do it for the sake of religion."
+
+"Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks," sez he bitterly.
+
+"No," sez I, "nor in a bell clapper."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+worshippers together, that is necessary."
+
+Sez I, "One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion."
+
+Sez he, "Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded
+out."
+
+"Yes," sez I candidly, "and in the sweet past they wuz necessary," sez
+I. "In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz
+fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what
+is runnin' over with clocks--everybody knows the time; they know it so
+much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals,
+their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their
+visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They
+time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
+through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
+time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
+hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
+no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
+supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
+bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
+started.
+
+"Take a man with the Sunday _World_ jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
+with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
+hain't a-goin' to start him.
+
+"And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
+and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
+won't start 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "BELLS HAIN'T A-GOIN' TO START HIM."]
+
+"And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
+church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
+trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
+bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
+bell on earth."
+
+"Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject," sez he (I had convinced
+him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
+wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). "But," sez he
+wavin' off that side of the subject, "the observance is so time honored,
+so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past."
+
+"Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven," sez I, "that I know every single
+emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony."
+
+"Agony!" sez he, "talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a
+more heavenly sound on earth."
+
+[Illustration: "A-LEANIN' OVER THE FRONT GATE ON A STILL SPRING
+MORNIN'."]
+
+"So it has been to me," sez I candidly. "To me they have always sounded
+beautiful, heavenly. Why," sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond
+Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and
+insperation come to me borne out of  the past into my very soul, by the
+tender memories of the bells--thoughts of the great host of believers
+who had gathered together at the sound of the bells--the great army of
+the Redeemed--
+
+  'Some of the host have crossed the flood, and some
+  are crossin' now,'
+
+thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+used to him,
+
+"Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a
+still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier
+roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine
+a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the
+hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over
+all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur
+off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells,
+a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin'
+memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears
+listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer
+beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet
+emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts,
+inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together
+at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the
+children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts
+of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their
+ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to
+their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave
+hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz
+ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed
+out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how
+the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
+(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
+
+"As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+have rung into my very soul.
+
+"But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+lead me round a good deal of the time.
+
+"Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
+step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
+sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
+the year, better than they can without sleep.
+
+"You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
+a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
+it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
+hain't so fortunate as I am.
+
+"I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
+also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
+get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
+I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
+gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
+than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
+in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
+on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
+subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
+of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.
+
+"What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
+from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep--the bells to them seem
+murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: "TOSSIN' ON BEDS OF NERVOUS SUFFERIN'."]
+
+"To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
+last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
+than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
+instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
+screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
+Religion.
+
+"I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
+sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
+we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
+have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
+So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
+the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
+can sleep in peace.
+
+"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
+benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
+can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
+can.
+
+"Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
+world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
+the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
+a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
+wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.
+
+"The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
+could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
+to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
+for 'em--the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
+It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.
+
+"Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+coarser, more sensual vision."
+
+Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
+spread the Gospel."
+
+"And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+could, "Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without
+the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he
+ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with
+his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "it wuz different times now."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+the sick, and tender hearted always."
+
+"Wall, _I_ will help him," sez Deacon Garven, "I will watch, and I will
+pray, and I will work for him."
+
+Sez I, "Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if
+he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?"
+
+"Wall," sez he kinder meltin' down a little, "I will talk with the
+bretheren."
+
+Sez I, "Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em."
+
+Sez he, "I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of
+the church."
+
+Sez I, "Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+and I believe it is safe to foller 'em."
+
+But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren,
+and I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out
+afterwuds, I wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon
+Garven in his own smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a
+guard over him, armed nearly to the teeth with clubs.
+
+But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.
+
+Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for
+a few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up
+in bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift
+up his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long
+sermons in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon
+right through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know
+it by the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little
+in that same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless,
+in our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--
+
+[Illustration: "THE LORD BE PRAISED, WE SHALL PULL HIM THROUGH."]
+
+"Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through."
+
+She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried
+and wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.
+
+Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks
+to the Lord for his mercy.
+
+As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a
+teaspoon ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if
+he needed it, or medicine.
+
+When all of a sudden--slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the
+bells.
+
+Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+died.
+
+And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it.
+He who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.
+
+[Illustration: "AND I THOUGHT HE WUZ PRONOUNCIN' A BENEDICTION ON THE
+SAVAGES."]
+
+His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them
+strange words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I
+thought then, and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction
+on the savages. And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from
+on High at that last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all
+benighted savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
+met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
+very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
+
+For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
+scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
+and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift _both_
+arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
+
+I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+homes on the run.
+
+But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
+our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
+in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
+
+[Illustration: "WE HAD TO WAIT FOR THE PASTE TO BILE."]
+
+Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
+paper--we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
+conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
+bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
+poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+[Illustration: "WE ALL SET AND LAID ON OUR PLANS, AND CUT THE EDGES
+OFFEN THE PAPER."]
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
+our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
+offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
+very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
+weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
+arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
+next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
+and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
+depend on, and what she had to do with.
+
+And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
+one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
+fair.
+
+And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+melancholy groan all to herself.
+
+[Illustration: "THE HANDLE COME OUT."]
+
+I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
+I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
+wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
+always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
+
+But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
+us, and the hull of mine wuz.
+
+Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
+sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.
+
+It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
+at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
+foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
+the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
+own livin'.
+
+Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
+very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
+
+[Illustration: "I WOULD MEANDER OUT THERE IN A ICY NIGHT TO FEED IT."]
+
+We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+there in a icy night to feed it.  But jest as it is always the way with
+wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
+on me, the better I liked it.
+
+Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
+
+So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
+
+That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
+
+And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
+about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
+
+He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
+other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it "horse corset" in a kind of
+a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
+with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
+
+[Illustration: "BEEN OUT TO TEND TO YOUR 'HORSE CORSET,' HAVE YOU?"]
+
+He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+feather piller and say to me:  "Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+have you?"
+
+"_Horse corset_! 'Wall, what if it wuz?"
+
+Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
+a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
+
+And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms--and
+he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took--etc., etc., etc.
+
+(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
+get up and get my feet so cold).
+
+But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
+
+And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
+got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
+stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
+increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.
+
+And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
+
+Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
+least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the
+wants and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female
+sisters wuz a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our
+ingregiencies with for the fair.
+
+He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There
+wuz four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the
+very least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and
+mebby both on 'em.
+
+But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.
+
+[Illustration: "HANDED ME A TEN CENT PIECE."]
+
+I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+least I said some words  to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of
+how I felt on the subject.
+
+Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't
+want a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+wuz.
+
+Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the
+subject--and spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my
+back to him, a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece
+of mind. And thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be
+repentent, and hand me out a ten dollar bill.
+
+But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:
+
+"Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit."
+
+I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+hand, and sez I:
+
+"What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?"
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, JOSIAH ALLEN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?"]
+
+"Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I
+dare persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions
+that there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked
+over, and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have
+been worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that."
+
+"How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?" sez I.
+
+"Why m-i-t-e, mit."
+
+"I should think," sez I, "that that spells mite."
+
+"Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite."
+
+And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute
+remark, bringin' the "mite" in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no,
+there wuzn't a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement,
+but solemn and bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the
+stove, solemn, and took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his
+shirt collar agin with solemnety and deep earnest. "No," Josiah Allen
+continued, "there hain't no sense in that--but mit! there you have
+sense. All wimmen wear mits; they love 'em. She most probable had a good
+pair, and lost one on 'em, and then give the other to the church. I tell
+you it takes men to translate the Bible, they have such a realizin'
+sense of the weaknesses of wimmen, and how necessary it is to translate
+it in such a way as to show up them weaknesses, and quell her down, and
+make her know her place, make her know that man is her superior in every
+way, and it is her duty as well as privilege to look up to him."
+
+And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty
+and over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up
+haughtily at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,
+
+"But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is
+jest my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be."
+
+"Yes," sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+wuz fairly hissin' hot. "She most probable had some man to advise her,
+and to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
+house." Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
+one I keep by me--and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
+necessity.
+
+"Most probable," sez Josiah, "most probable she did." He thought I wuz
+praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.
+
+"Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to
+mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
+up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me."
+
+But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:
+
+"If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
+livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you." And I would, if it wuz the
+last move I ever made.
+
+But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
+every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
+and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
+I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
+carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
+'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.
+
+And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their
+money, told jest how they come by it.
+
+Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
+mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
+cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
+exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
+has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.
+
+Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
+(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
+rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
+had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
+ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
+but she concluded to make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.
+
+And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who
+married a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents
+apiece, and Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the
+feathers offen her own back.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE HAD PICKED TEN GEESE AT TWO CENTS APIECE."]
+
+And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and
+warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift
+'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she
+picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.
+
+But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over
+to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice
+ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.
+
+Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four
+dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took
+it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and
+sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and
+besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'),
+she gin the hull to the meetin' house.
+
+There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in
+the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.
+
+And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+got in that way.
+
+But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.
+
+But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of
+it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her--she wuz the widder
+Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn
+what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to
+Sister Grimshaw, by right.
+
+Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:
+
+"Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+use, and for church work, and charity?"
+
+"Because he is so hard with her," sez Sister Lanfear, "and tears round
+so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should
+dress well--wants her to--and live well. But he don't want her to spend
+a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she
+should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin."
+
+"Wall," sez I, "what business is it to him what she does with her own
+money and her own property?"
+
+I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more
+openly.
+
+And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled
+three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day
+for contogglin'.
+
+She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a
+old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+would be willin', so it is spozed.
+
+Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz
+kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more
+of'em.
+
+But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.
+
+[Illustration: "SUBMIT TEWKSBURY DID BRING THAT PLATE."]
+
+And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+part with it, but she did bring _that plate_. That pink edged, chiny
+plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel
+Danker for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in
+front of it.
+
+Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full
+part towerds helpin' the meetin' house along--so she tore up her
+memorial, a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a
+burnt chiny offerin' to the Lord.
+
+Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+begun to affect us like that.
+
+To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand
+in that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she
+didn't, but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we
+all knew the feelin' she felt for the plate.
+
+It affected all on us fearfully.
+
+But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+merely sez, when she wuz thanked: "Oh, you are entirely welcome to it,
+and I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along."
+
+And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+more pitiful than tears would have been.
+
+Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.
+
+Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em,
+too. Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot
+down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever
+happened in Jonesville, or the world--although it is eppisodin' to tell
+on it now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you
+may say, my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I
+don't know but I may as well tell it now as any time.
+
+Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+the livin' truth.
+
+That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she
+heard a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears
+and opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the
+warm cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin
+Submit a look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look
+that had in it the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of
+faithfulness and heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.
+
+Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white,
+and she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,
+
+"Who be you?"
+
+And he sez,
+
+"I am Samuel Danker."
+
+And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin'
+chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.
+
+And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair
+cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and
+the feather oozed out.
+
+I don't tell this for truth, I only say that _they say_ thus and so.
+
+[Illustration: "I AM SAMUEL DANKER."]
+
+But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+that they wuz married that  very night of his return, that too can be
+swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit--superanuated,
+but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the
+ceremony.
+
+It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.
+
+But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I
+don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years
+younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy
+he looks, and how he has renewed his age.
+
+The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+wuz spozed to be envius.
+
+And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+over both religous and seckuler grounds.
+
+One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for
+him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the
+plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself.
+How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of
+extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets
+down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY DON'T COME!"] _They don't come!_
+
+But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and
+go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the
+frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to
+her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of
+company at that time of day.
+
+_They come!_
+
+Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin'
+tears on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all
+hope and happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is
+a-standin' right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with
+'em.
+
+Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her--Samuel
+Danker by name.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY COME."]
+
+Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that  I dropped in the
+Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.
+
+Wall, Submit brought the plate.
+
+Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.
+
+And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse
+takin' 'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala
+Crane, Joe Cranes'es widder.
+
+She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.
+
+She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us
+extremely worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it
+with such a cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz
+so thin and wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin',
+and all darned in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the
+money to get her a new dress.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER ARVILLY LANFRAR, CANVASSIN' FOR A BOOK."]
+
+But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I  wouldn't have been the one to
+tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.
+
+Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages--she is a
+millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+day's work wuz done.
+
+And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight
+cents by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: "The Wild,
+Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man."
+
+And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she
+had to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the
+time, a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She
+said she loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page
+to the back bindin'.
+
+As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had
+some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I
+wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to--sez I,
+"Arvilly, men are _jest_ as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+better."
+
+And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I
+gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+but'nuts.
+
+[Illustration: "OLD MISS BALCH."]
+
+Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+the worth on it.
+
+And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't
+no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a
+halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she
+calculated to make the old ones do.
+
+And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years
+old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all
+swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three
+pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have
+laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said
+a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she
+felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very
+strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
+
+She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she _had_ to have to get
+Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
+
+Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now
+he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't
+have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
+
+Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+emergincies or bunnets.
+
+She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out
+of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+Deacon's feet.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
+
+And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and
+gin it to the fair to sell.
+
+We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+needed it.
+
+But she would make us take it; she said "if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+she would say to her,
+
+"Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress
+and mourn fer me in a black calico."
+
+_That_ Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say
+to her if she wuz alive.
+
+And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything.
+She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps,
+and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
+
+  [Illustration: "I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD."]
+
+  "I love thy kingdom, Lord,
+  The house of thine abode,
+  The church our dear Redeemer bought
+  With His most precious blood."
+
+The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes,
+and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse--
+
+  "For her my tears shall fall,
+  For her my prayers ascend,
+  For her my toil and life be given,
+  Till life and toil shall end."
+
+The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how
+she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought
+of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
+
+Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars;
+the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten
+to the fair.
+
+It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived
+with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+meetin' house.
+
+Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do
+it.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+paperin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best
+qualified to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.
+
+And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet
+es it hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it
+hadn't been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly
+have shirked out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy
+constituent.
+
+Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on
+the ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up
+fur, fur beyond the strength of their sockets.
+
+[Illustration: "WE FELT NERVED UP TO DO OUR BEST."]
+
+But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen  also, and it wuzn't for
+me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out
+of hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin'
+House wuz at the Bay.
+
+No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped
+holt of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly
+Lanfear and Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur
+a-holdin' up Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our
+two barells, Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy
+for us to mount up on.
+
+Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the
+time but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more
+wearin' and awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it
+day and night for weeks and weeks, every one on us.
+
+The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair
+to loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility
+that laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.
+
+It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+hull life.
+
+Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+eyes--Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).
+
+Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled--smiles broke out on every
+face, about thirty smiles--a half a minute more and it would be done,
+and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate of
+our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.
+
+But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin'
+house that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had
+been standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned.
+But as I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in
+the land wuz there and present.
+
+They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.
+
+They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.
+
+They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen
+that had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't
+set, that they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.
+
+And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+Josiah to read it out to us.
+
+So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us.
+But he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great
+and triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.
+
+[Illustration: "THE METHODIST CONFERENCE HAD DECIDED THAT WIMMEN WUZ
+TOO WEAK TO SET."]
+
+And so he read it out to us, and as we see that  that
+breadth wuz spilte, we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.
+
+And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend
+with such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men
+in a bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair
+sex had been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they
+sez, some on 'em, "Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for,
+if it hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?"
+
+And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, "cooin' doves" and "sweet
+tender flowerets," as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in
+too big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction.
+They had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in
+Jonesville and up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.
+
+But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door
+as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the
+nation on the decesion, for, sez they,
+
+"Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the
+time."
+
+And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits--
+
+"If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on
+anything--a Conference or anything else."
+
+And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,
+
+"For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so."
+
+And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+house agin.
+
+[Illustration: The End]
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.
+
+
+In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in
+and preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
+of 1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers
+have deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered
+on the floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.
+
+The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+Conference are held quadrennially.
+
+Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women
+delegates were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral
+Conferences--namely, The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference,
+The Pittsburgh Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was
+made against the admission of these delegates on the ground that the
+admission of women delegates was not in accord with the constitutional
+provisions of the Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive
+Rules. A special Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in
+the General Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members,
+to whom the protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported
+adversely to the admission of the four women delegates, the report
+alleging "that under the Constitution and laws of the Church as they now
+are, women are not eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference."
+From the discussion following this report, and lasting several days, the
+following six addresses, three in favor of and three against the
+admission of the women delegates, are selected and presented, with a few
+verbal corrections, as published in the official journal of the
+Conference.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.
+
+I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body,
+ought to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the
+Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules
+is that these women elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this
+General Conference.
+
+Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet
+it was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they
+would be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and
+afterward demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not
+enrolled with the others were called, and the protests were read. Their
+names have been called as members of this body, and they are simply here
+as "challenged" members. From that standpoint this question must be
+discussed, and any disposition of this case under the circumstances must
+be in this direction. These women delegates must be put out of this
+General Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges
+of members here. It is not a question of "admitting" them. Before this
+report, before the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to
+vote and act, and millions of people will hold us responsible, and I
+dare say that our votes will be recorded as to whether they shall be
+"put out" or "stay in."
+
+Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists
+for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the
+membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was
+made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea
+in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the
+fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers
+and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical
+government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question
+to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of
+petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General
+Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question
+not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble
+man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England
+Conference, moved himself to strike out the word "male" from the report
+of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was
+stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the
+Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay
+delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of
+suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed
+the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be
+questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts
+abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the
+right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law.
+Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government--and it has
+often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United
+States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in
+the government of the Church--you will find that the right of suffrage
+in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the
+most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right
+to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and
+for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American
+citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and
+trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this
+way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member
+of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little
+later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and
+under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the
+right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the "plan"
+of lay delegation, but on the "principle" of lay delegation. That was
+decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop
+Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences. On the principle
+of lay delegation, the women of the Church were granted the right of
+suffrage; presently they appeared in the Quarterly Conference, to vote
+as class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents; and it
+created a little excitement, a feverish state of feeling in the Church,
+and the General Conference simply passed a resolution or a rule
+interpreting that action on the part of women claiming this privilege
+in the Quarterly Conference as being a "right," and it was continued.
+Presently, as the right of suffrage of women passed on and grew, they
+voted in the Electoral Conferences, and there was no outcry made against
+it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in the Church, or any presiding
+elder, or any minister challenging the right of women to vote in
+Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and yet for sixteen
+years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to send laymen here
+to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to elect Bishops
+and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to where votes
+count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen years, and
+only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that the
+General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+"constitution of the men," who challenge these women.
+
+Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should
+be protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was
+placed in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the
+National Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor
+of it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to
+the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
+South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.
+
+Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
+to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
+find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
+their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
+"stop!" "we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality"? No. They
+were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
+been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
+United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
+protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
+States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
+the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
+constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
+the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
+office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
+the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
+to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
+interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
+for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
+interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
+books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
+goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
+find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a
+woman practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back
+through the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and
+you will find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in
+the Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted
+in order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the
+judges of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the
+Constitution of the United States, said, "Women may be officers of the
+Supreme Court, and may practise law there." The same kind of a spirit,
+in interpreting the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the
+Discipline of the Church, will place these women delegates in this body
+where they have been sent. The same thing is true of the Supreme Court
+of Pennsylvania and in the Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out,
+as my judgment sees, and as my conscience tells me, since before the
+government of God man and woman are equally responsible. There is no way
+out of this dilemma for this General Conference, but to say that these
+women delegates shall sit in this body, where they have been sent, and
+where their names have been called.
+
+Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+this body.
+
+We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor
+of Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+ranks of her membership--(Time called.)
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.
+
+
+Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification
+of a passage of Scripture occurred to me, "The enemy cometh in like
+a flood, but I will lift up a standard against him." It is somewhat
+peculiar that he should begin by making a statement about one of the
+most honored names in American Methodism, a statement that has been
+published in the papers, and that nine tenths of this body knew as well
+as he did. It must have been intended as a part of his argument, and I
+regard it as of as much force as anything he said after it. But in
+point of fact the question does not turn upon the person, but upon the
+principle. I have received an anonymous letter containing the following
+among other things, "Beware how you attack the holy cause of woman. Do
+you not know that obstacles to progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the
+way?" The signature of that letter is ingenious. I cannot tell whether
+it was a man or a woman, for it reads as follows, "A Lover of your Soul
+and of Woman." Now, Mr. President, the only candlestick that ought to be
+removed out of its place is the candlestick that contains a candle that
+does not burn the pure oil of truth. And I believe, sir, that with the
+best of intentions the three speakers who have appeared have given us
+three chapters in different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my
+duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says,
+"An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding
+discerneth where he slippeth." I have no claim to eloquence; never
+pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist
+history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any
+fear of the results, either present or prospective.
+
+Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot
+command the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are
+in, and defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take
+in the full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has
+a certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here,
+they have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a
+contested case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who
+ought to vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing
+up documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read
+it _verbatim_. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read
+_verbatim_ from his letter:
+
+"No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question,
+and, therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact,
+a vote of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when
+the credentials appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no
+notorious and undisputed fact or circumstance against the qualifications
+and election of a senator, to admit him at once and settle the question
+of his right afterward. But there have been cases in which the Senate
+declined to admit a claimant holding a regular certificate upon the
+ground that enough was known to the Senate to justify its declining to
+receive him until an inquiry should be had. Very truly yours,
+
+"GEORGE F. EDMUNDS."
+
+Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows
+that they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard
+to them at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional
+challenge. I champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion
+their cause against their being introduced into this body without their
+own sex having had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon
+the subject. I stand here to protect them against being connected with
+movements without law or contrary to law, and those who wish to bring
+them in and those who say it is the constitution of the man and
+prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said prejudice), they are persons,
+indeed, to stand up here as, _par excellence_ the champions of women!
+Is it the constitution of the men? Have you read the letter of
+Mrs. Caroline Wright in the _Christian Advocate_, one of our most
+distinguished American Methodist women? She does not wish to see them
+here. It is the constitution of the woman in that case, and I am opposed
+to their being admitted until the general sentiment of the women and the
+men of our Church have an opportunity of being heard upon it.
+
+Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but
+my opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the
+Methodist Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is
+to-day, not on account of the admission of these women, two of whom I
+believe to be as competent to sit in judgment on this question as any
+man on this floor. That is not the question, as I propose to show. I
+assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
+Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
+Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
+upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
+has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
+thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
+delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
+intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
+we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
+cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
+not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
+capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
+goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "layman." There
+is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
+the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
+Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
+history of the Church. Who is the "General Superintendent" by Webster or
+Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
+the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
+Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
+seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
+not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
+the word "layman" ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
+clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
+world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
+for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
+from the _clergy_men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
+laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A
+woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
+the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit
+he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham
+Lincoln said, "All these things are done and suffered, that government
+of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish
+from the earth." Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women, and
+children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this.
+When he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, "The
+intent of the lawmaker is the law."
+
+I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived
+to think of awhile--John Selden: "The only honest meaning of any word is
+the intent of the man that wrote it." At the time that the plan of lay
+delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church
+on this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and
+the laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body.
+Some one will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the
+Church, the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between
+the ministry and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever
+one Church in the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make
+its laws. There is not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name
+one that has allowed women in its law-making body; and yet such is the
+blinding power of gush that men will say that our fathers all understood
+it and proposed to put women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to
+allow them to put us in. As soon as the General Conference adjourned the
+women made an appeal in a public statement. They were asked to vote for
+lay delegation, and were told that then they could set the Church right.
+The opponents appealed to them to vote against it on the ground that it
+would not make any difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr.
+Hodgson (Professor Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote
+a series of articles in the _Advocate_, and it never occurred to them
+that the women could come into the General Conference. Lay delegation
+was only admitted by 33 votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they
+would not have come in. Every member of the New York East Conference
+knows that Dr. Curry's influence was so powerful that he could almost
+get a majority against it. And they know if any one had set up an
+opposition to it on this ground, the whole Conference would have voted
+against the movement, and that if it had not been for Bishop Ames and
+Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming Conference where the majority was
+opposed to lay delegation, and by their influence there converted my
+friend Olin and others, he knows that if this matter of the women had
+been in or understood, the whole Conference would have been against it.
+It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that it is prejudice.
+Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000 Methodist ministers
+that are ciphers all the time except when they vote for delegates? Are
+you going to presume that when the Church has a multitude of members,
+that it is going to sit here and change, by an interpretation, a
+Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never understood to
+be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial delegates. Every
+time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject has never come
+up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive Rules mean
+anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the fathers did
+not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can read those
+Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the Restrictive
+Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if you do
+it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do
+is to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then
+put any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this
+you call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress,
+and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
+a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
+believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
+said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
+that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction--they must be
+interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
+despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
+the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
+house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
+Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.
+
+If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, "I think it
+best to send the question around." True progress is not gained in any
+other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, "He that cometh
+in by the door," the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.
+
+
+Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous
+letters. And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with
+which to introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under
+any fear of being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future
+prospects blasted. It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this
+morning upon this subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive
+to either suppress or exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr.
+Buckley, threatening to remove him as an obstruction, must be highly
+gratified to know that that obstruction has already been removed.
+Brother Hughey removed the obstruction, extinguished the candle, and
+destroyed the candlestick.
+
+We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will
+be heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It
+remains for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here
+and there, or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a
+new point of view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be
+helpful to some that has already been presented in part touching the
+administration of our law and the interpretation of terms that is
+worthy, I think, of still further consideration.
+
+Dr. Buckley said in the New York _Christian Advocate_ of March 15th,
+1888:
+
+"The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of
+the Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five
+years of age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If
+women are found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the
+same plane with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five
+years, etc."
+
+Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law
+by a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+would say) the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopal Address, which
+declares that no definition of "layman" settles the question of
+eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as
+laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it
+officially as laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well,
+in this case, we have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both
+are right and both are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a
+woman, if she be a lay member her right is clear as that of any duly
+elected man. But he is wrong when he denies to her a right to a seat in
+this body as a layman. The Episcopal Address is wrong when it says
+that "no definition of the word 'layman' settles the question of
+eligibility." But it is right when it says, "Many are classed as laymen
+for purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+lay members who are not themselves eligible as delegates."
+
+In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and
+if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
+over the "Million dollars for Missions." They pray and testify in our
+class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
+us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
+amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
+are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
+they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
+laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
+two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
+one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
+General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
+marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
+this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
+step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
+question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
+over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
+if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
+this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
+and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
+misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
+out the word "male" was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
+"rider" on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
+known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
+it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
+amendment would let women into the General Conference.
+
+Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the "women coming
+in" being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
+lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment
+and the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow
+women to come in also.
+
+L. C. Queal said:
+
+I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.
+
+Bishop Foss:
+
+Are you misrepresented?
+
+L. C. Queal:
+
+I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman
+put that on as a "rider," with a view to defeating the bill, that
+immediately after thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of
+securing the approval of the principle in the laity of the Church. That
+is all I stated. All the rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own
+inference--a misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:
+
+I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to
+the speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the
+privilege of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in
+reference to this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the
+idea of the possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds
+that were both in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.
+
+Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of
+1868, laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this
+body. That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by
+the laity of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity
+here, why allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And,
+having allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the
+very foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow
+them a place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened
+the way for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not
+remember that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that
+the lay delegation scheme was defeated, and the _Methodist_, that was
+published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+that "votes ought to be weighed, not counted"? And then the question was
+sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of
+construing pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences
+previously to that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard
+to their legality there. The General Conference by its action did not
+propose to admit women to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed
+to clear away the mist and recognize their legal right to sit in the
+Quarterly Conference. Being in the Quarterly Conference, and in the
+District Conference, they have the right to vote on every question that
+comes before such bodies. They vote to license ministers, to recommend
+ministers to Annual Conferences, to recommend local preachers for
+deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on sending delegates to our Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates to Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates from Lay
+Electoral Conferences to this General Conference. And there are men
+on this floor to-day that would not be in this at all if they had
+not received the support of women in Lay Electoral Conferences. Now,
+brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the women to send
+delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never challenged until
+they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to elect laymen
+to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen in this
+body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes of the
+women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some of
+the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to
+vote there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would
+be consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+"foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection."
+And I am not in favor of going back.
+
+If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed
+for altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General
+Conference has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary.
+Every paragraph of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning
+with �63, and closing with �69, was put into that Constitution without
+any voice from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single
+one of them was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; �20, �183, stood
+for many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred
+bodily from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position
+it now occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was
+not submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely
+stated when he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote
+ordered in 1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the
+laity into the General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the
+laity and by the Annual Conferences, but the "plan" was not submitted
+to either to be voted upon, and the "plan" for lay delegation by which
+these lay brethren occupy their seats here this morning was made in
+every jot and tittle by the General Conference without any reference to
+the Annual Conferences at all.
+
+I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once
+a legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law;
+in the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.
+
+It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme
+court to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General
+Conference, we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing
+the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions
+on the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision
+of the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so
+we construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we
+touch the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the
+Annual Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.
+
+What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to
+limit the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for
+illustration, we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our
+Legislature to license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a
+license under the guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license
+law in form. The Constitution prevents it. There are States that have
+Constitutions that have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all,
+while they may either tax, license, or prohibit.
+
+This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a
+limitation of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation
+there is no restriction.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.
+
+
+Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question
+of law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as
+those who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I
+understand it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by
+those who are advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not
+a matter of sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place
+for knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.
+
+There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of
+the Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+circumstances, oppose their coming in.
+
+It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.
+
+Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I
+do not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the
+history of lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the
+most remote intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the
+General Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the
+field now toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last
+ten or fifteen years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism
+that would be fatal to all just interpretation of law.
+
+I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in
+1868. And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I
+know, the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in
+to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
+that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
+have embraced this design--the design of bringing women into the General
+Conference. I leave that.
+
+Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
+of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
+the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
+General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
+argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
+Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
+introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
+according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
+General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
+endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
+prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
+been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
+interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
+The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
+placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
+accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
+that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
+_personnel_ of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
+Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
+consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
+that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
+is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
+law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
+peril ahead of us.
+
+A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an
+organic body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its
+own security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the
+law that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.
+
+Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said,
+it has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences
+must be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of
+1872. I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One
+is, that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it
+is also a judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as
+a legislative body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872
+interpreted law, and the General Conference may reverse itself with
+just as much propriety as a court can reverse itself. And if it be
+the judgment of this General Conference that that interpretation was
+incorrect, it is perfectly competent for this Conference to say so, and
+have its action correspond with its own decision.
+
+There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference
+of 1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that
+local preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the
+principle of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is
+decided in general terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision
+must be limited to the particular case itself. And if a court in its
+decision embraces more than was involved in the particular case, it has
+no force whatever. And as this was a particular case submitted to
+the General Conference, and the decision was in general terms, it
+comprehends simply the case that was before it, and cannot be advanced
+to comprehend more. And the reason of this is very obvious; for if it
+was not the case, then cases might be brought before the court for its
+decision that had never occurred.
+
+There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women
+to certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when
+it says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to
+sell in quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880
+decided that women should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as
+superintendents of Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by
+that very affirmative conclusion, the subject was passed upon about
+their taking any other position. That, I think, must be regarded as
+sound, and a just interpretation of the law.
+
+But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands,
+that the pronoun "he," wherever employed, shall not be considered
+as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school
+Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward.
+
+Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing
+the _personnel_ of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a
+suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as
+soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and
+so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and
+I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard
+with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The
+only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the
+relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference,
+and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect,
+honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same
+way that their husbands and brothers are here.
+
+There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of
+those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful?
+You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and
+pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect
+their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus
+lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this
+suggestion, but it is an _in posse_, and it may easily be made an _in
+esse_. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they
+have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make
+them more perfect.
+
+No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement
+or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the
+Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe
+course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious,
+and conservative--I mean every word--and conservative course we have
+heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what
+Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is
+because of her firm adherence to law.
+
+It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon
+race--everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we
+pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.
+
+
+Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene,
+this great debate now in the third day of its progress must be
+suggestive of some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have
+made the hearts of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place
+of meeting in the past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear
+as to the outcome of the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The
+visitors to this General Conference, seated in their boxes and in the
+family circle, Will say surely these honored men of God who have been
+called as Superintendents of the affairs of our great conquering Church,
+these chosen ministers of reconciliation and peace, these _male_
+laymen called by their brethren to their high places in this General
+Conference, whose names at home are the synonym of chivalrous
+goodness--surely all these of rank and talent and authority, whose able
+and eloquent words have been ringing through the arches and dome of this
+temple of music on the wrong side of the question, are but simply acting
+the parts assigned them. In the final scene they will join hands around
+the eligible women elect, who, in obedience to the call of the laity in
+their several Conferences, are in their seats with us, and say, "Whom
+God hath joined, let not _male_ put asunder." My brothers, let us
+briefly restate the case. Five noble women of the laymen of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as delegates to this General
+Conference under the Constitution and by the forms prescribed by the
+laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to enter, the portals of
+this great assemblage they hear a voice from the platform, in words not
+to be misunderstood, "Thou shalt not," and voices from all parts of the
+house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement the voices of the
+Bishops, "Thou shalt not." And one would think, from the vehement
+oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference, that the
+foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence of
+these "elect ladies" among us.
+
+Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and
+in all its battles fought until the day of victory.
+
+In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question
+of lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it
+carried, there would have been plausibility in the argument this
+day made against the eligibility of women to seats in this General
+Conference. The evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to
+a higher appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her
+rights and privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the
+bounds of the Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent
+man, that grand old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this
+question, said:
+
+"If it is _rights_ they talk of, every competent member of the Church of
+Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained."
+
+And in answer to the expected fling, "But you are a woman's rights man,"
+he replied:
+
+"We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the
+question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living
+God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When
+that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal
+righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the
+ground!"
+
+The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the
+Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as
+belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in
+the government of the Church, and having rights under that government.
+During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for
+submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman
+moved to strike out the word "male." While that motion was under
+consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, "If it were the last
+moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter,
+I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, _wherever church
+privileges are concerned_."
+
+Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the
+question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the
+Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask
+women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church
+should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then
+enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived
+of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few
+noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, "No, no," but
+they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the
+right thinking, orderly delegates.
+
+What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+out the word "male," now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:
+
+"Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed
+in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that
+women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The
+Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take
+these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried
+with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter
+interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences
+laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the
+moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it,
+but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go
+back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?"
+
+It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore
+the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could
+the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+General Conference when it said, "The General Conference holds that
+in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who
+are not members of the Annual Conferences"? This decision must include
+women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means
+the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears
+from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle
+in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the
+membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would
+have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted
+women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, "The
+General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election
+of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the
+members of the Annual Conferences, _and who are not women_." We would
+have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an
+utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its
+membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and
+the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and
+interchangeably. See Bingham's "Antiquities," Blackstone's
+"Commentaries," Schaffs "History," and kindred authorities. It is sheer
+trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between lay_men_
+and lay_women_.
+
+Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before
+the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so
+appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the
+pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the
+voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from
+the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this
+debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.
+
+It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+there be a _specific enactment discriminating against the elector_. Our
+law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five
+years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a
+delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.
+
+Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited.
+We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the
+just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from
+membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual
+Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to
+send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their
+action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will
+say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our
+Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot
+be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very
+front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the
+spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the
+banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and
+righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon
+tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's
+Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now
+waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not
+cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse
+of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church
+of the Redeemer.
+
+Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among
+the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous
+productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in
+that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries
+old. In it you may read as follows: "Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has
+a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a
+Saviour for which I gave a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could
+do so much." Three and a half centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her
+master-piece in the chief places of the galleries of the world, and
+Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many of the best marbles that adorn
+the parlors of Europe and America, and no one wonders that a woman can
+do so much. From that day when Martin Luther, the protesting monk, and
+Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at the altar and the
+twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her faith in her sex
+and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the organized
+selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or privilege
+to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery and
+barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do
+ought that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from
+our advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us
+rather strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and
+privilege of every member of our Church, without distinction of race,
+color, or sex. Amen and Amen.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.
+
+
+Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have
+now, a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work.
+No man on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them
+by all lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every
+privilege enjoyed by men.
+
+But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.
+
+That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of
+the Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in
+this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by
+Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their
+right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this
+body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.
+
+It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After
+the most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+body.
+
+Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when
+the General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the
+entire membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was
+not the intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a
+large number of men of business experience, who could render service
+by their knowledge and experience touching the temporal affairs of the
+Church. When the principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon
+by the laity, this idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual
+Conferences voted for the principle and the plan, this and this only was
+their intent.
+
+When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea,
+and none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit
+women, but to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+Constitution.
+
+Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by
+allowing sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.
+
+Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.
+
+In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+Board of Bishops, he says:
+
+
+"For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear
+that any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The
+Electoral Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action,
+being guided, as we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the
+General Conference of 1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen," in
+answer to a question touching the classification and rights of ordained
+local and located ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution
+is carried beyond its original design when applied to a subject not
+before the body when it was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the
+language itself. This also should be understood, that no definition of
+the word 'laymen' settles the question of eligibility as to any class
+of persons, for many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay
+representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, who are
+themselves not eligible as delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly
+ineligible, who are not old enough to be delegates, or have not been
+members long enough, may be stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local
+preachers and exhorters, and, as such, be members of the Quarterly
+Conference, and vote for delegates to the Electoral Conference without
+themselves being eligible.
+
+"The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by
+a resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here
+by constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the
+power of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the
+formal amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in
+their enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their
+power to work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval
+of the high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments
+of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved
+in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the
+assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they
+were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of
+law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible,
+by special enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+Sunday-school superintendent, and naturally the question arises as
+to whether the necessity for special legislation, in order to their
+eligibility to those specified offices, does not indicate similar
+necessity for special provision in order to their eligibility as
+delegates, and if so it is further to be considered that the offices of
+steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school superintendent may be created
+and filled by simple enactments of the General Conference itself; but to
+enter the General Conference, and form part of the law-making body
+of the Church, requires special provision in the Constitution, and,
+therefore, such provision as the General Conference alone cannot make."
+
+
+Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from
+whom I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on "Constitutional
+Limitations," says:
+
+
+"A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another
+at some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as
+perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal
+share of the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be
+lost, if the rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to
+circumstances, or be modified by public opinion.
+
+"The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+different at any subsequent time."
+
+
+This same great author says:
+
+"Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting
+it. In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is
+to be enforced.
+
+"But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in
+many particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great
+charters of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights
+of the subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people
+must be supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot
+understand these unless we understand their history.
+
+"It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the
+common law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.
+
+"It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+law shall be construed strictly."
+
+Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear
+as the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine
+that the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when
+it is adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject
+anything into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when
+adopted. And you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to
+give it the construction which was intended when adopted. No man of
+common honesty and common sense dares to assert on this floor that it
+was the intent when the Constitution was amended to admit women as lay
+delegates. It follows inevitably that they are not constitutionally
+eligible, and to admit them is to violate the Constitution of the
+Church, which, as a Court, we are in honor bound not to do.
+
+It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person
+for office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited
+by positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been.
+We have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended,
+the intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference
+can, by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules. Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action
+in 1880, had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as
+stewards and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay
+delegate in the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay
+delegates to this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules, according to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is
+fundamental law that where general disabilities exist, not simply by
+statute, but by common law, the removal of lesser disabilities does not
+carry with it the removal of the greater ones.
+
+Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I
+defy any lawyer to show the contrary.
+
+�3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:
+
+"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty
+years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall
+not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be
+chosen."
+
+
+These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the
+Constitution of the United States touching the qualification of
+Senators. Is there a layman on this floor who will dare assert that
+under the Constitution of the United States women are eligible as
+Representatives or Senators? Words of common gender are exclusively
+used as applied to the qualification of Senators. The words persons and
+citizens include women the same as they include men. Nevertheless, in
+the light of the past, I am bold to assert, that any man who would dare
+stand in the Senate of the United States, and contend that women are
+eligible to the office of United States Senators, would be regarded by
+the civilized world as a person of gush and void of judgment.
+
+Article 14, United States Constitution, �1:
+
+
+"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+_privileges_ or _immunities_ of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law, _nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws_."
+
+
+(Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor _vs_. Judges of Election.
+53 Mo. 68.)
+
+The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+rights includes corporations.
+
+The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.
+
+The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United
+States. Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did
+not entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri
+held the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able
+opinion written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively
+demonstrated that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon
+woman the right to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right
+had not obtained in favor of woman, and these words of common gender
+should not be so construed as to confer this right, since it was not
+intended when made to affect their status in this regard.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
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diff --git a/9450-8.zip b/9450-8.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, COMPLETE
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 20%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 25%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <h1>
+      SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN
+    </h1>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+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, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9450]
+Last Updated: February 28, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="002.jpg (24K)" src="images/002.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="001.jpg (118K)" src="images/001.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      SAMANTHA<br /> <br /> AMONG THE BRETHREN.
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      BY
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      (MARIETTA HOLLEY).
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      <i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</i>
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      .<br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      1890
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      TO
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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>
+      &ldquo;What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, &ldquo;The Cause of Eternal
+      Justice, Josiah Allen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anythin' else?&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I lay out in petickuler to tackle the Meetin' House. She is
+      in the wrong on't, and I want to set her right.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she&mdash;it is a he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez I, &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he sez, &ldquo;Because it stands to reason it is. And I'd like to know what
+      you have got to say about him any way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;That 'him' don't sound right, Josiah Allen. It sounds more right
+      and nateral to call it 'she.' Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;waitin',
+      watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+      His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen
+      men and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby
+      good in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+      crucefixion&mdash;lookin' for its reserection. Oh how she has worked all
+      through the ages!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh shaw!&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
+      work and back combs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
+      reasonable:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+      the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;Catholic or Protestant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
+      Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, hain't <i>he</i>?&rdquo; sez Josiah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, <i>she</i> hain't,&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has <i>he</i> done lately
+      to rile you up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;<i>She</i> wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
+      Conference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, I say <i>he</i> wuz right,&rdquo; sez Josiah. &ldquo;<i>He</i> knew, and I
+      knew, that wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, &ldquo;don't
+      be too severe with the Meetin' House.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head in
+      and sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be too hard on <i>him</i>&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CONTENTS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a href="#c1">CHAPTER I.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><br />
+      <a href="#c2">CHAPTER II.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c3">CHAPTER III.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c4">CHAPTER IV.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c5">CHAPTER V.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c6">CHAPTER VI.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c7">CHAPTER VII.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c8">CHAPTER VIII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><br /> <a
+      href="#c9">CHAPTER IX.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c10">CHAPTER X.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c11">CHAPTER XI.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c12">CHAPTER XII.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c13">CHAPTER XIII.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c14">CHAPTER XIV.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c15">CHAPTER XV.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><br /> <a
+      href="#c16">CHAPTER XVI.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c17">CHAPTER XVII.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c19">CHAPTER XIX.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c20">CHAPTER XX.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c21">CHAPTER XXI.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c22">CHAPTER XXII.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c25">CHAPTER XXV.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a><br /><br /> <a href="#c27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#c28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <i><a
+      href="#appendix">Publishers' Appendix</a></i> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a
+      name="c1" id="c1"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="003c1.jpg (74K)" src="images/003c1.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+      Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+      Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+      hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+      every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined our
+      meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em&mdash;we spoze
+      because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons from
+      'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and our own three
+      Jonesvillians&mdash;Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own particular
+      Deacon, Josiah Allen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+      a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative answer;
+      but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon Henzy and
+      Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+      Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and other
+      more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+      apiece for the five deacons&mdash;each one of 'em to overlook their own
+      particular buzz saw&mdash;but the money comin' from all on 'em to be
+      divided up equal among the five deacons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="004.jpg (122K)" src="images/004.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+      against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+      a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+      make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin' that
+      would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on the
+      subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz not a
+      spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world, and
+      ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+      salvation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+      apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+      deacons ought to cultivate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured to
+      promulgate 'em. They all said, &ldquo;The better the man, the better the deed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They said, &ldquo;The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+      likely to run.&rdquo; The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and wuz
+      very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="005.jpg (68K)" src="images/005.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it&mdash;&ldquo;If bein' set
+      apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+      that they ought to be expected to do&mdash;and if it wuz right for 'em to
+      go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+      enterprise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, &ldquo;The better the man,
+      the better the deed. We need buzz saws.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+      high-headed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+      Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+      havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+      brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful prey.
+      I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good of his
+      own soul, and my piece of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez to him in solemn axents:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on your
+      buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah sez, &ldquo;Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when he
+      has got a chance.&rdquo; And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if I
+      had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+      religious duties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+      said, &ldquo;he didn't dumb 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What wuz you dumbin'?&rdquo; sez I, coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wuz dumbin' the idee,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;that a man can't make money when he has
+      a chance to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+      a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+      meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+      all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your farms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance of
+      havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the interests
+      of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions, prayer
+      meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good works
+      generally?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+      most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dumb good works!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="006.jpg (97K)" src="images/006.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+      ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+      axents, and sez, &ldquo;What will become of all this gospel work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+      can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+      so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+      collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in a
+      tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+      will 'tend to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+      question&mdash;and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+      have put the question to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to go
+      ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for there
+      wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house, and they
+      wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and bimeby).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get mad
+      and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male brothers,
+      but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house, and lame.
+      They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as theirs wuz,
+      inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+      wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break this
+      enterprise of theirs up&mdash;and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+      Henzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+      buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on,&rdquo; so she often sez, &ldquo;if
+      Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some sez he duz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+      efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn. And
+      when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher begin to
+      feel bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told me,
+      that &ldquo;what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of the
+      deacon's society.&rdquo; It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that she wuz
+      afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and Albina
+      wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she had
+      often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and dinner to
+      see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on his face
+      till dinner time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+      left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+      four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed because
+      she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is a dretful admirin' woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men&mdash;always calls
+      her husband &ldquo;the Deacon,&rdquo; as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+      perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that when
+      she dreams about him she dreams of him as &ldquo;the Deacon,&rdquo; and not as Samuel
+      (his given name is Samuel).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="007.jpg (120K)" src="images/007.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+      dreams is a place where you can't slip on your sun-bonnet and foller
+      neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+      from hour to hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look into
+      that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as I said, this had been spozen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+      napkins, and piller-cases, and such, &ldquo;M. D. S.&rdquo; And I asked her one day
+      what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+      Drusillia Sypher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+      &ldquo;Miss Deacon Sypher.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+      pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen hain't
+      hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under the
+      circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a good-hearted
+      little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+      into the buzz saw-mill business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up every
+      time he came in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+      every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+      her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb&mdash;he had
+      jest smashed it in the barn door&mdash;and she stood a-smilin' at him on
+      the door step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a &ldquo;infernal
+      fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+      low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense, and
+      she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story books.
+      And he sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand there like a&mdash;&mdash;fool, will you! Get me a <i>rag!</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I guess he did say as much as that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time&mdash;couldn't seem to
+      stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="008.jpg (61K)" src="images/008.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she smiled
+      at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the effect wuz
+      fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he was mad
+      again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they get along
+      first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general, and he makes
+      a good deal of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+      difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know this,
+      anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+      Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+      together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard the
+      news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+      Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the foreign
+      deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article that wuz
+      wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler&mdash;a witherin' article
+      about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of fun of the
+      projeck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+      capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+      His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it fell
+      onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery store
+      in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+      workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+      bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper. He
+      wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly worshipped
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+      father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together&mdash;she loved to
+      work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+      very congenial&mdash;and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+      that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+      in the shop.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a doubt
+      of that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be educated
+      high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was born,
+      almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish in this
+      piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables. Why, I hadn't
+      no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz any such words in
+      the English language, and words of from four to six syllables wuz common
+      in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+      thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+      he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought to
+      be disseminated abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idees wuz, &ldquo;that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+      She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too ventur'
+      on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room up there
+      for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the sacred
+      precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed guardin'
+      and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care from havin'
+      any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and howsumever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It painted
+      in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would strain
+      themselves to do anything at all in the line of work&mdash;or would weaken
+      her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin herself by
+      tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and tottlin' eminence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+      letters over each one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>first</i> wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Secondly</i>, NONE WHERESOEVER;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Thirdly</i>, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, <i>what</i>
+      cares and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+      proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+      wimmen to do&mdash;not a single thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he proceeded to tell <i>where</i> men wuz willin' to keep their
+      labors and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz
+      every <i>where</i>. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home
+      of the farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the
+      buzz sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and
+      every <i>where</i> men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and
+      every labor, even the lightest and slightest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then lastly came the <i>howsumever</i>. He proceeded to show <i>how</i>
+      this could be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that
+      the first great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in
+      her place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+      eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that Josiah
+      wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors, the danger
+      there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself in such a high
+      and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous posture as settin' up
+      on a Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="009.jpg (113K)" src="images/009.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To have her set up on it,&rdquo; sez the writer, in conclusion, &ldquo;would endanger
+      her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It would shake
+      the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall. It would
+      hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm.&rdquo; Why, Josiah Allen handled that paper
+      as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously as he handed it to me
+      to read, &ldquo;if my hands wuz perfectly clean,&rdquo; and we had some words about
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+      Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see&mdash;Second
+      Galatians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+      Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+      price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+      bed rid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+      idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+      very first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the next
+      and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from it. It
+      seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this idee
+      flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil so
+      white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+      and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of this, more anon and bimeby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c2" id="c2"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="010c2.jpg (98K)" src="images/010c2.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, it wuz on the very next day&mdash;on a Thursday as I remember well,
+      for I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day&mdash;Fridays
+      bein' considered onlucky&mdash;and it being a day for punishments,
+      hangin's, and so forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+      Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the old
+      mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+      granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper on
+      the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+      But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set there
+      for some time alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the first
+      thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven&mdash;they wuz all ready, I had
+      scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the oven&mdash;and
+      then I set down and read my letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+      his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+      that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+      delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I sithed
+      deep. I love company dearly, but&mdash;oh my soul, is there not a
+      difference, a difference in visitors?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+      thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+      wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful
+      Repose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+      brung me startlin' intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+      been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, &ldquo;Wall, she has wrote
+      dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+      repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+      see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I see
+      it wuz writ on duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+      She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down, and
+      insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken in
+      upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong on't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+      that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+      buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil, any
+      danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she was
+      mistook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one for
+      wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She said
+      that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she had
+      found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her own
+      married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy man,
+      and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved round
+      considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had two pairs
+      of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her mother's side,
+      so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she couldn't always be
+      on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this broke in on her
+      serenity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+      bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of affection
+      and confidence, yet doors <i>had</i> been slammed and oaths emitted, when
+      clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange actions and
+      demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and impatience,
+      which had skaired her almost to death before gettin' accustomed to 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="011.jpg (114K)" src="images/011.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+      cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times, they
+      kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work&mdash;lots of work. And
+      one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say. The
+      snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>He</i> snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+      it, but she found out too late&mdash;too late, that he snored. The house
+      wuz small; she could <i>not</i> escape from snores, turn she where she
+      would. She got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her
+      husband, as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a
+      cattle-yard near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the
+      bellerin' of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating
+      and the lambs callin' on their dams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+      saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+      been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+      hadn't. And she ended by sayin', &ldquo;God bless me and adoo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song of
+      welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The snowy
+      table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and I set
+      there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the events
+      of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as yesterday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+      Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that there
+      wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at the
+      Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+      moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while Josiah
+      hitched the mair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+      rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the lecture
+      wuz, &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="012.jpg (45K)" src="images/012.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+      extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz all
+      carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the rehearsin'
+      of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it, first rate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+      time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of the
+      heads of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+      eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+      bare heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+      speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of the
+      subject, &ldquo;Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had even read these dreadful words&mdash;&ldquo;Marriage is a Failure.&rdquo; She
+      hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+      against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+      privilege, to speak in its praise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For no
+      living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she whose
+      name vuz once Smith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I <i>love</i> Josiah Allen, I am <i>glad</i> that I married him. But at
+      the same time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on
+      every side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I
+      love Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+      every word she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she went on perfectly beautiful&mdash;I didn't wonder it brought the
+      school-house down&mdash;about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage,
+      and how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+      rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+      like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+      onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+      Repose&mdash;melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+      peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+      how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+      souls bathed in blissful repose!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="013.jpg (125K)" src="images/013.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry eye
+      in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin' vent
+      to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest slipped my
+      pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind. (His
+      handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.) And I
+      knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new vest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+      remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+      by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+      me calmer wuz, I <i>knew</i>, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+      went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+      comparin' married life and single&mdash;jest as likely metafors as I ever
+      see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+      of 'em had this fault&mdash;when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em
+      too fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="014.jpg (47K)" src="images/014.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+      the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along over a
+      thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+      forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold foot
+      and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye lookin' out
+      for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for a possible
+      mate, for the comin' gander&mdash;restless, wobblin', oneasy, miserable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+      up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+      aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+      wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm, bathed
+      in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never broken by
+      rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+      states to&mdash;flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+      melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one of
+      'em brought the school-house down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin' together
+      on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and forth under
+      the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety hill-side.
+      To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony, perfect, divine
+      harmony, with no discordant notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+      wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+      searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+      so&mdash;why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+      beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+      mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't deny
+      it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the lonely
+      goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though its path
+      might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it stepped upon
+      velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy wedded swans
+      floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet occasionally they
+      had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms, sudden squalls, and et
+      cetery, et cetery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+      that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it&mdash;the very
+      sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+      discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+      major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+      shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and me.
+      But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz over,
+      to be introduced to her and talk it over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+      told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I spoze
+      she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the day. For
+      though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I have heard of
+      such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and as far as
+      Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get hold of my
+      opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed her
+      on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+      confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I meant
+      it. When I like a person, I <i>do</i> like 'em, and visy-versey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+      overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, &ldquo;How I
+      liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?&rdquo; I leaned up
+      against Duty, and told her, &ldquo;I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+      with every word of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+      if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, &ldquo;It wuz very full of
+      beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+      June, but,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+      say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+      see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+      that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mean enough?&rdquo; sez she. &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+      megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="015.jpg (113K)" src="images/015.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said with a modest look &ldquo;that she guessed she didn't, she guessed she
+      didn't go too far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, &ldquo;I know she
+      didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when it
+      is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+      hain't <i>all</i> happiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; sez Josiah (cross and surly), &ldquo;it is, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I wuz mistaken, &ldquo;she
+      thought it wuz.&rdquo; And Josiah jined right in with her and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He <i>knew</i> it wuz, and he would take his oath to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I went right on, and, sez I, &ldquo;Mebby it is in one sense the most
+      peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+      'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+      But,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;marriage hain't <i>all</i> peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez Josiah: &ldquo;It is, and I'll swear to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, &ldquo;The sunshine of true love gilds
+      the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+      hain't all radiance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is,&rdquo; sez Josiah, firmly, &ldquo;it is, every mite of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, &ldquo;Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+      right; I think it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', &ldquo;when you are married
+      you will change your opinion, you mark my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she said, gently, but persistently, &ldquo;That she guessed she shouldn't;
+      she guessed she was in the right of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all earthly
+      trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she sez, gently, &ldquo;Yes, mem!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+      and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called a
+      state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+      changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+      and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+      nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care of
+      wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid, a
+      literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+      dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+      doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+      but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+      haint if you are ever married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miss Fogg said, mildly, &ldquo;that she thought I wuz mistaken&mdash;she
+      thought it wuz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do?&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, mem,&rdquo; sez she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got up, and sez I, &ldquo;Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'.&rdquo; I
+      thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+      started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+      seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+      give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+      and have me criticise it. Sez she:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez she, &ldquo;I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+      each other.&rdquo; And I told her &ldquo;that our love for each other wuz like two
+      rocks that couldn't be moved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she said, &ldquo;On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my advice
+      and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where there
+      wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she was
+      born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed that
+      I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told her calmly &ldquo;that I presumed I could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+      midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to drop
+      the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and come down
+      into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped and
+      mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+      sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+      manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees of
+      men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand the
+      wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face a
+      Greenland winter in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back and
+      hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's call), I
+      finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and stay
+      all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the lecture
+      over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a place
+      where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and she wuz
+      to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and forth and
+      try to convince each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+      my frame, though dreadin' the job some.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c3" id="c3"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="016c3.jpg (99K)" src="images/016c3.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture&mdash;crazy as a loon.
+      He raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it to
+      me. About &ldquo;how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+      happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in a
+      serene calm&mdash;a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+      how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew that
+      men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they wuz till
+      to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said,&rdquo; sez I, in considerable dry axents&mdash;not so dry as I keep
+      by me, but pretty dry&mdash;&ldquo;No true man would let a woman perform any
+      manuel labor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger in
+      emanuel labor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Manuel, Josiah.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good,&rdquo; sez I,
+      firmly, &ldquo;full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+      better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+      has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+      along without some work and care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall I say,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;that there hain't no need of you havin' a care, not
+      a single care. Not as long as I live&mdash;if it wuzn't for me, you might
+      have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+      won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly anon&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="017.jpg (111K)" src="images/017.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+      perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life&mdash;did you
+      notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified to
+      see you didn't weep or even clap your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, firmly, &ldquo;when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap on the
+      side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been a-sailin' on
+      that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have never wanted to
+      leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and tell you now, it
+      hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs, jest like any other
+      human states.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and I
+      was too tired, &ldquo;There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+      forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea by
+      which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold their
+      blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies blow&mdash;and
+      that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It is the sea
+      of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into billows. But
+      our sea&mdash;the sea of married life&mdash;is not like that, it is
+      ofttimes billowy and rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say it hain't,&rdquo; sez he, for he was jest carried away with the lecture,
+      and enthused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen, for over twenty years,
+      but has our sea of life always been perfectly smooth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it has; smooth as glass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, sternly, &ldquo;There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+      cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+      if I was in your place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Dumb' hain't swearin',&rdquo; sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more till
+      anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+      that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah Allen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; sez I, cheerfully. &ldquo;I'd love to have her stay a week or ten
+      days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+      lecture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down, and
+      Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and company.
+      And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she did come,
+      it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't have come in a
+      much worse time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+      There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+      a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+      but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+      always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish to
+      have showed off to the public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+      entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward with
+      it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+      himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+      thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+      have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+      he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+      cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket, and
+      as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+      settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to see
+      the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+      There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+      wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black, and
+      streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost frenzied
+      his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor be moved no
+      more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the language he hurled
+      at me acrost that stove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from this
+      side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he hollered at me, and asked me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How in thunder he was a goin' to <i>get</i> in.&rdquo; And then he wanted to
+      know &ldquo;if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it&mdash;or
+      if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream of
+      water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?&rdquo; He hollered
+      wildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told you
+      what end to move first,&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;You have moved it in side-ways. It would
+      go in all right if you had started it the other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha, with
+      a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be perfectly
+      happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day. But I'll tell
+      you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way out of this
+      door&mdash;if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall be stirred
+      agin so much as a hair's breadth&mdash;not while I have got the breath of
+      life in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+      and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me&mdash;and let 'em look
+      at that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="018.jpg (116K)" src="images/018.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I agin in a whisper, &ldquo;Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+      them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'.&rdquo; &ldquo;Wall, I want 'em to ketch
+      me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say every
+      word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+      perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job&mdash;seven times a year
+      do I have to move this stove back and forth&mdash;and I say it is high
+      time I said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind
+      to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you be still?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won't be still!&rdquo; he yelled out louder than ever. &ldquo;And you may go
+      through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+      got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+      under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+      a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there stood
+      Serena Fogg, there stood the author of &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful Repose.&rdquo; I felt
+      like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see she had by her
+      looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o' awe-stricken as if
+      she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and took her things, and
+      I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have to be out in the
+      kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back to Josiah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I whispered to him, sez I: &ldquo;Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+      every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now about
+      Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that he
+      went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, &ldquo;She won't find much repose
+      here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all tore to
+      pieces to get that stove started.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the door
+      casin'. And I believe it can be done without that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift for
+      two hours as I have, and then see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+      there,&rdquo; sez I, liftin' up one end a little, &ldquo;see what anybody can do who
+      is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, <i>you</i> did it! I moved it myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="019.jpg (53K)" src="images/019.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't go
+      together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with chalk,
+      and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had &ldquo;rubbed 'em out.&rdquo; I wuz
+      just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I see a
+      little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of &ldquo;Wedlock's
+      Peaceful Repose&rdquo; was a-listenin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose to
+      make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out for
+      years and years&mdash;why, then I <i>had</i> to correct him on the
+      subject, and we had a little dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+      much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple sass
+      on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+      machine a-comin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="c4" id="c4"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="020c4.jpg (96K)" src="images/020c4.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half an
+      hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected onto
+      him as it did onto me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+      ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they had
+      to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to go
+      right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get to the
+      side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they wuz a-goin'
+      by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever heard that
+      was the cap sheaf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em enough
+      to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where the
+      horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way, and
+      it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out every
+      minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It wuz
+      a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But three
+      times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt the
+      author of &ldquo;Peaceful Repose,&rdquo; and me, almost to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+      horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+      over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+      said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+      it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+      wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="021.jpg (161K)" src="images/021.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+      beginnin'. If you'll believe it, I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+      any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out by
+      dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make pies
+      and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all kinds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author of &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful Repose&rdquo; came out into the kitchen. I
+      told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+      minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked it,
+      to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement, to
+      hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to lift
+      my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+      actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild man
+      than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by havin'
+      so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he couldn't
+      help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And then Steve
+      Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="022.jpg (59K)" src="images/022.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's legs,
+      where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I took my
+      hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up the
+      harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on Josiah
+      Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or else to do
+      somethin' for him that he couldn't do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm holt
+      of my principles, and didn't groan&mdash;not when anybody could hear me. I
+      won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a groan
+      or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after, I was
+      calm again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed a
+      tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+      pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+      over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+      days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he had
+      got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+      dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+      trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+      down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in the
+      house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind, and had
+      to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every little
+      piece of brown paper, or full cloth&mdash;everything, he said, that
+      wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+      five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+      right by the notch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+      every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+      exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different shapes
+      and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come, and a
+      wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity when
+      there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+      lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="023.jpg (121K)" src="images/023.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+      it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must&mdash;for
+      I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the author of &ldquo;Wedlock's
+      Peaceful Repose&rdquo; wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius, curiuser than
+      the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of curosity, and
+      metafor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay to
+      dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+      sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+      amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+      stay to dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and Zoar&mdash;it
+      is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he only made
+      fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along. And I had a
+      good dinner and enough of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had to wait on the table, of course&mdash;that is, the tea and coffee.
+      And I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that
+      wore out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my lips,
+      the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em&mdash;good, strong
+      Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't fairly got
+      it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had drinked a drop,
+      for the case demanded help at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+      down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+      the company wuz very genteel&mdash;a minister and a Justice of the Peace&mdash;so
+      she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+      neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to get
+      'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house and
+      onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse barn,
+      for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the very
+      second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her husband
+      to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to let the cat
+      out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em and comparin'
+      'em with hern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+      too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+      milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the shelf,
+      so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the most went
+      onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that that wuz
+      tricklin' down my backbone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="024.jpg (71K)" src="images/024.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread, and
+      then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+      change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for I
+      wuz wet as sop&mdash;as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c5" id="c5"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="024c5.jpg (94K)" src="images/024c5.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the author of &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful Repose&rdquo; wuz a-waitin' for me to
+      the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by me,
+      and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than ever, and
+      more sad like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, &ldquo;she was dretful sorry for me,&rdquo; and I believed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, &ldquo;if I had such trials every day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told her &ldquo;No, I didn't.&rdquo; I told her that things would run along
+      smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+      happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+      dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody to
+      once. Sez I, &ldquo;You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+      a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of 'em,'
+      or words to that effect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, in reasonable axents, &ldquo;Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good things
+      happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful agreeable days,
+      and easy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', &ldquo;Did you ever have another
+      day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin' through?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;lots of'em&mdash;some worse ones, and,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;the day
+      has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+      things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+      things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+      only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+      changin' your dress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and get
+      the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have got to
+      do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and cakes and
+      such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg &ldquo;that
+      the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things to
+      happen before night,&rdquo; for I had only jest got well to work on the
+      ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over &ldquo;to see if I could
+      let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her&mdash;she wanted 'em
+      to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through the
+      winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots and
+      seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+      perfectly convenient,&rdquo; so the boy said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+      such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+      didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+      said, &ldquo;either make or break me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before I
+      could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the total
+      deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the last bag
+      of seeds that I overhauled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+      any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of garden
+      and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent Submit the
+      sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I possibly could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I sez to the author of &ldquo;Peaceful Repose,&rdquo; I sez to her, sez I:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+      lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+      time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will try
+      to,&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; sez she, &ldquo;it hain't no matter about that; I&mdash;I&mdash;I somehow&mdash;I
+      don't feel like rehearsin' it as it was.&rdquo; Sez she, &ldquo;I guess I shall make
+      some changes in it before I rehearse it agin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez she, in faint axents, &ldquo;I am a-thinkin' of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="026.jpg (54K)" src="images/026.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of cups
+      in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+      napkins under my arm, &ldquo;I believe I shall like it as well again if you do,
+      any way,&rdquo; sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my dress, and
+      opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my work
+      quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+      when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+      cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised New
+      Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+      considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as mebby
+      I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk more'n an
+      hour and three quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk; he'll
+      make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles such large,
+      curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz a-answerin' his
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="027.jpg (124K)" src="images/027.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+      Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board in
+      her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had got
+      another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+      back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+      time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said &ldquo;there wuz
+      somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said &ldquo;she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much round,
+      but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of the
+      barriers, and he must have his coat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time, and
+      took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it I see
+      what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows come
+      right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition to the
+      funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms right
+      acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot the
+      sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+      ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it&mdash;and
+      she went home feelin' first rate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would miss
+      me if any thing should happen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="028.jpg (30K)" src="images/028.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+      but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little boy's
+      pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would have to
+      set down from the front side, or else stand up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way to
+      get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the legs. But
+      I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and bastin', and
+      settin' her right, and I did now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+      in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an old
+      pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and the
+      thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he wuz
+      jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the first
+      thing that &ldquo;he wanted some of Hall's salve.&rdquo; And I told him &ldquo;there wuzn't
+      a mite in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he hollered up and says, &ldquo;There would be some if there wuz any sense
+      in the head of the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="029.jpg (120K)" src="images/029.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for I
+      see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, &ldquo;Why hain't there any Hall's
+      salve?&rdquo; Sez I, &ldquo;Because old Hall has been dead for years and years, and
+      hain't made any salve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,&rdquo; he
+      yelled out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely onexpected
+      five years ago last summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will become
+      of me!&rdquo; he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pond's Extract!&rdquo; he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+      wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of man
+      to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to take a
+      pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me all the time
+      I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him a-purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+      author of &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful Repose&rdquo; would hear him, and he hollered back
+      &ldquo;he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he shouldn't live
+      to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+      understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+      width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+      subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+      got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+      hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+      double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+      and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had brung
+      down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back&mdash;a hull lot
+      of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children, and
+      the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+      a-visitin', and the editor of the <i>Augur'ses</i> wife (she wuz related
+      to the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+      Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go to
+      school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the West's
+      bosom friend, or used to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+      other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c6" id="c6"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="030c6.jpg (107K)" src="images/030c6.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author of &ldquo;Peaceful Repose&rdquo; sez to me, and she looked pale and skairt;
+      she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful skairt and
+      shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin', as I said
+      prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as good as the
+      very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I would allow
+      spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she proposed, Miss
+      Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man. And though I
+      urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard as I would
+      otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of visitors had
+      reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="031.jpg (145K)" src="images/031.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+      strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I have
+      got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different occasions,
+      every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and curiusest
+      ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the author of &ldquo;Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose&rdquo; insisted on
+      goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, &ldquo;That if
+      she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much work
+      round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her rehearse the
+      lecture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as wan
+      agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): &ldquo;That she should make <i>changes</i>
+      in it before she ever rehearsed it agin&mdash;<i>deep changes</i>!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+      went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+      till I got this letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+      Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all on
+      the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot down
+      to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens make a
+      practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if they did&mdash;and
+      have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt well, and the supper
+      tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I told him Lodema wuz
+      approachin' and would be there that very night or the next day&mdash;still
+      the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin' mellowness of the hot
+      tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other good things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="032.jpg (49K)" src="images/032.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz enjoy
+      good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+      practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+      get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+      lawyers would almost entirely disappear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For truly it seems that <i>no</i> human man <i>could be</i> more
+      worrysome, and curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at
+      times; still, by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from
+      day to day, and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him
+      to me by ties that can't never be broken into.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+      For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+      its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it in
+      his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are the
+      ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a cheerful
+      countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright room, on a
+      snowy table-cloth!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great&mdash;great is the mystery of men's love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that underlies
+      married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much cannot be
+      said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of female and male
+      humanity&mdash;and it <i>cannot</i> be too closely followed up and
+      practised by female pardners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early&mdash;I mean
+      the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema&mdash;oh no, fur from it; Lodema is
+      never bright and cheerful&mdash;she is the opposite and reverse always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to call
+      'em so rather than &ldquo;old maid&rdquo; (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful sharp
+      before I could get him into it).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of old
+      maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that would but
+      couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the &ldquo;would-but-couldn't's,&rdquo;
+       though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said so, not for the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+      bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She hain't to blame, Josiah.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we had
+      our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of makin'
+      awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down onto us
+      sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along&mdash;jest like
+      a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind to bring
+      up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I done
+      well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved to put
+      on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for either on
+      'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time a'most. And it
+      come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand the brunt on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them that
+      can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide world to
+      suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather, and if the
+      weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="033.jpg (44K)" src="images/033.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+      groans aloud and says &ldquo;she can't see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+      mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+      faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she spends
+      the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+      things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of game
+      you set out to hunt in the mornin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+      perseverin'&mdash;if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+      till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game, such as
+      meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o' cattle&mdash;why,
+      at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You will be a noble
+      and happy hunter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="034.jpg (112K)" src="images/034.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at night
+      with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em right
+      along and chase 'em down. Wall, Lodema never got led away from her
+      perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night, and done
+      well at it. She brought in sights of skins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had always
+      tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar huntin'
+      grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable! It wuz!
+      It wuz!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful wearin'
+      on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this visit it wuz
+      jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of the fifth week,
+      I had to stand between their two tongues&mdash;they didn't fight with
+      their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="c7" id="c7"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="035c7.jpg (100K)" src="images/035c7.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;so do.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;I am goin' to make her a happy surprise.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;yes, indeed I
+      did&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez she, after she had got all through with the rest of her
+      complaints&mdash;&ldquo;if the white stripes wuz where the black wuz, and the
+      black where the white wuz, she should like it quite well.&rdquo; 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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="036.jpg (61K)" src="images/036.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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), &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+       And he said she would get the angels all stirred up a findin' fault with
+      their feathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him &ldquo;I would not hear such talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;don't you believe it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I kinder turned him off, and wouldn't tell, and told him it wuz wicked
+      to talk so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;you dassent say she wouldn't.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;he seemed jest like a father to her, and
+      always had.&rdquo; And sometimes when she felt the most curius, she would call
+      him &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Pa,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Papa.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Ma,&rdquo;
+       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 &ldquo;How she felt about that time?&rdquo; 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&mdash;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: &ldquo;I wonder if I seemed like a father
+      to you when we wuz a-kickin' at each other in the same cradle?&rdquo; Sez he:
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She screamed right out, &ldquo;Why, Josiah Allen, where is your conscience to
+      talk in that way&mdash;and your heart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In here, where everybody's is,&rdquo; sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his
+      right hand&mdash;he meant to strike against his left breast, but struck
+      too low, kinder on his stomach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez I, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; sez I coldly, &ldquo;do you go out and bring in a
+      pail of water.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="037.jpg (42K)" src="images/037.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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&mdash;it madded
+      him so to be on the same side of the fence she wuz&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c8" id="c8"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="038c8.jpg (95K)" src="images/038c8.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For two weeks had passed away like a nite mair of the nite&mdash;and three
+      weeks, and four weeks&mdash;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, &ldquo;that I never knew the meanin' of the word 'fag' before.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;She has plenty of brothers and sisters, and a home of her own, and why
+      should she come here to torment you and father;&rdquo; and sez she, &ldquo;I'll talk
+      to her, mother, I'd jest as leve as not.&rdquo; Sez I, &ldquo;Tirzah Ann, if you say a
+      word to her, I'll&mdash;I'll never put confidence in you agin;&rdquo; sez I,
+      &ldquo;Life is full of tribulations, and we must expect to bear our crosses;&rdquo;
+       sez I, &ldquo;The old martyrs went through more than Lodema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez Tirzah Ann, &ldquo;I believe Lodema would have wore out John Rogers.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;he never talked back a mite, but looked
+      clever, and told me in confidence, &ldquo;That he had turned over a new leaf,
+      and he wuz goin' to surprise her&mdash;give her a happy surprise.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he sez, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, sadly, &ldquo;you have got the spunk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;I don't want to stop your doin' all you can for Lodema, but why
+      not tell what you are a-goin' to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be time enough when the time comes,&rdquo; sez he. &ldquo;You will find it
+      out in the course of next week.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="039.jpg (103K)" src="images/039.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told her &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez
+      she, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; She
+      sort o' stopped to ketch breath, and Josiah sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he sez, &ldquo;Miss Minkley is a-comin', too, and the Elder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why'ee,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a week or so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A week!&rdquo; sez I; &ldquo;Josiah Allen, where is your conscience? if you have got
+      a conscience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the same old place,&rdquo; sez he, kinder hittin' himself in the pit of his
+      stomach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, I should think as much,&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Lodema sez, sez she: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;a hull string of 'em as
+      long as a procession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, and I spoke it right out before I thought&mdash;sez I&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why'ee!&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;For the land's sake!&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;has there been a funeral,
+      or anything? And are these the mourners?&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;Are they stoppin' here
+      to warm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For it wuz a cold day&mdash;and I repeated the words to myself
+      mechanically as it wuz, as I see 'em file up the path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They be mourners, hain't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; sez Josiah, who had come in and wuz a standin' by the side of me, as
+      I spoke out to myself unbeknown to me&mdash;sez he in a proud axent&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A diamond weddin'!&rdquo; I repeated mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, this is my happy surprise for Lodema.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;that she did almost lose her conscientiousness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;she hain't married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="040.jpg (114K)" src="images/040.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, she ort to be, if she hain't,&rdquo; sez he. &ldquo;I say it is high time for
+      her to have some sort of a weddin'. Everybody is a havin' 'em&mdash;tin,
+      and silver and wooden, and basswood, and glass, and etc.&mdash;and I
+      thought it wuz a perfect shame that Lodema shouldn't have none of no kind&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, why didn't you make her a silver one, or a tin?&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or a paper one!&rdquo; screamed Lodema, who had riz up out of her almost
+      faintin' condition. &ldquo;That would have been much more appropriate,&rdquo; sez she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she screamed out. &ldquo;They have to be married seventy-five years
+      before they can have one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez he dreemily, &ldquo;I thought that would be about the right figure.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;she wuz old enough to
+      have a weddin' of some kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And of course I can't dispute that, when he faces me right down, and sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hain't she old enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I'll say, kinder short&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I spoze so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;wouldn't it have been profitable to her if they had
+      brought diamonds? Wouldn't it have been both surprisin' and profitable?&rdquo;
+       And sez he, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;if you have
+      got more diamonds than you want, Lute, bring over a few to Lodema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="041.jpg (48K)" src="images/041.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, coldly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Sez I, &ldquo;I'd be honorable about
+      it if I wuz in your place, and own up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;profitable and surprisin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And that is all I can get him to say about it, from that day to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c9" id="c9"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="042c9.jpg (100K)" src="images/042c9.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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 &ldquo;thought relations ought to be hunted up and hanged together.&rdquo; They
+      said &ldquo;the idea of huntin' us up had come to 'em after readin' my books.&rdquo;
+       They told me so, and I said, &ldquo;Wall!&rdquo; I didn't add nor diminish to that one
+      &ldquo;wall,&rdquo; for I didn't want to act too backward, nor too forward. I jest
+      kep' kinder neutral, and said, &ldquo;Wall!&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo; He said &ldquo;he felt that he loved Josiah and
+      me dearly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't say right out whether it wuz reciprokated or not I kinder said,
+      &ldquo;Wall!&rdquo; agin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told Josiah, in perfect confidence and the wood-house chamber, &ldquo;that
+      I had seen nearer relations than Mr. Bodley'ses folks wuz to us,&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="043.jpg (125K)" src="images/043.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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, &ldquo;for relatives to live so clost to each other, and
+      not to visit back and forth, wuz a burnin' shame and a disgrace.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;in a time of trouble, then wuz the time, if ever, that a
+      man wanted his near relations clost to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he said &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said &ldquo;that mornin' he had felt so bad that he wanted to die&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="044.jpg (54K)" src="images/044.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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, &ldquo;she couldn't stir out
+      of the house in any other color but black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew jest how dear crape wuz, and I tackled her on the subject, and sez
+      I&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, S. Annie, these dresses of your'n will cost a sight?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cost?&rdquo; sez she, a-bustin' out a-cryin'. &ldquo;What do I care about cost? I
+      will do everything I can to respect his memory. I do it in remembrance of
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, gently, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez Cephas, &ldquo;it would look dretful odd to the neighbors if she
+      didn't dress in black.&rdquo; Sez he in a skairful tone, and in his intense way&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="045.jpg (122K)" src="images/045.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would ruther resk my life than to have her fail in duty in this way; it
+      would make talk. And.&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;what is life worth when folks talk?&rdquo; 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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is pretty hard work to keep folks from talkin'; to keep 'em from
+      sayin' somethin'.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;No, he didn't think he would have a Bible; he didn't
+      think it would be appropriate, seein' the deceased wuz a lawyer.&rdquo; He said
+      &ldquo;he hadn't quite made up his mind what book to have. But anyway it wuz to
+      be in flowers&mdash;beautiful flowers.&rdquo; 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&mdash;&ldquo;To save
+      expense, you will probable have the moneygram W.N.B.H.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; sez he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;hen the initials of his given names, and the last name in full.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it wuz S. Annie's wish, and hisen, that the hull name
+      should be put on. They thought it would show more respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sez, &ldquo;Where Wellington is now, that hain't a goin' to make any
+      difference, and,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;Cephas, flowers are dretful high this time of
+      year, and it is a long name.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;There is his children left for her to live for,&rdquo; sez I&mdash;&ldquo;three
+      little bits of his own life, for her to nourish, and cherish, and look out
+      for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez Cephas, &ldquo;and she will do that nobly, and I will help her. They
+      are all goin' to the funeral, too, in deep-black dresses.&rdquo; He said &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I (in a quiet, onassumin' way I would gin little hints of my
+      mind on the subject), &ldquo;I am afraid that will be about all the comforts of
+      life the poor little children will ever have,&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;It will be if you
+      buy many more flower-pieces and crape dresses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cephas said &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;The baby would look better in white, and it will take sights of
+      crape for a long baby dress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;The baby don't know crape from a clothes-pin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; sez Cephas, &ldquo;but in after years the thought of the respect she
+      showed will sustain her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I guess she won't have much besides thoughts to live on,
+      if things go on in this way.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;it wuzn't my funeral,&rdquo; 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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c10" id="c10"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="046c10.jpg (95K)" src="images/046c10.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;and Cephas thought
+      it would look better and more popular to have 'em all occupied&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;he thought it showed deep respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;it is a deep weed, anyway&mdash;the deepest I ever see.&rdquo;
+       And he said as I wuz a sewin' it on, he a-holdin' his hat for me, &ldquo;that
+      Wellington deserved it; he deserved it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as I say, he shed tears to think that his handkerchief wuzn't
+      black-bordered. He said &ldquo;it wuz a fearful oversight; it would probably
+      make talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; I sez, &ldquo;mebby it won't be noticed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="047.jpg (123K)" src="images/047.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it will,&rdquo; sez he. &ldquo;It will be noticed.&rdquo; And sez he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez, &ldquo;I guess where Wellington is now, the color of a handkerchief
+      border hain't a-goin' to make much difference to him either way.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;we
+      had been there over seven hours, and his legs wuz paralyzed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I whispered back that &ldquo;seven hours would take us into the night, and
+      to stretch his feet out and pinch 'em,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cephas, that monument is a-goin' to cost a sight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;we can't raise too high a one. Wellington deserved it
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Won't that and all these funeral expenses take about all the money
+      he left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; sez he. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Useless!</i>&rdquo; sez Cephas, turnin' red. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;if you wuzn't a
+      near relation I should resent that speech bitterly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;what do all these flowers, and empty carriages, and
+      silver-plated nails, and crape, and so forth&mdash;what does it all amount
+      to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Respect and honor to his memory,&rdquo; sez Cephas, proudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; sez I dreamily, &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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'&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Onnecessary!&rdquo; sez Cephas, angrily. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;if it is too hardly trampled on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hain't trampled on you,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez Cephas, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;it wuzn't my funeral.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;to
+      tell the end of the funeral here&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="048.jpg (103K)" src="images/048.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c11" id="c11"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="049c11.jpg (96K)" src="images/049c11.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="050.jpg (60K)" src="images/050.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="051.jpg (129K)" src="images/051.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;the very one he eat on last&mdash;-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&mdash;and for more'n a hour afterwuds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c12" id="c12"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="052c12.jpg (107K)" src="images/052c12.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;
+    </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, &ldquo;Why, a settin' on the Conference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez, &ldquo;I don't believe that is such a awful hard job to tackle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, it is,&rdquo; sez Josiah in his most skairful axent, &ldquo;yes, it is.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;You jest try it once, and see&mdash;I have sot on it, and I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah wuz sent once as a delegate to the Methodist Conference, so I
+      spozed he did know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I sez, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the nater of the strain?&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;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'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And agin I sez, &ldquo;What wuz the strain?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="053.jpg (41K)" src="images/053.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now she thinks she can set hens better than I can&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;It is very good for yeast, but I always use milk emptin's.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="c13" id="c13"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="054c13.jpg (97K)" src="images/054c13.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally tell
+      'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em themselves&mdash;boastin'
+      of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks boast over that, act
+      real haughty because they had been bad and got over it. I've seen
+      temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights and sights over
+      how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the truth, though they had
+      told the same thing so much that probable they had got to thinkin' so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+      didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+      had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+      himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+      pious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="055.jpg (49K)" src="images/055.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+      high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew that
+      no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without carryin'
+      some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the actin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+      very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+      found that he had always been a pattern man&mdash;never had done a single
+      mean act, so fur as wuz known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain talk.
+      He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he wuz big
+      feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had told of it so
+      much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+      would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+      comin' to a end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with her&mdash;and
+      specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how extremely sot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+      petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+      religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+      quite good ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+      and above disagreeable to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+      beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+      onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it, they
+      would be better off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+      fur, they hain't megum enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+      burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and mebby
+      will be agin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+      anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+      somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+      even whip 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+      beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real truth
+      in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="056.jpg (54K)" src="images/056.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind Cure.
+      Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head on a stun&mdash;I
+      cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell, and there
+      hain't no stun&mdash;and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the achin'
+      bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't no such
+      thing as pain, nor never wuz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+      right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way&mdash;so nigh to it that
+      seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+      its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+      frequently, &ldquo;before and after takin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+      belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+      calmness, and joy&mdash;refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that brings
+      such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with so much
+      peace and happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+      brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the question,
+      or ort to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+      lookin' at it, and commandin' it to&mdash;or call some posys to fall down
+      into my lap, right through, the plasterin'&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of me
+      stayed to Jonesville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to do
+      this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good deal of
+      the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I most know I couldn't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+      and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of Natur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots of
+      folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the breath
+      leaves their body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes beheld
+      blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and never
+      disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any meetin'
+      houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they felt the
+      touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their lives, and you
+      could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them at
+      first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of their
+      childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had, or
+      God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their imperfections,
+      I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a imperfect world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+      about 'em&mdash;you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+      and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+      away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+      too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c14" id="c14"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="057c14.jpg (97K)" src="images/057c14.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the last
+      day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an end. I,
+      myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah didn't
+      either. And I sez to her, &ldquo;The Bible sez that it hain't agoin' to be
+      revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the Father
+      when that great day shall be.&rdquo; And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez I, &ldquo;How
+      should <i>you</i> be expected to know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, &ldquo;My name
+      wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that <i>wuzn't</i> to know it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+      believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+      with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side&mdash;you
+      know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+      side&mdash;you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+      end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she did
+      we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much use in
+      disputin' back and forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+      our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the old
+      Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+      naterally wanted to be round at the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+      her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+      Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on his
+      own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she wuzn't
+      by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end up as any
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah didn't like it at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+      right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+      thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+      lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance&mdash;not fierce, you
+      know, or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and
+      standin' ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she
+      acted fierce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="058.jpg (60K)" src="images/058.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+      amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He jest
+      <i>knew</i> the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day of
+      June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made to go
+      up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster made it.
+      Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns&mdash;so she told me in
+      confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown for
+      a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+      anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an old
+      maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+      steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length&mdash;Joe is
+      tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+      request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+      allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of for
+      the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a likin'
+      for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though what they
+      had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But she allowed
+      to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin' human bein'
+      that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a joke, Jenette
+      duz: &ldquo;I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he got it on, his
+      religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he would be glad the
+      world <i>wuz</i> comin' to a end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he <i>didn't</i> look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted
+      to see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+      he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+      with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must have
+      looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and everybody
+      is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has got 300 acres of good land, &ldquo;be it more or less,&rdquo; as the deed
+      reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of 'em).
+      And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar house way
+      up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big, handsome
+      dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big barn, and
+      carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of order. He
+      is a pattern farmer and a pattern son&mdash;yes, Joe couldn't be a more
+      pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+      there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+      too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+      always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+      religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+      some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for Joe
+      likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great, honest,
+      open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it. And Jenette
+      liked Joe <i>I</i> knew, though she fooled a good many on the subject. But
+      she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though she didn't say so
+      right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as the poet sez, she
+      wuzn't one &ldquo;to wear her heart on the sleeves of her bask waist,&rdquo; still, I
+      knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her eyes of him. And old
+      Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would have her with her,
+      sewin' for her, and takin' care of her&mdash;she wuz sick a good deal,
+      Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most to death to have
+      had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, &ldquo;smart as lightnin',&rdquo; as Josiah
+      always said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+      to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other girls
+      married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz said,
+      good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz gettin'
+      old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially, said he
+      couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he said, the
+      old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her goodness to
+      'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the pure
+      tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used to love
+      to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off, and I felt
+      that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a life, why,
+      Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and enough to do
+      with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em night and day;
+      sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor little creeter; but
+      she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder comforted up, and
+      clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand, and thought her eyes
+      on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he wuz a smart chap&mdash;awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+      married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter) home
+      to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2 weeks, wuz
+      made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+      prior and beforehand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+      man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+      over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+      property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+      dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+      think such a girl as Jenette had been&mdash;such a patient, good creeter,
+      and such a good-tempered one, and everything&mdash;to think her pa should
+      have forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+      the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+      their money and make Jenette trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and I
+      had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that day
+      that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house, and
+      kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+      sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+      highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+      but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with a
+      bright face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+      did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+      good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and dust
+      'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and locked
+      when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright, laughin' face,
+      that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened to the rattle of
+      a bone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+      it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first by
+      hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater, the
+      qualities kinder struck in and she <i>wuz</i> happy, and she <i>wuz</i>
+      contented&mdash;that is, I s'poze so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+      tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home to
+      home&mdash;not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+      lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+      would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+      there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+      like a meteor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+      movin' constantly through space&mdash;but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on
+      the meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did;
+      but I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+      face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+      weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+      spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+      couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One who
+      felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well. One who
+      could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite of jealousy or
+      spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and admired, loved to see
+      'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the good things she had, why,
+      she was glad for their sakes, that they had 'em, she loved to see 'em
+      enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+      the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+      got to goin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="059.jpg (53K)" src="images/059.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+      pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though, and
+      her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair curls
+      all over her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is a
+      master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+      speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+      Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it on
+      the other side, and got through with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+      dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+      make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+      when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+      she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+      couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+      must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She had
+      42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted. But,
+      anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world was a
+      comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+      Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+      need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in case
+      of the world's endin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, &ldquo;that
+      she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to the
+      dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+      Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+      mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from time
+      to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so Jenette
+      said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down in front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+      drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+      dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+      like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+      but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+      whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+      hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+      Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would get
+      better and she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and the
+      conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+      congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+      would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="060.jpg (152K)" src="images/060.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley
+      school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the next
+      mornin' Miss Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that evenin'. It
+      wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah had to be away
+      with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy loaded, and wouldn't
+      get back till along in the evenin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she said &ldquo;that she felt that the walk would do her good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said &ldquo;stanchils and religion
+      wuz two separate things.&rdquo; Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try to. And
+      she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot. And the
+      rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in another
+      epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end or not. I
+      know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks in onxiety&mdash;it
+      hain't my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c15" id="c15"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="061c15.jpg (104K)" src="images/061c15.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+      Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out Joe
+      Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he carried her
+      to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like his'n, white book
+      muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a Bible passage, and twice
+      she had walked up to his mother's to consult with her on a passage in the
+      Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if her wings wuz es deep and full
+      es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same size.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had enjoyed
+      considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had been havin'
+      for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach&mdash;a sort of a
+      tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that her
+      spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the old lady
+      didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took thoroughwert for
+      'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert wuz tightenin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+      old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand. And
+      Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her head
+      and said, &ldquo;she didn't approve of it&mdash;she thought a chicken ought to
+      be brung up by a hen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miss Charnick said, &ldquo;Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+      perished right there in the nest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, &ldquo;that it wuz a
+      hen's business, and nobody else's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a hen's
+      business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But if she
+      won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to&mdash;they ought to be
+      brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's wife had
+      got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and the other
+      relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem to stop it
+      when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+      and she said &ldquo;that basks had gone out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+      thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But Trueman's
+      wife ground her right down on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Basks <i>wuz out</i>, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+      polenay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+      Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+      &ldquo;Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have got
+      so little time to wear 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+      somethin' about &ldquo;hired girls keepin' their place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+      Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+      makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+      fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+      Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove their
+      doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+      Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+      said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+      kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to her
+      liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so fur as
+      to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed in&mdash;I
+      did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I knew it
+      wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+      disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to do
+      or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever sence
+      Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good his
+      attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to her
+      belief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josiah said, &ldquo;he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention, if
+      he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He guessed
+      he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself.&rdquo; And he owned up that
+      he wuz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our breakfast,
+      I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast overnight, and I wuz a
+      mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife come down-stairs with her
+      robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out and press the seams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+      for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+      meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I had
+      also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+      but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on that
+      day. She sez, &ldquo;The idee, of the last day of the world, and you a-bein'
+      found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!&rdquo; sez she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin' riz
+      biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes commanded me
+      to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother Hubbard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It hain't a Mother Hubbard!&rdquo; sez she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+      them, and you know it.&rdquo; Hers wuz made with a yoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+      mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+      bitterly reproved him. But he sez, &ldquo;If the world don't come to a end, the
+      corn will be needed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it will,&rdquo; she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="062.jpg (158K)" src="images/062.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+      settin' round.&rdquo; And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+      jawed me for upholdin' him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+      previous to eatin' it, sez she, &ldquo;I should think <i>respect</i>, respect
+      for the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+      of the idea of goin' on with your work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I calmly, &ldquo;Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, not exactly scare,&rdquo; sez she, &ldquo;but lift up, lift up far above bread
+      and other kitchen work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, &ldquo;I don't s'poze I
+      should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside of
+      our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than that.
+      And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He would
+      approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the ones He
+      put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+      grandchildren.&rdquo; (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day to
+      dinner.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+      school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+      females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would have
+      melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would soar up
+      above riz biscuit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out another
+      cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, &ldquo;What did they do
+      there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do!&rdquo; sez she, &ldquo;why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+      wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+      em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if I
+      do say it), and sez calmly, &ldquo;Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I have
+      always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin' <i>some</i>
+      things, things He has <i>commanded</i>. Everybody to their own way. I
+      don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+      solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+      believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+      power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever,&rdquo; sez I,
+      &ldquo;I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+      only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz <i>my</i> way to lay
+      speechless or holler much&mdash;not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if
+      you holler from principle, but I never seemed to have a call to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would be far better if you did,&rdquo; sez Trueman's wife, &ldquo;far better. But
+      you hain't good enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; sez I, reasonably, &ldquo;I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+      hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see the
+      <i>use</i> in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+      Him in public so many things as some do. Why He <i>knows</i> it. He <i>knows</i>
+      all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if you
+      wuz His gardeen&mdash;as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He <i>knows</i>
+      what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;that He can
+      look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in 'em a-knowin'
+      all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our temptations, our
+      resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our regrets, our
+      remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs, our glorys. But
+      when He <i>is</i> right there, in the midst of our soul, our life, why, <i>why</i>
+      should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would be glad to if you wuz good enough,&rdquo; sez she; &ldquo;if you had
+      attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That kinder riled me up, and I sez, &ldquo;Wall, I have lived in this house with
+      them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein' one of
+      'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters,&rdquo; sez I, a prickin' my biscuit
+      with a fork, &ldquo;more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and agin&mdash;thinks
+      she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+      and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+      disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before I could speak up and take his part, for I <i>will</i> not hear
+      my companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered
+      up her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+      be sent up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+      that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+      Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+      meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be in
+      the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be by the
+      side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never had no
+      robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round it
+      in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz goin' to
+      get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure enough, we
+      found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest stumps,
+      and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to talk to
+      the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48, had
+      assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+      on white book muslin robes. Good land!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c16" id="c16"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="063c16.jpg (105K)" src="images/063c16.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+      about 3 o'clock P.M.&mdash;afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+      a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+      warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+      walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool wuz
+      a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked kinder
+      mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the top of
+      the him book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been a
+      night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one, and
+      it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known&mdash;Miss Charnick is a
+      smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through&mdash;as
+      mournful, skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it
+      swelled out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort
+      of a way, and wierd&mdash;dretful wierd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+      preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull days.
+      It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest men there
+      turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me, and wept and
+      cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+      leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the serene
+      landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought&mdash;jest as
+      true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+      willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that very
+      day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the mysteries of
+      the other, out of the mysteries of this life into the certainties of the
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="064.jpg (43K)" src="images/064.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+      soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+      go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+      shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+      alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+      each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So big
+      that the hull world must pass through it&mdash;and yet so small that the
+      hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+      mysterious arches, alone&mdash;and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+      alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+      no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed onto
+      it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had <i>got</i> to be
+      parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+      the bendin' heavens&mdash;we two would be together for weal or for woe.
+      And on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+      through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+      celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+      side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+      June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not that I really <i>wanted</i> the world to come to a end that day. No, I
+      kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+      pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live for
+      the <i>sake</i> of livin'. I enjoy it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+      scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+      approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+      a-shinin' in his'n.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+      not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+      dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+      three to quarter to 4&mdash;and so on&mdash;they shouted, they sung, they
+      prayed, they shook each other's hands&mdash;they wuz fairly crazed with
+      excitement and fervor, which they called religion&mdash;for they wuz in
+      earnest, nobody could dispute that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time&mdash;though I
+      ketched him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say,
+      &ldquo;Oh, how I hate to leave you, Jenette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+      the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on the
+      puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say this,
+      that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's time.
+      And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep calm and
+      serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there&mdash;no sign, no change&mdash;and
+      Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+      Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+      till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe, more
+      than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been in for a
+      week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this day, he
+      jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and stood there
+      in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had been calm
+      enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice&mdash;his voice
+      always did have a good honest ring to it:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Farewell my friends,<br /> Farewell my foes;<br /> Up to Heaven<br /> Joe
+      Charnick goes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he waved
+      his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and sprung
+      upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller him&mdash;and
+      go right up into the heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+      too&mdash;jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a
+      camp chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred
+      her dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+      that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks, and
+      lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+      poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her way
+      of applyin' of 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="065.jpg (141K)" src="images/065.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+      only to put 'em on it. But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+      'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+      lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world&mdash;not a
+      word&mdash;but a-naggin' about everything else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her healed,
+      and started off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+      places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+      a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+      shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+      Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+      realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+      old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+      love&mdash;Joe never could be megum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell&mdash;but
+      when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die, then
+      she owned up to him that she worshipped him&mdash;and always had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death at
+      the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl&mdash;she thinks her eyes on
+      her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever wuz
+      all around, if not agreeabler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of his
+      bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin' her
+      so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad on't,
+      so they say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when Trueman's
+      wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house still; that
+      is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that Ma Charnick
+      offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the ones she had
+      brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please her, so's to get
+      in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14 of 'em, all fat
+      and flourishing&mdash;they wuz well took care of. And Miss Charnick looked
+      down on 'em fondly, and sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+      married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="066.jpg (67K)" src="images/066.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married!&rdquo; sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. &ldquo;Yes, they
+      are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough. Jenette
+      is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'&mdash;with a bask,&rdquo;
+       sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped down and
+      gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much store she set
+      by it for sickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered and
+      sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before the
+      weddin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here a-visitin'&mdash;and
+      she asked me in confidence (and it <i>must</i> be kep, it stands lo reason
+      it must), &ldquo;if I s'posed that book muslin robe would make two little
+      dresses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told her, &ldquo;Good land! yes, three on 'em,&rdquo; and it did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would want
+      the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the materials&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It looks some like her and some like Joe&mdash;and they both think their
+      eyes on it&mdash;but old Miss Charnick worships it&mdash;Wall, though es I
+      said (and I have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and
+      onheard on).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a <i>plow</i>, that
+      time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+      Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+      (He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it, and
+      don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+      from hour to hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle the
+      wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist wimmen wuz
+      to work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+      post-office for his daily <i>World</i>, and then he would stop on his way
+      back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+      give us his idees on't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="067.jpg (144K)" src="images/067.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the very bone, with his dretful
+      imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo herself, and
+      ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to set!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+      fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do some
+      little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+      somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work. He
+      wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about that
+      buzz saw mill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz able
+      to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and their
+      buzz saws, and their inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+      meetin' house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c17" id="c17"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="068c17.jpg (99K)" src="images/068c17.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+      salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+      ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+      petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said they
+      had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't do any
+      more, any way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male
+      brethern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+      come right out plain and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Bobbet said &ldquo;he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right to
+      his face that he hadn't done his share,&rdquo; and he said &ldquo;he wuzn't the man
+      either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things.&rdquo; I don't believe he
+      wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like death to have him
+      so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the tex' wuz; it wuz these
+      words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached about
+      it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat to several of
+      the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly pinched 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+      money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said &ldquo;he
+      wouldn't give a <i>darn</i> cent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+      that he had demeaned himself to that extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon Henzy
+      and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain members of
+      the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin' slightin' about
+      buzz saws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws had
+      a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I believe the
+      subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these various
+      hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the men kinder
+      joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other, and they all
+      baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the minister wuz,
+      good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of life, and most
+      half a year's salery due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+      of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+      one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her own
+      sirname about how her Metilda had been used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+      and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny it,
+      and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said, and
+      stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been to save
+      her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when some of
+      the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+      unless it is when you can't help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+      evenin' meetin's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it wuz
+      s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+      the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+      a-cryin' before she got it all out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She always said &ldquo;she wanted to be found always at the foot of the Cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical, and
+      then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out into
+      tears somewhere through it from first to last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+      melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz present
+      for the first time after his wive's death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly&mdash;she was most a
+      head taller than any man there&mdash;and she sez out loud and strong:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to be found&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some time.
+      And then she begun agin,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to be found&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she busted out agin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="069.jpg (157K)" src="images/069.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so it went on for some time&mdash;she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+      and firm, &ldquo;that she wanted to be found&mdash;&rdquo; and then bustin' into
+      tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+      gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+      right out onto the him&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that will be joyful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Lum sot down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+      bring forward that verse of scripter. That the Bible said &ldquo;'there wuz a
+      time to laugh,' and I didn't know when it wuz unless it wuz when you
+      couldn't help it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda&mdash;no, indeed. I only said it
+      because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin' house
+      down on her so heavy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josiah said, &ldquo;What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+      punish its unruly members?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez to Josiah, &ldquo;Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+      Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of, and
+      the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it, Josiah
+      Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And Miss Henn
+      is a widder and poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez Josiah, calmly, &ldquo;she hain't been able to help the meetin' house
+      much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, &ldquo;I hearn he did at the time he wuz up&mdash;I
+      hearn he contributed <i>lots</i> to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+      him&mdash;but,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+      allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay in
+      the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that is
+      sendin' men to ruin all round him&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way so
+      it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every low
+      saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and boy that
+      wants it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm&mdash;so he
+      jest entices 'em down into the road to ruin&mdash;doin' as much agin harm
+      as a whiskey seller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are always
+      appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by their
+      peers, but wimmen never are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked it
+      to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+      about Metilda's case&mdash;thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+      house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+      doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="070.jpg (119K)" src="images/070.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's mother
+      set on him? She is a Sister in the meetin' house and Charley is a ruined
+      boy&mdash;and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin&mdash;
+      jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if he
+      had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who have
+      to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of their
+      crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red with the
+      blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and deeper-stained
+      with the ruin of their immortal souls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there and
+      see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other young
+      souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young hearts that
+      wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that wuz true and
+      tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink. Young lips that
+      smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that changed the smiles to
+      curses?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+      paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+      jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+      easy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+      down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went down
+      into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again. But
+      what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has no
+      mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges downward?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+      and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+      love, a divine purity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+      roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez I, &ldquo;Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister Irene
+      Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz the first
+      cause of her goin' astray kep in&mdash;the handsome, smooth-faced
+      hypocrite?&mdash;it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest plastered
+      over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine speeches and his
+      money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="071.jpg (133K)" src="images/071.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+      towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have pinted
+      the other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+      sez he,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="c18" id="c18"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="072c18.jpg (100K)" src="images/072c18.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+      what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the most
+      it is only <i>talk</i>, wimmen hain't got it in their power to <i>do</i>
+      anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way&mdash;a little wind
+      storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+      almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+      gently sarcestickle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness that
+      wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed that
+      kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I d'no as she wuz his victim,&rdquo; sez Josiah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the man
+      that led her astray.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wuzn't proved,&rdquo; sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin' at
+      the advertisement on the back side on't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why wuzn't it proved?&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;because he held a big piece of gold
+      against the mouths of the witnesses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't see any in front of my mouth,&rdquo; sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+      some composed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you know what the story wuz,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;accordin' to that, he did it
+      all to try her faith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+      well what the story wuz he referred to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+      to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+      their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+      eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they all
+      knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down right
+      by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right while he
+      wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially, he put his
+      arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="073.jpg (56K)" src="images/073.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that it
+      drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, &ldquo;Bretheren and
+      sisters, let us sing these lines:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did it all to try her faith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen by
+      lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes&mdash;nor I didn't
+      smile&mdash;oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+      indignatin in my axents, and sez I, &ldquo;Josiah Allen, can you look me in the
+      face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep such
+      men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?&rdquo; Sez I, &ldquo;If
+      they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for the
+      influence of men that like hard drink?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, as it were,&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;I&mdash;that is&mdash;wall, it is
+      a-gettin' bed-time, Samantha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour&mdash;and I
+      dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+      we felt that she wuz a great loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender hearted,
+      shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that had come onto
+      our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+      time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+      help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had a
+      little help gin her when she needed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Miss Bobbet said &ldquo;she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+      bein' cast down.&rdquo; And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+      wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several of
+      'em did. But I sez to 'em&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good land!&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+      meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+      and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+      help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+      and we can do it agin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't jine
+      in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what the
+      minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a spell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+      jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+      knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each other's
+      housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and prayed&mdash;we
+      all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest rastled in
+      prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the Methodist meetin'
+      house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up and madded, that they
+      didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come to nothin' or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew our
+      places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we had a
+      right to).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+      best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+      enough to raise some money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+      make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+      course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as the
+      way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+      cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+      out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+      otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+      rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+      our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl at
+      the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors, makin'
+      soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that we
+      couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+      hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+      fix up the old house a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+      right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do half,
+      or more than half, or even <i>all</i> the work. They said it wuzn't aginst
+      the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and always had
+      been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But when it come
+      to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with 'em, or settin'
+      up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to be drawed, wimmen must
+      not be permitted to strain herself in no such ways&mdash;nor resk the
+      tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a meetin' house as a delegate
+      by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too resky. But we could lay holt
+      and work with 'em in public, or in private, which we felt wuz indeed a
+      privelege, for the interests of the Methodist meetin' house wuz dear to
+      our hearts, and so wuz our pardners' approvals&mdash;and they wuz all on
+      'em unanimus on this pint&mdash;we could <i>work</i> all we wanted to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+      with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we had
+      got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+      painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and we
+      had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to be a
+      perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house wuz
+      about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had to be
+      all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought, and the
+      scrapin' had begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="074.jpg (95K)" src="images/074.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+      together, and raised enough money to get the paper&mdash;it wuz very nice,
+      and fifty cents a roll (double roll). These young females appearin' in
+      public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house, and
+      wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for I
+      remember I asked about it when the question first come up about sendin'
+      female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of our
+      meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sez, &ldquo;I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud es
+      she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino of the
+      very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and sights of
+      quavers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But they all said that wuz a <i>very</i> different thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And sez I, &ldquo;How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good of the
+      Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big congregatin,
+      we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to 'yea' and 'nay'
+      in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't see why it would
+      be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them&rdquo;&mdash;and sez I, &ldquo;they
+      would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala had on a low
+      neck and short sleeves.&rdquo; But they wouldn't yield, and I wouldn't nuther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the scrapin'
+      had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper could go
+      on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may say, neither
+      hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'. And of all the
+      lookin' sights it wuz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't have
+      it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists and
+      'Piscopals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to do
+      the scrapin' with case knives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts as
+      I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of fallin' and
+      a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a standin' round on
+      similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their strengths, and all afraid
+      of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had got ahead on us a paperin'
+      and a gettin' up the fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c19" id="c19"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="075c19.jpg (95K)" src="images/075c19.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me that
+      there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that is harder
+      to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up before us
+      Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and to make
+      peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women there
+      wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but what would
+      ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the Methodist
+      Meetin' House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much all
+      the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time to tackle
+      very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful strainin' and
+      wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur we had to jest
+      nip in and work the hull durin' time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+      any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+      thought quelled us down a sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round and
+      round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted up by
+      'em more or less. It was Nater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at the
+      ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin' house,
+      Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen to ventur
+      out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="076.jpg (59K)" src="images/076.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+      Jonesville with a extra grip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+      workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+      bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me, from
+      mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz brung
+      on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would talk <i>very</i> skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat
+      pages of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed
+      also by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suffered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah would set with the <i>World</i> and other papers in his hand,
+      a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+      minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+      me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+      supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+      up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he left
+      off, the nite mairs would begin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began wild
+      and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin' rostrums. And
+      sez he, &ldquo;That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and not
+      bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's work,
+      I sez to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+      meetin' house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="077.jpg (166K)" src="images/077.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah said, &ldquo;it wuz suthin' altogether different.&rdquo; And he assured me
+      agin,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin' to
+      accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is why,&rdquo;
+       sez he, &ldquo;that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do most all
+      the hard work in the church&mdash;such as raisin' money for church work&mdash;earnin'
+      money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds of charity work
+      connected with it&mdash;teachin' the children, nursin' the sick, carryin'
+      on hospital work, etc., etc. But,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;this is fur, fur different
+      from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a Conference. Why,&rdquo; sez
+      he, in a haughty tone, &ldquo;I should think they'd know without havin' to be
+      told that laymen don't mean women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+      Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for wimmen's
+      votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men vote for
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the pint,&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;that is the very pint I have been tryin'
+      to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't help
+      wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+      explain it to you that the word laymen <i>always</i> means woman when she
+      can help men in any way, but <i>not</i> when he can help her, or in any
+      other sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+      meetin' house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, &ldquo;the word laymen always means
+      wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+      case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+      places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+      men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, in a very dry axent, &ldquo;Then the word man, when it is used in church
+      matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned, and
+      drowdgin' round?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez Josiah haughtily, &ldquo;And it always means men in the higher and
+      more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin' on
+      Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so,&rdquo; sez he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who settled it?&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the men, of course,&rdquo; sez he. &ldquo;The men have always made the rules of
+      the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+      difficult,&rdquo; sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, &ldquo;It
+      seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+      and when it means wimmen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; sez Josiah. &ldquo;It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+      wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+      word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+      that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men and
+      wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment, taxin'
+      property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes right on
+      the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely, votin', takin'
+      charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair where
+      the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+      understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+      born.' That means men and wimmen both&mdash;men and wimmen are both born,
+      nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.' Now
+      that means men only&mdash;anybody with one eye can see that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+      both&mdash;consists&mdash;of course the government consists of men and
+      wimmen, 'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+      governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?&rdquo; sez he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in hand
+      waitin' for it to bile&mdash;&ldquo;I see a great deal, Josiah Allen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="078.jpg (126K)" src="images/078.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;I am glad on't. Now to sum it up,&rdquo; sez he, with some the
+      mean of a preacher&mdash;or, ruther, a exhauster&mdash;&ldquo;to sum the matter
+      all up, the words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+      as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of the
+      church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money all
+      that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up missionary
+      and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help from the male
+      sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of the meanin' of the
+      word&mdash;sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind both of the sexes,
+      rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit their own idees,
+      preachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?&rdquo; sez he, proudly and
+      loftily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last biled.
+      &ldquo;Yes, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder and
+      haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say anything to
+      break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all his sect looked
+      at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male sect if I tried&mdash;clergymen,
+      statesmen and all&mdash;so I didn't try, and I wuz truly beat out with my
+      day's work, and I didn't drop more than one idee more. I simply dropped
+      this remark es I poured out his tea and put some good cream into it&mdash;I
+      merely sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+      men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,&rdquo;
+       and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+      ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+      folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+      delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard, and
+      what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+      Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+      question I had put to him&mdash;for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+      skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+      elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my recuperation,
+      and so I sez agin them words&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?&rdquo; And Josiah said
+      agin, &ldquo;it wuz suthin' entirely different;&rdquo; he said barells and rostrums
+      wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day hardly,
+      let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long argument full of
+      Bible quotations and everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+      the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+      skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor the
+      work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of that
+      meetin house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+      then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c20" id="c20"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="079c20.jpg (100K)" src="images/079c20.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+      and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+      meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for we
+      knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+      wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+      middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+      round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+      and nerved up her body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+      Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+      &ldquo;Cleanliness <i>next</i> to godliness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+      with a willin' mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may say,
+      a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door, and
+      a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz workin'
+      jest as hard as wimmen ever worked&mdash;and all of the wimmen who wuzn't
+      engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews a-workin'
+      hard on articles for the fair&mdash;when all of a suddin the outside door
+      opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men bretheren.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for Deaconesses,
+      and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that wuz Celestine
+      Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon to
+      tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear it as
+      soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once that if
+      she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his derectin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+      privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess, and
+      have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin' house,
+      with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell me what
+      to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+      she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere near
+      time for us to go home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+      other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that they
+      had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and then they
+      wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+      temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and the
+      heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="080.jpg (135K)" src="images/080.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle, partly
+      for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good manners, and
+      didn't say much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+      news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted way&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+      jest like you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, &ldquo;no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+      wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all your
+      days at church work under the direction of us men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you,&rdquo; sez she admirin'ly, &ldquo;I
+      could work jest like you&mdash;pass round the bread and wine and the
+      contribution box Sundays?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, Drusilly,&rdquo; sez he condesendinly, &ldquo;these hard and arjuous dutys
+      belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+      that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+      duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin' the
+      wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+      patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+      deacon), &ldquo;wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+      together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers&mdash;work
+      for the good of the church together&mdash;go about doin' good?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Drusilly,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+      moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+      her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work, for
+      which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+      of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+      and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+      her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+      generally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method of
+      argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question, the
+      negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their side
+      of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's usual
+      way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and transparent
+      manner of speakin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+      &ldquo;he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+      Conference, because it would <i>weaken</i> the Conference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+      talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+      the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+      excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be weakenin'
+      to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of her own lack
+      of strength and also from the fact that every woman you would admit would
+      keep out a man. And that,&rdquo; sez he (a-leanin' back in a still easier
+      attitude, almust a luxurious one), &ldquo;that, you see, would tend naterally to
+      weakenin' the strength of a church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="081.jpg (65K)" src="images/081.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, &ldquo;move round a
+      little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub under
+      it. And,&rdquo; sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin and sweat
+      offen my face, &ldquo;Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay holt and help
+      us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under 'em? Some of 'em
+      are very hefty,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;and all of us Sisters almost are a-makin' soap,
+      and we all want to get done here, so we can go home and bile down; we
+      would dearly love a little help,&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would help,&rdquo; sez Josiah in a willin' tone, &ldquo;I would help in a minute,
+      if I hadn't got so much work to do at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And all the other male bretheren said the same thing&mdash;they had got to
+      git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers, and
+      I knew it.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c21" id="c21"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="082c21.jpg (109K)" src="images/082c21.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and his
+      farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights of
+      work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+      a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without the
+      sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out the
+      steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt she
+      that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+      come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some of
+      his folks that day, over to Loontown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+      a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+      by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses, and
+      the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this one
+      work&mdash;deacon work&mdash;and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any
+      other hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only
+      jest plain deacon work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate, and
+      a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the piece had
+      convinced her&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+      should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would be
+      apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom would
+      most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="083.jpg (105K)" src="images/083.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+      this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin' up
+      on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very tickled to
+      think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty bushels, than
+      Deacon Petengill had with his. There was a bet upon these two deacons, so
+      it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place where he wuz to be
+      setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder hollerin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+      kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mean wuz wild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear; she
+      cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to old
+      Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along after
+      'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in a
+      fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+      nuther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+      invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+      long, long time, and it wuz what he called &ldquo;A Travellin' Rat Trap.&rdquo; It wuz
+      designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="085.jpg (57K)" src="images/085.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+      machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em&mdash;rats
+      or mice, or anything&mdash;and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+      all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+      chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+      out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+      minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+      satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+      every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin' machine
+      business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deacon Sypher had took the agency for &ldquo;The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+      Boy of the Plain,&rdquo; and wuz doin' well by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+      winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+      tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+      took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+      deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time, and
+      arneky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="086.jpg (58K)" src="images/086.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+      help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+      looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile his
+      threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself away,
+      but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on his way
+      down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him about that
+      travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick as he could,
+      to try it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to break
+      had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't hardly
+      dast to go nigh 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin' to
+      see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under him
+      for &ldquo;The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain.&rdquo; And he wanted to show the &ldquo;Leaping
+      Cow Boy&rdquo; to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way home, and
+      to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the wimmen had gin
+      hopes that they would take the &ldquo;Leaping Cow Boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then they said&mdash;the hull three of the deacons did&mdash;that any
+      minute them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the
+      buzz saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+      demanded the hull of their time&mdash;every minute of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+      of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+      the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+      and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we would
+      any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+      Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+      (men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business to
+      meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+      business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+      up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is on account of their minds,&rdquo; sez Josiah. &ldquo;Men have got stronger
+      minds than wimmen, that is the reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Meechim sez agin&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men deacons
+      can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is, if they are
+      took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+      brains hain't so hefty es men's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+      loud, clear tone,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, shaw!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+      dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+      out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where you
+      are a-standin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; sez Josiah, in a polite axent, &ldquo;certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so the rest of the men said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+      puddin', and so forth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, &ldquo;Have I ever failed, Josiah Allen,
+      to have good dinners for you, and on time too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it, and
+      also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+      deaconesses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work in the
+      meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister Arvilly
+      Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue (some think
+      that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had chances).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+      superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="087.jpg (128K)" src="images/087.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez Sister Gowdy&mdash;she loves to put on Arvilly&mdash;&ldquo;wall,
+      you have got one qualificatin', Arvilly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, thank the Lord,&rdquo; sez she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+      her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, <i>I</i> think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c22" id="c22"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="088c22.jpg (111K)" src="images/088c22.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me to
+      brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long, so I
+      didn't care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+      jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay to
+      supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+      account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+      wuz company, or lay out to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+      good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had jest got home from the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had to
+      go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody else
+      couldn't sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="089.jpg (64K)" src="images/089.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+      well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+      powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+      bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+      that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+      plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+      museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+      cetery, et cetery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+      boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in the
+      hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very highest
+      pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez, &ldquo;Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+      Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he acted real scorfin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wimmen's work!&rdquo; sez he. &ldquo;No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and too
+      much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such little
+      trifles as wimmen's work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if it
+      hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you are
+      a-usin'?&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;who educated you and made your life easy before you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother wuz
+      a good woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin' it,
+      as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over with
+      Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz a
+      seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+      table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of my
+      brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="090.jpg (149K)" src="images/090.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez Casper, &ldquo;It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;when
+      I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen keepin' down
+      in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in that
+      Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+      reasons why poor weak wimmen should <i>not</i> be admitted into that
+      sacred enclosure&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+      wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I have
+      ever experienced. Why, he said,&rdquo; sez Casper, &ldquo;that if wimmen wuz allowed
+      to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The next thing
+      they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly argument,&rdquo; sez
+      Casper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been,&rdquo; sez my Josiah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+      a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well he might,&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;well he might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This wuz
+      one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real solemn
+      like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only more sort o'
+      riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig some as the
+      dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its feet&mdash;no
+      foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of truth it
+      could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and curius I felt
+      hearin' their talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+      had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I have
+      probable experienced more emotions in his behalf,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;deep and
+      earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his burdens
+      for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his unexampled
+      griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the very depths
+      of my soul at his freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+      deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+      emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+      and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen are
+      too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach, I'd
+      love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and where
+      they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand and her
+      big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all over the
+      world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody says that
+      'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the old, hard
+      ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted and bring
+      forth freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster would
+      to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him up to
+      his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought and sold,
+      and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many animals. And
+      I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told him so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', &ldquo;no, you wouldn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I would,&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;And I'd 've enjoyed it <i>richly</i>&rdquo; sez I, es I
+      turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="091.jpg (128K)" src="images/091.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+      machin' for about the same length of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+      a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+      dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+      done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister Bobbet,
+      our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin' and hurt her
+      ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n several days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+      must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+      concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account of
+      Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my own
+      mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+      entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+      my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to his
+      sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+      rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart failure,
+      and such.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="092.jpg (58K)" src="images/092.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+      and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+      and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+      takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+      seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now I
+      wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown to
+      him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake.&rdquo; Rosy wuz
+      Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+      now a father's strong hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always been
+      dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the savages.
+      So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property with Miss
+      Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took his Bible and
+      him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+      and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+      upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+      by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz lost&mdash;a-tryin'
+      single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits, and set up the
+      pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="093.jpg (58K)" src="images/093.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time&mdash;he felt
+      weak and mauger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got in
+      with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she <i>needed</i>
+      a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else she would be
+      liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with her, for she wuz a
+      born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father wuz&mdash;so wouldn't
+      Ralph come home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked and
+      longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love and worship
+      a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that the
+      clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost crazed
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with him
+      through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The world
+      seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so near, that
+      truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, &ldquo;he walked with
+      God.&rdquo; Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they wuz still a good
+      deal of the time, which is more than you can say for Yankees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+      Presidential election.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph suffered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+      the droppin's of the sanctuary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered up
+      right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under the
+      steeple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by the
+      voice of his soul and his good silver watch&mdash;this volume of clamor,
+      this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz perfectly
+      intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin' dreadin' the
+      sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he come down with
+      nervous fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he wuz
+      took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he bein'
+      outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no idees of
+      his own, so he lay and suffered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="c23" id="c23"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="094c23.jpg (102K)" src="images/094c23.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+      Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+      all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+      Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work of
+      paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't languish
+      on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the female
+      Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in Loontown wuz
+      a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled me to go, every one
+      on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel divisions of opinions as
+      to the road I should take a-goin' there, what day I should come back, what
+      remiedies wuz best for me to recommend when I got there, what dress I
+      should wear, and whether I should wear a hankerchif pin or not&mdash;or a
+      bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc., etc., etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+      meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case before
+      the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful that the
+      interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence. One or two
+      of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder deprestin'
+      about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+      with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+      Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go into
+      the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has always
+      been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice to Josiah
+      Allen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Howsumever, I don't <i>know</i> that. But I do know that they started off
+      a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back home
+      about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="095.jpg (48K)" src="images/095.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+      said they bought 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+      bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either one
+      of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the truth
+      of this. I know what they <i>said</i>, they <i>said</i> the huntin' wuz
+      excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+      excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+      should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+      and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+      accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+      bigger ones, and shot more deers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a good
+      deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and, suffice it
+      to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our journey to
+      Loontown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="096.jpg (123K)" src="images/096.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale and
+      wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been there a
+      spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well as their
+      love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts and their
+      souls and their idealized fancies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good a
+      one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+      mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24 hours
+      I begun to feel some as they did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+      that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+      and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+      mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all, had
+      chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and struggle
+      toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine sweetness and
+      passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost as
+      ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But under
+      all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his good
+      lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire that
+      wuz a-consumin' of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms and
+      sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+      Timson to understand that I wuz there to <i>help</i> 'em if I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For,&rdquo; sez I softly, &ldquo;the hull future time is left for us to weep in, but
+      the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves or
+      beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all through
+      the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to give
+      him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+      refused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+      from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+      sleep, &ldquo;buzz saw mill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+      roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful.&rdquo; And I wouldn't
+      waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+      thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+      in haste&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+      real treat to keep awake all night, now and then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="097.jpg (59K)" src="images/097.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case might
+      be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without disputin'
+      with my Josiah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+      still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+      stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that language,
+      I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my feelin's. And
+      then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange, strange tongue,
+      and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God! the
+      peace! the peace!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he wuz
+      a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside and
+      inside, that he invoked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend down
+      and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which wuz
+      a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+      sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+      spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time he
+      wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever would
+      turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep then,
+      and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+      seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all excited
+      and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin' bells which
+      would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin' it wuz a case
+      of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to tackle in the
+      matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and tackled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c24" id="c24"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="098c24.jpg (93K)" src="images/098c24.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXIV.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by perswaision,
+      and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed goes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+      And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added to
+      him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal of
+      sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+      tenderness and sweetness of nater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+      he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would hender
+      him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy. Yes, if more
+      men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers would fairly
+      suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me if
+      I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+      &ldquo;business!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I spoze
+      the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and then he
+      wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every one of 'em
+      good ones).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+      ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one, or,
+      that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did make me
+      think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound, and sort o'
+      firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="099.jpg (144K)" src="images/099.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+      is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+      and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells in
+      the mornin' would roust him up, and I had come to see if he would omit the
+      ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ring the bells!&rdquo; sez he, in wild amaze. &ldquo;Not ring the church bells on
+      the Sabbath day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+      bells in the mornin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a <i>Christian</i> to not ring the
+      Sabbath bells!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+      And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make the
+      story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for the good of
+      others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now a-layin' at the
+      very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz a-breakin' their
+      hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin' his life if he could
+      get some sleep, that the doctors said his life depended on it, and agin I
+      begged him to do what we asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+      anybody ever could, as he sez: &ldquo;The bells never hurt anybody, I know, for
+      here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look broke
+      down and weak?&rdquo; sez he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; sez I, honestly. &ldquo;No more than a grannit monument, or a steel trap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;folks are made up different.&rdquo; Sez I, &ldquo;The Bible sez so, and
+      what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you ever
+      nervous?&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; sez he. And he added firmly, &ldquo;I don't believe in nerves. I never
+      did. There hain't no use in 'm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then,&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;As a generel thing the Lord
+      don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;there
+      hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any way,
+      sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one state
+      can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the sound of
+      the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to him, and, I
+      am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not have 'em rung in
+      the mornin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a professor?&rdquo; sez he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What perswaision?&rdquo; sez he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Methodist Episcopal,&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+      errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set aside
+      the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the Sabbath to
+      go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause of religion
+      languish&mdash;I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread desolation it
+      would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The sound of the church-going bells,<br /> These valleys and hills never
+      heard.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks seem
+      to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and better time
+      than they do to meetin',&rdquo; sez I. &ldquo;In your opinin' it hain't necessary to
+      beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz, to call folks
+      to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+      agrivatin' to saint and sinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;they say they do it for the sake of religion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks,&rdquo; sez he bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;nor in a bell clapper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+      worshippers together, that is necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez he, &ldquo;Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I candidly, &ldquo;and in the sweet past they wuz necessary,&rdquo; sez I.
+      &ldquo;In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz fur
+      apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what is
+      runnin' over with clocks&mdash;everybody knows the time; they know it so
+      much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+      along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals, their
+      business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their visits, their
+      visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They time their joys
+      and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all through the week, and
+      why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not time themselves on goin'
+      to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There hain't no earthly need of the
+      bells to tell the time to go to meetin', no more than there is to tell the
+      time to put on the tea-kettle to get supper. If folks want to go to
+      meetin' they will get there, bells or no bells, and if they don't want to
+      go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take a man with the Sunday <i>World</i> jest brung in, a-layin' on a
+      lounge, with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place,
+      bells hain't a-goin' to start him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+      novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before, and
+      bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow won't
+      start 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="100.jpg (55K)" src="images/100.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves church
+      work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in trouble, lost
+      his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of bells hain't
+      a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a bell on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject,&rdquo; sez he (I had convinced
+      him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks wanted
+      to go they always got there, bells or no bells). &ldquo;But,&rdquo; sez he wavin' off
+      that side of the subject, &ldquo;the observance is so time honored, so hallowed
+      by tender memories and associations all through the past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;that I know every single
+      emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+      associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+      bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+      that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+      'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+      But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+      feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agony!&rdquo; sez he, &ldquo;talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a more
+      heavenly sound on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="101.jpg (124K)" src="images/101.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it has been to me,&rdquo; sez I candidly. &ldquo;To me they have always sounded
+      beautiful, heavenly. Why,&rdquo; sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond Deacon
+      Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and insperation come
+      to me borne out of the past into my very soul, by the tender memories of
+      the bells&mdash;thoughts of the great host of believers who had gathered
+      together at the sound of the bells&mdash;the great army of the Redeemed&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Some of the host have crossed the flood,<br /> and some are crossin' now,'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+      Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+      used to him,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a still
+      spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier roses. A
+      dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine a-fleckin'
+      the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the hummin' birds
+      a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over all and through
+      all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur off a-floatin' through
+      the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells, a-bringin' to us sweet
+      Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin' memories too, of other mornin's
+      as fair and sweet, when other ears listened with us to the sound, other
+      eyes looked out on the summer beauty, and smiled at the sound of the
+      bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet emotions come to me on the melody of the
+      bells, peaceful thoughts, inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude
+      that has flocked together at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the
+      eager youthful feet, the children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of
+      the bells. Thoughts of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side
+      by side, at their ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired,
+      and goin' to their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of
+      the brave hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the
+      bells wuz ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they
+      pealed out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of
+      how the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+      with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us (as
+      it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+      emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+      have rung into my very soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+      dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+      sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+      common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+      lead me round a good deal of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to step
+      gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly sweet,
+      but any one can get along without it, take it right along through the
+      year, better than they can without sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along a
+      good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+      could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of it.
+      You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+      comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that hain't
+      so fortunate as I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried also
+      to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can get a
+      clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said, I would
+      love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin' gently over
+      the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me than the voices
+      of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South in the spring of
+      the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and on as fur as my own
+      feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the subject through the
+      tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves of others, who are sot
+      down right under the wild clamor of the bells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+      sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+      a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up from
+      their fitful sleep, that murders sleep&mdash;the bells to them seem
+      murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="102.jpg (134K)" src="images/102.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+      the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+      of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at last.
+      Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse than the
+      realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a instrument of
+      torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb screws and
+      racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of Religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+      under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the sun
+      comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So we can
+      have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can have the
+      telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast. So's we can
+      have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in the morning. I
+      must think of them who protect us through the night so we can sleep in
+      peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and benafacters,
+      work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we can do for these
+      is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the world's
+      work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through the week
+      days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get a little
+      rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and wimmen,
+      nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They could
+      get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life to help
+      support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much for 'em&mdash;the
+      religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender. It clangs and
+      bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+      always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+      oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+      under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+      that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+      coarser, more sensual vision.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez Deacon Garven: &ldquo;I consider the bells as missionarys. They help spread
+      the Gospel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+      could, &ldquo;Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+      land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without the
+      help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he ortn't
+      to be tortured to death now by 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with his
+      present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it wuz different times now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+      over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+      is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+      the sick, and tender hearted always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall, <i>I</i> will help him,&rdquo; sez Deacon Garven, &ldquo;I will watch, and I
+      will pray, and I will work for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if he
+      gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+      mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+      there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez he kinder meltin' down a little, &ldquo;I will talk with the
+      bretheren.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez he, &ldquo;I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+      into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of the
+      church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sez I, &ldquo;Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+      and I believe it is safe to foller 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren, and
+      I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out afterwuds, I
+      wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon Garven in his own
+      smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a guard over him, armed
+      nearly to the teeth with clubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for a
+      few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up in
+      bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift up
+      his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+      in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+      through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+      the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+      same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and go
+      down some&mdash;very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+      into a troubled sleep&mdash;or it wuz a troubled sleep at first&mdash;but
+      growin' deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight
+      o'clock he wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it
+      wuz a quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could
+      be seen on his softened features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid of
+      makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in our
+      anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did whisper to
+      Rosy in a low still voice&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="103.jpg (133K)" src="images/103.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried and
+      wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks to
+      the Lord for his mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+      every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a teaspoon
+      ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if he needed
+      it, or medicine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When all of a sudden&mdash;slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+      bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the bells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+      never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+      another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+      died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it. He
+      who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="104.jpg (158K)" src="images/104.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them strange
+      words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I thought then,
+      and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction on the savages.
+      And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from on High at that
+      last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all benighted
+      savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c25" id="c25"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="105c25.jpg (104K)" src="images/105c25.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXV.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all met
+      to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the very
+      hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+      of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and scrape
+      the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls, and each
+      other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift <i>both</i> arms
+      over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+      us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+      the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+      homes on the run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in our
+      constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die in the
+      attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="106.jpg (38K)" src="images/106.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+      that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the paper&mdash;we
+      all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a conference
+      meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz bein' made
+      over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his poor weak
+      right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons in that same
+      strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right through, earnest
+      and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by the looks of his
+      face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that same singular
+      language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and go
+      down some&mdash;very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+      into a troubled sleep&mdash;or it wuz a troubled sleep at first&mdash;but
+      growin' deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight
+      o'clock he wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it
+      wuz a quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could
+      be seen on his softened features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="107.jpg (158K)" src="images/107.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid of
+      makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in our
+      anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did whisper to
+      Rosy in a low still voice&mdash;it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy offered to
+      be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that very
+      afternoon&mdash;for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+      testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+      didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient weakness&mdash;so
+      we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz arrainged before we
+      disbanded (the result of our conference), that the next mornin' we would
+      each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair, and hand 'em in to the
+      treasurer, so's she would know in time what to depend on, and what she had
+      to do with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each one
+      on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+      us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+      them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+      melancholy groan all to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="108.jpg (59K)" src="images/108.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+      and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded, I
+      ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+      that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day wuz
+      the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+      Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she always
+      set the plate on for him&mdash;the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+      her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of us,
+      and the hull of mine wuz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had sold
+      our sorell colt for a awful big price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+      and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen at
+      that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his foot
+      on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most the
+      hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its own
+      livin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz very
+      small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="109.jpg (139K)" src="images/109.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+      but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+      there in a icy night to feed it. But jest as it is always the way with
+      wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended on
+      me, the better I liked it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+      to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+      my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+      and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much about
+      it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+      amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of other
+      slightin' remarks. And he'd call it &ldquo;horse corset&rdquo; in a kind of a light,
+      triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back with icy
+      night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="110.jpg (134K)" src="images/110.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+      feather piller and say to me: &ldquo;Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+      have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Horse corset</i>! 'Wall, what if it wuz?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to a
+      cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms&mdash;and
+      he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took&mdash;etc., etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to get
+      up and get my feet so cold).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+      truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+      long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it got to
+      thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the stronger, and
+      the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and increased, till he
+      got to settin' a sight of store by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+      fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+      that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+      wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+      year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the least
+      he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+      consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+      tackled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="c26" id="c26"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="111c26.jpg (104K)" src="images/111c26.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXVI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+      box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the wants
+      and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female sisters wuz
+      a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our ingregiencies
+      with for the fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There wuz
+      four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the very
+      least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and mebby both
+      on 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+      pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="112.jpg (128K)" src="images/112.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+      least I said some words to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of how I
+      felt on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't want
+      a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+      Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+      wuz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the subject&mdash;and
+      spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my back to him,
+      a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece of mind. And
+      thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be repentent, and hand
+      me out a ten dollar bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+      awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+      hand, and sez I:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="113.jpg (140K)" src="images/113.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+      so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I dare
+      persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions that
+      there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked over,
+      and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have been
+      worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?&rdquo; sez I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why m-i-t-e, mit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;that that spells mite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+      agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+      that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute remark,
+      bringin' the &ldquo;mite&rdquo; in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no, there wuzn't
+      a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement, but solemn and
+      bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the stove, solemn, and
+      took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his shirt collar agin with
+      solemnety and deep earnest. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; Josiah Allen continued, &ldquo;there hain't no
+      sense in that&mdash;but mit! there you have sense. All wimmen wear mits;
+      they love 'em. She most probable had a good pair, and lost one on 'em, and
+      then give the other to the church. I tell you it takes men to translate
+      the Bible, they have such a realizin' sense of the weaknesses of wimmen,
+      and how necessary it is to translate it in such a way as to show up them
+      weaknesses, and quell her down, and make her know her place, make her know
+      that man is her superior in every way, and it is her duty as well as
+      privilege to look up to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty and
+      over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up haughtily
+      at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is jest
+      my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+      wuz fairly hissin' hot. &ldquo;She most probable had some man to advise her, and
+      to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin' house.&rdquo; Oh,
+      how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony one I keep by
+      me&mdash;and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of necessity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most probable,&rdquo; sez Josiah, &ldquo;most probable she did.&rdquo; He thought I wuz
+      praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+      widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+      the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it,&rdquo; sez he &ldquo;and I mean to
+      mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take up
+      a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+      burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any livin'
+      soul on earth, I'll part with you.&rdquo; And I would, if it wuz the last move I
+      ever made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+      Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+      sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples, every
+      feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled and
+      strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and I
+      took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and carried
+      it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told 'em, at the
+      request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="114.jpg (41K)" src="images/114.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their money,
+      told jest how they come by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+      Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+      banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in mendin',
+      so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven cents for
+      the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the exception of three
+      cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She has the colic fearful,
+      and peppermint sometimes quells it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business (twins).
+      But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could rake and
+      scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband had gin her
+      for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a ruffle round the
+      bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt), but she concluded to
+      make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who married
+      a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents apiece, and
+      Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the feathers offen her
+      own back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="115.jpg (54K)" src="images/115.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+      the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+      ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and warlike,
+      and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift 'em right
+      up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she picked 'em at
+      what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+      is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over to
+      the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice ten
+      is twenty. She brung twenty cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four dollars
+      and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took it out of
+      the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and sold it to the
+      neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and besides gettin' her
+      a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'), she gin the hull to the
+      meetin' house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in the
+      money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+      got in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+      and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+      brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+      and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of it,
+      for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her&mdash;she wuz the widder
+      Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn what
+      he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to Sister
+      Grimshaw, by right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+      use, and for church work, and charity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because he is so hard with her,&rdquo; sez Sister Lanfear, &ldquo;and tears round so,
+      and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should dress
+      well&mdash;wants her to&mdash;and live well. But he don't want her to
+      spend a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin'
+      she should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+      any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+      threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wall,&rdquo; sez I, &ldquo;what business is it to him what she does with her own
+      money and her own property?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+      dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more openly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+      older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+      she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled three
+      days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day for
+      contogglin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a old
+      dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+      contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+      see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+      would be willin', so it is spozed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+      fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz kinder
+      funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more of'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+      Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="116.jpg (48K)" src="images/116.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+      couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+      part with it, but she did bring <i>that plate</i>. That pink edged, chiny
+      plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel Danker
+      for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in front of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+      hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full part
+      towerds helpin' the meetin' house along&mdash;so she tore up her memorial,
+      a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a burnt chiny
+      offerin' to the Lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+      begun to affect us like that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand in
+      that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she didn't,
+      but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we all knew
+      the feelin' she felt for the plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It affected all on us fearfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+      merely sez, when she wuz thanked: &ldquo;Oh, you are entirely welcome to it, and
+      I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+      more pitiful than tears would have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+      tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em, too.
+      Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c27" id="c27"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="117c27.jpg (99K)" src="images/117c27.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXVII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever happened
+      in Jonesville, or the world&mdash;although it is eppisodin' to tell on it
+      now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you may say,
+      my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I don't know
+      but I may as well tell it now as any time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+      told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+      the livin' truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+      a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+      the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she heard
+      a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears and
+      opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the warm
+      cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin Submit a
+      look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look that had in it
+      the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of faithfulness and
+      heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white, and
+      she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who be you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he sez,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Samuel Danker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin' chair,
+      he not bein' near enough to ketch her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair cushion
+      when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and the feather
+      oozed out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't tell this for truth, I only say that <i>they say</i> thus and so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="118.jpg (157K)" src="images/118.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+      that they wuz married that very night of his return, that too can be swore
+      to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit&mdash;superanuated, but
+      life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+      they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I don't
+      know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years younger,
+      and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy he looks,
+      and how he has renewed his age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+      more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+      wuz spozed to be envius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+      over both religous and seckuler grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for him
+      that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the plate,
+      and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself. How true it
+      is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of extra good
+      cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets down in a
+      rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="119.jpg (75K)" src="images/119.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>They don't come!</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+      onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and go
+      out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the frost
+      spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to her
+      empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of company
+      at that time of day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>They come!</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin' tears
+      on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all hope and
+      happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is a-standin'
+      right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with 'em.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+      sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her&mdash;Samuel
+      Danker by name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="120.jpg (140K)" src="images/120.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+      time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+      up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that I dropped in the
+      Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Submit brought the plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+      corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+      these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse takin'
+      'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala Crane,
+      Joe Cranes'es widder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+      five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+      had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us extremely
+      worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it with such a
+      cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz so thin and
+      wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin', and all darned
+      in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the money to get her a
+      new dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="121.jpg (118K)" src="images/121.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I wouldn't have been the one to
+      tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+      part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages&mdash;she is a
+      millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+      She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+      day's work wuz done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight cents
+      by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: &ldquo;The Wild, Wicked, and
+      Warlike Deeds of Man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she had
+      to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the time,
+      a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She said she
+      loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page to the
+      back bindin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had some
+      words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I wouldn't
+      buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to&mdash;sez I,
+      &ldquo;Arvilly, men are <i>jest</i> as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I gin
+      her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+      afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+      but'nuts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="122.jpg (57K)" src="images/122.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+      the worth on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+      for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't no
+      harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a halt's
+      worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she calculated to
+      make the old ones do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years old,
+      and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all swelled up
+      and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three pairs of
+      fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have laid holt
+      of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said a neighbor
+      had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she felt it wuz
+      her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very strong
+      Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+      Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she <i>had</i> to have to get
+      Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+      all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+      there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+      besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+      have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now he
+      wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't have
+      dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+      had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+      emergincies or bunnets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+      right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+      When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out of
+      zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+      strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+      would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+      Deacon's feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+      uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and gin
+      it to the fair to sell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+      needed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she would make us take it; she said &ldquo;if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+      she would say to her,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+      dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress and
+      mourn fer me in a black calico.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>That</i> Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would
+      say to her if she wuz alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+      worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything. She
+      loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+      children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps, and
+      her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="123.jpg (127K)" src="images/123.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <blockquote>
+        <p>
+          &ldquo;I love thy kingdom, Lord,<br /> The house of thine abode,<br /> The
+          church our dear Redeemer bought<br /> With His most precious blood.&rdquo;
+         </p>
+      </blockquote>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes, and
+      broke down, I well remember, at the third verse&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <blockquote>
+        <p>
+          &ldquo;For her my tears shall fall,<br /> For her my prayers ascend,<br /> For
+          her my toil and life be given,<br /> Till life and toil shall end.&rdquo;
+         </p>
+      </blockquote>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how she
+      had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought of the
+      church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars; the
+      storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten to
+      the fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+      Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+      hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived with
+      Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+      sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+      meetin' house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+      this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+      got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+      paperin'.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="c28" id="c28"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="124c28.jpg (111K)" src="images/124c28.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best qualified
+      to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet es it
+      hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it hadn't
+      been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly have shirked
+      out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy constituent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+      and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+      us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on the
+      ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up fur,
+      fur beyond the strength of their sockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="125.jpg (106K)" src="images/125.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen also, and it wuzn't for
+      me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out of
+      hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin' House
+      wuz at the Bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+      but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+      animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped holt
+      of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly Lanfear and
+      Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur a-holdin' up
+      Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our two barells,
+      Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy for us to mount
+      up on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+      best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the time
+      but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more wearin' and
+      awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it day and night
+      for weeks and weeks, every one on us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+      lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+      dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+      be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair to
+      loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility that
+      laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+      hull life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+      thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+      eyes&mdash;Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+      glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled&mdash;smiles broke out on
+      every face, about thirty smiles&mdash;a half a minute more and it would be
+      done, and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate
+      of our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+      of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+      Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+      the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin' house
+      that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had been
+      standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned. But as
+      I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in the land
+      wuz there and present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+      and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen that
+      had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't set, that
+      they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+      Josiah to read it out to us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+      smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us. But
+      he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great and
+      triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="126.jpg (143K)" src="images/126.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he read it out to us, and as we see that that breadth wuz spilte,
+      we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+      the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+      They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+      too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend with
+      such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men in a
+      bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair sex had
+      been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they sez, some
+      on 'em, &ldquo;Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for, if it
+      hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, &ldquo;cooin' doves&rdquo; and &ldquo;sweet
+      tender flowerets,&rdquo; as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in too
+      big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction. They
+      had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in Jonesville and
+      up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door as
+      they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+      a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the nation
+      on the decesion, for, sez they,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on anything&mdash;a
+      Conference or anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+      house agin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="127.jpg (100K)" src="images/127.jpg" style="width:100%;"  width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="appendix" id="appendix"></a><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in and
+      preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of
+      1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers have
+      deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered on the
+      floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+      legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+      ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+      and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+      Conference are held quadrennially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women delegates
+      were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral Conferences&mdash;namely,
+      The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference, The Pittsburgh
+      Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was made against the
+      admission of these delegates on the ground that the admission of women
+      delegates was not in accord with the constitutional provisions of the
+      Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive Rules. A special
+      Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in the General
+      Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members, to whom the
+      protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported adversely to the
+      admission of the four women delegates, the report alleging &ldquo;that under the
+      Constitution and laws of the Church as they now are, women are not
+      eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference.&rdquo; From the discussion
+      following this report, and lasting several days, the following six
+      addresses, three in favor of and three against the admission of the women
+      delegates, are selected and presented, with a few verbal corrections, as
+      published in the official journal of the Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+      have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+      spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body, ought
+      to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the Discipline of the
+      Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules is that these women
+      elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this General Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet it
+      was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they would
+      be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and afterward
+      demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not enrolled with the
+      others were called, and the protests were read. Their names have been
+      called as members of this body, and they are simply here as &ldquo;challenged&rdquo;
+       members. From that standpoint this question must be discussed, and any
+      disposition of this case under the circumstances must be in this
+      direction. These women delegates must be put out of this General
+      Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges of members
+      here. It is not a question of &ldquo;admitting&rdquo; them. Before this report, before
+      the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to vote and act, and
+      millions of people will hold us responsible, and I dare say that our votes
+      will be recorded as to whether they shall be &ldquo;put out&rdquo; or &ldquo;stay in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists for the
+      ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the membership of
+      the Church do not exist for the government. The world was made for man,
+      and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea in the government
+      of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the fundamental idea in
+      the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as we are enlisted in
+      the support of that government as ministers and members of the Church. Now
+      under this system of ecclesiastical government a time came in our history
+      when we submitted a grave question to the membership of the Church. It was
+      not a question simply of petition, asking the membership to send petitions
+      up to the General Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a
+      constitutional question not simply to the male members of the Church, for
+      that grand and noble man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the
+      New England Conference, moved himself to strike out the word &ldquo;male&rdquo; from
+      the report of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it
+      was stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+      General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the Church
+      the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay delegation
+      was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of suffrage to
+      the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed the responsibility
+      of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be questioned this way;
+      it may be explained that way; but the facts abide that the General
+      Conference granted to the women of the Church the right to vote on a great
+      and important question in ecclesiastical law. Now if you run a parallel
+      along the line of our government&mdash;and it has often been said that
+      there are parallels in the government of the United States corresponding
+      to lines of legislation and legislative action in the government of the
+      Church&mdash;you will find that the right of suffrage in the country at
+      the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the most sacred rights
+      that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right to cast a ballot for
+      the man or men he would have legislate for him; and for no trivial reason
+      can that right, when once granted to the American citizen, be taken away
+      from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and trace the history of
+      citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this way: First, a man
+      could vote under the government there who was a member of the Church.
+      Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little later on he could
+      vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and under the legislation
+      of our Church, first the women were granted the right to vote on the
+      principle of lay delegation, not on the &ldquo;plan&rdquo; of lay delegation, but on
+      the &ldquo;principle&rdquo; of lay delegation. That was decided by Bishop Simpson in
+      the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop Janes afterward in one of the
+      New York Conferences. On the principle of lay delegation, the women of the
+      Church were granted the right of suffrage; presently they appeared in the
+      Quarterly Conference, to vote as class-leaders, stewards, and
+      Sunday-school superintendents; and it created a little excitement, a
+      feverish state of feeling in the Church, and the General Conference simply
+      passed a resolution or a rule interpreting that action on the part of
+      women claiming this privilege in the Quarterly Conference as being a
+      &ldquo;right,&rdquo; and it was continued. Presently, as the right of suffrage of
+      women passed on and grew, they voted in the Electoral Conferences, and
+      there was no outcry made against it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in
+      the Church, or any presiding elder, or any minister challenging the right
+      of women to vote in Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and
+      yet for sixteen years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to
+      send laymen here to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to
+      elect Bishops and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to
+      where votes count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen
+      years, and only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that
+      the General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+      coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+      that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+      when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+      years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+      comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+      &ldquo;constitution of the men,&rdquo; who challenge these women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+      after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+      land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+      the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+      protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should be
+      protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was placed
+      in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the National
+      Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+      legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor of
+      it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to the
+      Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the South,
+      who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right to
+      hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+      question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+      holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+      at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will find
+      that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of their own
+      color to the House of Representatives, did that body say &ldquo;stop!&rdquo; &ldquo;we
+      protest, you cannot come in because of illegality&rdquo;? No. They were admitted
+      on the face of their credentials because they had first been granted the
+      right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the United States
+      Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not protested against,
+      but they were admitted as members of the United States Senate on the face
+      of their credentials. And why? Because the right of suffrage granted to
+      the freedmen of the South under a constitutional amendment of the nation,
+      carried with it the right of the men whom we fought to free, and did free,
+      in an awful war, to hold office in the nation. Now, sir, you must
+      interpret the law somewhat by the spirit of the times in which you live.
+      That is a mistaken notion to say that you must always go to the men that
+      made the law to get the interpretation of it. If that were true, would it
+      not always be wise for legislators to give their affidavits and place on
+      file their interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the
+      statute books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you
+      that it goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you
+      will find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+      spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+      General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+      Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a woman
+      practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back through
+      the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and you will
+      find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in the
+      Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+      admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+      amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted in
+      order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the judges
+      of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the Constitution
+      of the United States, said, &ldquo;Women may be officers of the Supreme Court,
+      and may practise law there.&rdquo; The same kind of a spirit, in interpreting
+      the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the Discipline of the Church,
+      will place these women delegates in this body where they have been sent.
+      The same thing is true of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and in the
+      Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out, as my judgment sees, and as
+      my conscience tells me, since before the government of God man and woman
+      are equally responsible. There is no way out of this dilemma for this
+      General Conference, but to say that these women delegates shall sit in
+      this body, where they have been sent, and where their names have been
+      called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+      to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+      Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+      the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+      this body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor of
+      Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+      discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+      ranks of her membership&mdash;(Time called.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification of
+      a passage of Scripture occurred to me, &ldquo;The enemy cometh in like a flood,
+      but I will lift up a standard against him.&rdquo; It is somewhat peculiar that
+      he should begin by making a statement about one of the most honored names
+      in American Methodism, a statement that has been published in the papers,
+      and that nine tenths of this body knew as well as he did. It must have
+      been intended as a part of his argument, and I regard it as of as much
+      force as anything he said after it. But in point of fact the question does
+      not turn upon the person, but upon the principle. I have received an
+      anonymous letter containing the following among other things, &ldquo;Beware how
+      you attack the holy cause of woman. Do you not know that obstacles to
+      progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the way?&rdquo; The signature of that letter
+      is ingenious. I cannot tell whether it was a man or a woman, for it reads
+      as follows, &ldquo;A Lover of your Soul and of Woman.&rdquo; Now, Mr. President, the
+      only candlestick that ought to be removed out of its place is the
+      candlestick that contains a candle that does not burn the pure oil of
+      truth. And I believe, sir, that with the best of intentions the three
+      speakers who have appeared have given us three chapters in different
+      styles of a work of fiction, and it is my duty to undertake to show where
+      they have slipped. The Apocrypha says, &ldquo;An eloquent man is known far and
+      near; but a man of understanding discerneth where he slippeth.&rdquo; I have no
+      claim to eloquence; never pretended to have any; but I have a claim to
+      some knowledge of Methodist history, to some ability to state my
+      sentiments, and to be without any fear of the results, either present or
+      prospective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot command
+      the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are in, and
+      defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take in the
+      full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has a
+      certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+      discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+      constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here, they
+      have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a contested
+      case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who ought to
+      vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing up
+      documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+      distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+      question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+      would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+      investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read it
+      <i>verbatim</i>. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read <i>verbatim</i>
+      from his letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question, and,
+      therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact, a vote
+      of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when the credentials
+      appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no notorious and undisputed
+      fact or circumstance against the qualifications and election of a senator,
+      to admit him at once and settle the question of his right afterward. But
+      there have been cases in which the Senate declined to admit a claimant
+      holding a regular certificate upon the ground that enough was known to the
+      Senate to justify its declining to receive him until an inquiry should be
+      had. Very truly yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;GEORGE F. EDMUNDS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+      upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows that
+      they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard to them
+      at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional challenge. I
+      champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion their cause
+      against their being introduced into this body without their own sex having
+      had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon the subject. I stand
+      here to protect them against being connected with movements without law or
+      contrary to law, and those who wish to bring them in and those who say it
+      is the constitution of the man and prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said
+      prejudice), they are persons, indeed, to stand up here as, <i>par
+      excellence</i> the champions of women! Is it the constitution of the men?
+      Have you read the letter of Mrs. Caroline Wright in the <i>Christian
+      Advocate</i>, one of our most distinguished American Methodist women? She
+      does not wish to see them here. It is the constitution of the woman in
+      that case, and I am opposed to their being admitted until the general
+      sentiment of the women and the men of our Church have an opportunity of
+      being heard upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but my
+      opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the Methodist
+      Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is to-day, not on
+      account of the admission of these women, two of whom I believe to be as
+      competent to sit in judgment on this question as any man on this floor.
+      That is not the question, as I propose to show. I assert freely, here and
+      now, if the women are in under the Restrictive Rules, no power ought to
+      put them out. If they are not in under the Restrictive Rules, nothing has
+      been done since, in my judgment, bearing upon it. I am astounded that
+      these brethren fancy that this question has no bearing at all on the
+      meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful thing. But we affirm that when
+      the Church voted to introduce lay delegation, it not only did not intend
+      to introduce women, but it did intend to fill up the whole body with men.
+      That is what we affirm. If we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us.
+      If we cannot prove it, we cannot make out our case. But our contention is,
+      that the Church did not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to
+      fill up the capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at
+      it. No man goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word
+      &ldquo;layman.&rdquo; There is not a man that can find out the meaning of our
+      Restrictive Rules from the dictionary. No living man can make out the
+      meaning of a word in the Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You
+      must get it from the history of the Church. Who is the &ldquo;General
+      Superintendent&rdquo; by Webster or Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the
+      thing that is protected by the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not
+      tell how the Chartered Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about
+      laymen. They do not seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing.
+      Some of them do not appear to understand the history of the English
+      language. Why was the word &ldquo;layman&rdquo; ever introduced? Because there was a
+      separate class of clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of
+      clergywomen in the world. If there had been, there would have been a term
+      for laywomen and for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish
+      the laymen from the <i>clergy</i>men. Had there been clergywomen, there
+      would have been laywomen. The &ldquo;laity&rdquo; means all the people, men, women,
+      and children. A woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the
+      country or in the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man
+      acting as a unit he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a
+      woman. Abraham Lincoln said, &ldquo;All these things are done and suffered, that
+      government of the people, for the people, and by the people should not
+      perish from the earth.&rdquo; Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women,
+      and children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+      any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this. When
+      he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, &ldquo;The intent
+      of the lawmaker is the law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived to
+      think of awhile&mdash;John Selden: &ldquo;The only honest meaning of any word is
+      the intent of the man that wrote it.&rdquo; At the time that the plan of lay
+      delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church on
+      this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and the
+      laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body. Some one
+      will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the Church,
+      the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between the ministry
+      and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever one Church in
+      the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make its laws. There is
+      not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name one that has allowed
+      women in its law-making body; and yet such is the blinding power of gush
+      that men will say that our fathers all understood it and proposed to put
+      women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to allow them to put us in.
+      As soon as the General Conference adjourned the women made an appeal in a
+      public statement. They were asked to vote for lay delegation, and were
+      told that then they could set the Church right. The opponents appealed to
+      them to vote against it on the ground that it would not make any
+      difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr. Hodgson (Professor
+      Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote a series of articles
+      in the <i>Advocate</i>, and it never occurred to them that the women could
+      come into the General Conference. Lay delegation was only admitted by 33
+      votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they would not have come in.
+      Every member of the New York East Conference knows that Dr. Curry's
+      influence was so powerful that he could almost get a majority against it.
+      And they know if any one had set up an opposition to it on this ground,
+      the whole Conference would have voted against the movement, and that if it
+      had not been for Bishop Ames and Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming
+      Conference where the majority was opposed to lay delegation, and by their
+      influence there converted my friend Olin and others, he knows that if this
+      matter of the women had been in or understood, the whole Conference would
+      have been against it. It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that
+      it is prejudice. Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000
+      Methodist ministers that are ciphers all the time except when they vote
+      for delegates? Are you going to presume that when the Church has a
+      multitude of members, that it is going to sit here and change, by an
+      interpretation, a Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never
+      understood to be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial
+      delegates. Every time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject
+      has never come up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive
+      Rules mean anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the
+      fathers did not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can
+      read those Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the
+      Restrictive Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if
+      you do it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+      protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+      Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do is
+      to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then put
+      any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this you
+      call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress, and
+      when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in a
+      constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men believe
+      that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood said that
+      they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm that Dr.
+      Flood's arguments all point in that direction&mdash;they must be
+      interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+      despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+      all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+      is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+      eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A despotism
+      is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint, the Czar with
+      his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this house into a
+      despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend Methodism by its
+      peculiar Constitution before the American people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+      question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+      the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+      M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, &ldquo;I think it
+      best to send the question around.&rdquo; True progress is not gained in any
+      other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, &ldquo;He that cometh
+      in by the door,&rdquo; the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+      another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous letters.
+      And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with which to
+      introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under any fear of
+      being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future prospects blasted.
+      It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this morning upon this
+      subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive to either suppress or
+      exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr. Buckley, threatening to
+      remove him as an obstruction, must be highly gratified to know that that
+      obstruction has already been removed. Brother Hughey removed the
+      obstruction, extinguished the candle, and destroyed the candlestick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+      its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+      yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+      though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will be
+      heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It remains
+      for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here and there,
+      or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a new point of
+      view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be helpful to some
+      that has already been presented in part touching the administration of our
+      law and the interpretation of terms that is worthy, I think, of still
+      further consideration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Buckley said in the New York <i>Christian Advocate</i> of March 15th,
+      1888:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+      claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of the
+      Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five years of
+      age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If women are
+      found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the same plane
+      with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five years, etc.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+      as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+      Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law by
+      a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+      writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+      writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+      would say) the &ldquo;subtle insinuations&rdquo; of the Episcopal Address, which
+      declares that no definition of &ldquo;layman&rdquo; settles the question of
+      eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as laymen for
+      the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+      laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well, in this case, we
+      have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both are right and both
+      are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a woman, if she be a lay
+      member her right is clear as that of any duly elected man. But he is wrong
+      when he denies to her a right to a seat in this body as a layman. The
+      Episcopal Address is wrong when it says that &ldquo;no definition of the word
+      'layman' settles the question of eligibility.&rdquo; But it is right when it
+      says, &ldquo;Many are classed as laymen for purposes of lay representation, and
+      have to do with it officially as lay members who are not themselves
+      eligible as delegates.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+      laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+      They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+      would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and if
+      it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting over
+      the &ldquo;Million dollars for Missions.&rdquo; They pray and testify in our
+      class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among us,
+      many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are amenable
+      to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men are tried.
+      They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended; they may be
+      expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as laymen from the
+      beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than two orders in our
+      Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but one of these orders
+      was represented in this General Conference. This General Conference was
+      strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we marked a new epoch in
+      Methodist history, and a new element came into this body, and has been in
+      all our sessions since that date. The first step, as has been mentioned
+      here before, was taken in 1868, when the question of lay delegation was
+      sent down to the members of the Church over twenty-one years of age, and
+      to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal, if I understood him, made what is,
+      in my judgment, a fatal concession on this question. He distinctly stated,
+      if I understood him correctly, and I have not had time to refer to the
+      report of his speech (if I misinterpret him he will correct me), that when
+      the motion to strike out the word &ldquo;male&rdquo; was made, it was done for the
+      purpose of putting a &ldquo;rider&rdquo; on the motion and cause its defeat, and when
+      that fact was made known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said
+      they would accept it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation
+      was that the amendment would let women into the General Conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the &ldquo;women coming
+      in&rdquo; being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+      was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed lay
+      delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment and
+      the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow women
+      to come in also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      L. C. Queal said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bishop Foss:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are you misrepresented?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      L. C. Queal:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman put that
+      on as a &ldquo;rider,&rdquo; with a view to defeating the bill, that immediately after
+      thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of securing the approval of
+      the principle in the laity of the Church. That is all I stated. All the
+      rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own inference&mdash;a
+      misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to the
+      speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the privilege
+      of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in reference to
+      this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the idea of the
+      possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds that were both
+      in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of 1868,
+      laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this body.
+      That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by the laity
+      of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity here, why
+      allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And, having
+      allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the very
+      foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow them a
+      place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened the way
+      for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not remember
+      that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that the lay
+      delegation scheme was defeated, and the <i>Methodist</i>, that was
+      published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+      that &ldquo;votes ought to be weighed, not counted&rdquo;? And then the question was
+      sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+      laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+      to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+      Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of construing
+      pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences previously to
+      that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard to their legality
+      there. The General Conference by its action did not propose to admit women
+      to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed to clear away the mist
+      and recognize their legal right to sit in the Quarterly Conference. Being
+      in the Quarterly Conference, and in the District Conference, they have the
+      right to vote on every question that comes before such bodies. They vote
+      to license ministers, to recommend ministers to Annual Conferences, to
+      recommend local preachers for deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on
+      sending delegates to our Lay Electoral Conferences, and they vote in
+      elections for delegates to Lay Electoral Conferences, and they vote in
+      elections for delegates from Lay Electoral Conferences to this General
+      Conference. And there are men on this floor to-day that would not be in
+      this at all if they had not received the support of women in Lay Electoral
+      Conferences. Now, brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the
+      women to send delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never
+      challenged until they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to
+      elect laymen to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen
+      in this body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes
+      of the women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some
+      of the &ldquo;subtle insinuations&rdquo; of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+      law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+      Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to vote
+      there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+      Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would be
+      consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+      delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+      women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+      &ldquo;foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection.&rdquo;
+       And I am not in favor of going back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+      Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed for
+      altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General Conference
+      has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary. Every paragraph
+      of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning with &sect;63, and
+      closing with &sect;69, was put into that Constitution without any voice
+      from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single one of them
+      was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; &sect;20, &para;183, stood for
+      many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred bodily
+      from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position it now
+      occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+      Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+      Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+      too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was not
+      submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely stated when
+      he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote ordered in
+      1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the laity into the
+      General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the laity and by the
+      Annual Conferences, but the &ldquo;plan&rdquo; was not submitted to either to be voted
+      upon, and the &ldquo;plan&rdquo; for lay delegation by which these lay brethren occupy
+      their seats here this morning was made in every jot and tittle by the
+      General Conference without any reference to the Annual Conferences at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+      Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+      Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+      cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+      cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+      under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+      the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+      beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+      remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once a
+      legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law; in
+      the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme court
+      to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General Conference,
+      we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing the
+      Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions on
+      the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision of
+      the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+      Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+      Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so we
+      construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we touch
+      the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the Annual
+      Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to limit
+      the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for illustration,
+      we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our Legislature to
+      license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a license under the
+      guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license law in form. The
+      Constitution prevents it. There are States that have Constitutions that
+      have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all, while they may either
+      tax, license, or prohibit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a limitation
+      of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation there is no
+      restriction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+      this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+      the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question of
+      law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as those
+      who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I understand
+      it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by those who are
+      advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not a matter of
+      sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place for
+      knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+      dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+      knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+      to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of the
+      Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+      circumstances, oppose their coming in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+      franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+      question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I do
+      not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the history of
+      lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the most remote
+      intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the General
+      Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the field now
+      toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last ten or fifteen
+      years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism that would be
+      fatal to all just interpretation of law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+      the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+      wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+      Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+      Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in 1868.
+      And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I know,
+      the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in to
+      represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable that
+      they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never have
+      embraced this design&mdash;the design of bringing women into the General
+      Conference. I leave that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+      them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court of
+      the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or the
+      Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the General
+      Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that argument myself
+      upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General Conference could,
+      without any other process, by mere legislation, introduce the laity into
+      this body. I claimed there and then that, according to that decision, the
+      Methodist Episcopal Church was in the General Conference. The General
+      Conference refused to accept that endorsement of that Court, or that
+      proposition concerning the prerogatives of this body. And through all the
+      processes that have been ordered concerning the introduction of lay
+      delegation that interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been
+      repudiated. The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the
+      Supreme Court placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the
+      Church I accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now
+      I claim that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change
+      the <i>personnel</i> of the General Conference without the vote of the
+      Annual Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must
+      obtain the consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in
+      favor of that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But
+      until this is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample
+      the organic law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is
+      nothing but peril ahead of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an organic
+      body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its own
+      security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the law
+      that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said, it
+      has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences must
+      be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of 1872.
+      I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One is,
+      that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it is also a
+      judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as a legislative
+      body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872 interpreted law, and
+      the General Conference may reverse itself with just as much propriety as a
+      court can reverse itself. And if it be the judgment of this General
+      Conference that that interpretation was incorrect, it is perfectly
+      competent for this Conference to say so, and have its action correspond
+      with its own decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference of
+      1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that local
+      preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the principle
+      of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is decided in general
+      terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision must be limited to the
+      particular case itself. And if a court in its decision embraces more than
+      was involved in the particular case, it has no force whatever. And as this
+      was a particular case submitted to the General Conference, and the
+      decision was in general terms, it comprehends simply the case that was
+      before it, and cannot be advanced to comprehend more. And the reason of
+      this is very obvious; for if it was not the case, then cases might be
+      brought before the court for its decision that had never occurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+      did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women to
+      certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+      legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+      gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when it
+      says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to sell in
+      quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880 decided that women
+      should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as superintendents of
+      Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by that very affirmative
+      conclusion, the subject was passed upon about their taking any other
+      position. That, I think, must be regarded as sound, and a just
+      interpretation of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+      understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+      had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+      would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands, that the
+      pronoun &ldquo;he,&rdquo; wherever employed, shall not be considered as prohibiting
+      women from holding the offices of Sunday-school Superintendent, Class
+      Leader, and Steward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+      immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing the
+      <i>personnel</i> of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+      has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a suitable
+      term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as soon as it
+      goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and so far as it
+      usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and I, so far as our
+      Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard with a deep jealousy
+      an infringement upon our organic rights. The only safety of the Church is
+      the equipoise that is constituted by the relation the Annual Conferences
+      sustain to the General Conference, and far safer is it for us to bring
+      these women of the Church, elect, honorable women, into the General
+      Conference of the Church by the same way that their husbands and brothers
+      are here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+      possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of those
+      who wish to bring women in without further action is successful? You make
+      lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and pastors of
+      the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect their own wives as
+      delegates to this General Conference, and thus lay delegation comes to be
+      a farce. Some of you may laugh at this suggestion, but it is an <i>in
+      posse</i>, and it may easily be made an <i>in esse</i>. It is important to
+      us that the laity should hold the place they have by the regulations we
+      have, and they should be changed only to make them more perfect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+      may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement or
+      passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the Church
+      that does that has its history already written. The only safe course for
+      us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious, and conservative&mdash;I
+      mean every word&mdash;and conservative course we have heretofore pursued
+      through all our history. When we boast of what Methodism has done, or what
+      she is going to do, let us remember it is because of her firm adherence to
+      law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon race&mdash;everywhere
+      our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we pass unwise laws, in
+      repealing them in the same wise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene, this
+      great debate now in the third day of its progress must be suggestive of
+      some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have made the hearts
+      of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place of meeting in the
+      past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear as to the outcome of
+      the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The visitors to this General
+      Conference, seated in their boxes and in the family circle, Will say
+      surely these honored men of God who have been called as Superintendents of
+      the affairs of our great conquering Church, these chosen ministers of
+      reconciliation and peace, these <i>male</i> laymen called by their
+      brethren to their high places in this General Conference, whose names at
+      home are the synonym of chivalrous goodness&mdash;surely all these of rank
+      and talent and authority, whose able and eloquent words have been ringing
+      through the arches and dome of this temple of music on the wrong side of
+      the question, are but simply acting the parts assigned them. In the final
+      scene they will join hands around the eligible women elect, who, in
+      obedience to the call of the laity in their several Conferences, are in
+      their seats with us, and say, &ldquo;Whom God hath joined, let not <i>male</i>
+      put asunder.&rdquo; My brothers, let us briefly restate the case. Five noble
+      women of the laymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as
+      delegates to this General Conference under the Constitution and by the
+      forms prescribed by the laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to
+      enter, the portals of this great assemblage they hear a voice from the
+      platform, in words not to be misunderstood, &ldquo;Thou shalt not,&rdquo; and voices
+      from all parts of the house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement
+      the voices of the Bishops, &ldquo;Thou shalt not.&rdquo; And one would think, from the
+      vehement oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference,
+      that the foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence
+      of these &ldquo;elect ladies&rdquo; among us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+      and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+      something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and in
+      all its battles fought until the day of victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question of
+      lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it carried,
+      there would have been plausibility in the argument this day made against
+      the eligibility of women to seats in this General Conference. The
+      evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to a higher
+      appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her rights and
+      privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the bounds of the
+      Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent man, that grand
+      old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this question, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is <i>rights</i> they talk of, every competent member of the Church
+      of Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+      original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+      comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in answer to the expected fling, &ldquo;But you are a woman's rights man,&rdquo;
+       he replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+      wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+      beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+      stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+      the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+      demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the question;
+      but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living God
+      disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When that
+      disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal righteousness
+      give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the ground!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+      question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the Church,
+      male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as belonging to the
+      great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in the government of
+      the Church, and having rights under that government. During the debate on
+      the report of the Committee on the plan for submitting the question as in
+      1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman moved to strike out the word
+      &ldquo;male.&rdquo; While that motion was under consideration, Dr. Slicer, of
+      Baltimore, said, &ldquo;If it were the last moment I should spend, and the last
+      articulate sound I should utter, I should speak for the wives, mothers,
+      and daughters of the Methodist Episcopal Church.... I am for women's
+      rights, sir, <i>wherever church privileges are concerned</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the question
+      of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the Church over
+      twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask women to vote
+      on a proposition that only male members of the Church should be
+      represented in the General Conference, and it did not then enter the
+      thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived of their
+      rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few noisy,
+      disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; but they
+      were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the right
+      thinking, orderly delegates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+      out the word &ldquo;male,&rdquo; now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+      great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+      made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+      Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+      those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+      voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed in
+      the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that women
+      should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The Conference
+      of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take these views on a
+      stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried with a rush and
+      heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter interpretation of the
+      Conference making all not members of Conferences laymen, fully carried out
+      these views, as they were understood at the moment by the majority party.
+      Some, to be sure, cried out against it, but their voices were not heard
+      amid the roar of victory. Who can go back of the interpretation of the
+      supreme court of the Church?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore the
+      decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could the
+      utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+      General Conference when it said, &ldquo;The General Conference holds that in all
+      matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word 'laymen'
+      must be understood to include all the members of the Church who are not
+      members of the Annual Conferences&rdquo;? This decision must include women among
+      the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means the
+      classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears from
+      the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle in which
+      the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the membership of our
+      Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would have made a strange
+      decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted women. Let us see how it
+      would look in cold type had they said, &ldquo;The General Conference holds that
+      in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+      laymen must be understood to include all the members of the Annual
+      Conferences, <i>and who are not women</i>.&rdquo; We would have become the
+      laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an utterance. The Church
+      universal in all ages has always divided its membership into two great
+      classes, and two only, the clergy and the laymen, using the terms laity
+      and laymen synonymously and interchangeably. See Bingham's &ldquo;Antiquities,&rdquo;
+       Blackstone's &ldquo;Commentaries,&rdquo; Schaffs &ldquo;History,&rdquo; and kindred authorities.
+      It is sheer trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction
+      between lay<i>men</i> and lay<i>women</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+      superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before the
+      specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so appointed
+      and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the pastorate of
+      that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the voice of that
+      great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from the skies it
+      would be in protest against the views presented in this debate by the
+      supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+      elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+      there be a <i>specific enactment discriminating against the elector</i>.
+      Our law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and
+      five years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say
+      that a delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+      been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+      ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited. We
+      cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+      revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+      violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the just
+      rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from membership
+      in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual Conferences to
+      vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to send that
+      question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their action? I
+      trust that a large majority of this General Conference will say with
+      emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our Methodism
+      have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot be
+      dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very front
+      of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the spirit of
+      rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the banner of our Lord
+      in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and righteousness. Looking down
+      upon us from these galleries, tier upon tier, are the magnificent leaders
+      of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's Home Missionary Societies. Our
+      women are at the front of the battle now waging against the liquor traffic
+      in our fair land, and they will not cease their warfare until this nation
+      shall be redeemed from the curse of the saloon. God bless all these women
+      of our great conquering Church of the Redeemer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+      continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among the old
+      churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous productions
+      of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in that city may
+      be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries old. In it you
+      may read as follows: &ldquo;Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has a daughter seventeen
+      years old, and she has illuminated the head of a Saviour for which I gave
+      a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could do so much.&rdquo; Three and a half
+      centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her master-piece in the chief places of
+      the galleries of the world, and Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many
+      of the best marbles that adorn the parlors of Europe and America, and no
+      one wonders that a woman can do so much. From that day when Martin Luther,
+      the protesting monk, and Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at
+      the altar and the twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her
+      faith in her sex and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the
+      organized selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or
+      privilege to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery
+      and barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+      paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+      unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+      to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do ought
+      that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from our
+      advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us rather
+      strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and privilege
+      of every member of our Church, without distinction of race, color, or sex.
+      Amen and Amen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+      the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have now,
+      a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work. No man
+      on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them by all
+      lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every privilege
+      enjoyed by men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+      sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of the
+      Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in this
+      General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by Dr. Moore
+      does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their right and title
+      to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this body would be in part
+      an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+      ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+      of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+      adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+      then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After the
+      most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+      ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+      deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+      body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when the
+      General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the entire
+      membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was not the
+      intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a large number
+      of men of business experience, who could render service by their knowledge
+      and experience touching the temporal affairs of the Church. When the
+      principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon by the laity, this
+      idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual Conferences voted for
+      the principle and the plan, this and this only was their intent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+      favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea, and
+      none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit women, but
+      to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+      Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+      admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+      of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+      constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by allowing
+      sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+      that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+      Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+      claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+      construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+      Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+      this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+      Board of Bishops, he says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+      regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+      body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+      question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+      the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+      duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear that
+      any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The Electoral
+      Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action, being guided, as
+      we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the General Conference of
+      1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen,&rdquo; in answer to a question
+      touching the classification and rights of ordained local and located
+      ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution is carried beyond
+      its original design when applied to a subject not before the body when it
+      was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the language itself. This
+      also should be understood, that no definition of the word 'laymen' settles
+      the question of eligibility as to any class of persons, for many are
+      classed as laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do
+      with it officially as laymen, who are themselves not eligible as
+      delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly ineligible, who are not old
+      enough to be delegates, or have not been members long enough, may be
+      stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local preachers and exhorters, and, as
+      such, be members of the Quarterly Conference, and vote for delegates to
+      the Electoral Conference without themselves being eligible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by a
+      resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+      original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+      the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here by
+      constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the power
+      of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the formal
+      amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without the
+      consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+      spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+      them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+      positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+      Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in their
+      enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their power to
+      work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval of the
+      high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+      especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments of
+      Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+      admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved in
+      the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the assumption
+      underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they were
+      ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of law. In
+      harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible, by special
+      enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school
+      superintendent, and naturally the question arises as to whether the
+      necessity for special legislation, in order to their eligibility to those
+      specified offices, does not indicate similar necessity for special
+      provision in order to their eligibility as delegates, and if so it is
+      further to be considered that the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+      Sunday-school superintendent may be created and filled by simple
+      enactments of the General Conference itself; but to enter the General
+      Conference, and form part of the law-making body of the Church, requires
+      special provision in the Constitution, and, therefore, such provision as
+      the General Conference alone cannot make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+      used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from whom
+      I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on &ldquo;Constitutional
+      Limitations,&rdquo; says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another at
+      some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as perhaps
+      to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal share of
+      the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be lost, if the
+      rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to circumstances, or be
+      modified by public opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+      different at any subsequent time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This same great author says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+      constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting it.
+      In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is to be
+      enforced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in many
+      particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great charters
+      of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights of the
+      subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people must be
+      supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot understand these
+      unless we understand their history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+      understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the common
+      law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+      law shall be construed strictly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear as
+      the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine that
+      the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when it is
+      adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject anything
+      into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when adopted. And
+      you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to give it the
+      construction which was intended when adopted. No man of common honesty and
+      common sense dares to assert on this floor that it was the intent when the
+      Constitution was amended to admit women as lay delegates. It follows
+      inevitably that they are not constitutionally eligible, and to admit them
+      is to violate the Constitution of the Church, which, as a Court, we are in
+      honor bound not to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person for
+      office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited by
+      positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been. We
+      have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended, the
+      intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference can,
+      by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive Rules.
+      Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action in 1880,
+      had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as stewards
+      and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay delegate in
+      the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay delegates to
+      this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive Rules, according
+      to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is fundamental law that where
+      general disabilities exist, not simply by statute, but by common law, the
+      removal of lesser disabilities does not carry with it the removal of the
+      greater ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+      coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+      otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I defy
+      any lawyer to show the contrary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &sect;3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+      each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+      shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years,
+      and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not,
+      when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be chosen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the Constitution
+      of the United States touching the qualification of Senators. Is there a
+      layman on this floor who will dare assert that under the Constitution of
+      the United States women are eligible as Representatives or Senators? Words
+      of common gender are exclusively used as applied to the qualification of
+      Senators. The words persons and citizens include women the same as they
+      include men. Nevertheless, in the light of the past, I am bold to assert,
+      that any man who would dare stand in the Senate of the United States, and
+      contend that women are eligible to the office of United States Senators,
+      would be regarded by the civilized world as a person of gush and void of
+      judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Article 14, United States Constitution, &sect;1:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+      jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+      reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the <i>privileges</i>
+      or <i>immunities</i> of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
+      deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of
+      law, <i>nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
+      protection of the laws</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      (Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor <i>vs</i>. Judges of
+      Election. 53 Mo. 68.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+      rights includes corporations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+      the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+      abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United States.
+      Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did not
+      entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri held
+      the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able opinion
+      written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively demonstrated
+      that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon woman the right
+      to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right had not obtained
+      in favor of woman, and these words of common gender should not be so
+      construed as to confer this right, since it was not intended when made to
+      affect their status in this regard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+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, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9450]
+[Last updated on February 9, 2007]
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration] SAMANTHA
+
+AMONG THE BRETHREN.
+
+BY
+
+"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"
+
+(MARIETTA HOLLEY).
+
+
+_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_.
+
+
+
+
+1890
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+All Women
+
+WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES
+
+THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A
+
+BETTER COUNTRY,
+
+_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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:
+
+"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"
+
+And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal
+Justice, Josiah Allen."
+
+"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.)
+
+"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."
+
+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:
+
+"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he."
+
+And sez I, "How do you know?"
+
+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?"
+
+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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
+work and back combs."
+
+I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
+reasonable:
+
+"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.
+
+"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
+Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."
+
+"Wall, hain't _he_?" sez Josiah.
+
+"No, _she_ hain't," sez I.
+
+"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to
+rile you up?"
+
+Sez I, "_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
+Conference."
+
+"Wall, I say _he_ wuz right," sez Josiah. "_He_ knew, and I knew, that
+wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."
+
+"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."
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't
+be too severe with the Meetin' House."
+
+And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head
+in and sez:
+
+"Don't be too hard on _him_"
+
+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.
+
+  JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE,
+  Bonny View,
+  near Adams, New York,
+  Oct. 14th, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_Publishers' Appendix_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
+
+And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
+our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze
+because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
+
+Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
+from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
+our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
+particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.
+
+It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
+answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
+
+The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
+other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
+
+As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own
+particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all  on 'em to be divided
+up equal among the five deacons.
+
+[Illustration: "A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME."]
+
+They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
+that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
+the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
+not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
+and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+salvation.
+
+I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+deacons ought to cultivate.
+
+But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
+to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the
+deed."
+
+They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
+wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.]
+
+But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--"If bein' set
+apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to
+go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+enterprise?"
+
+And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man,
+the better the deed. We need buzz saws."
+
+And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+high-headed.
+
+And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
+
+But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
+prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
+of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
+
+And I sez to him in solemn axents:
+
+"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
+your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"
+
+And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
+he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
+I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+religious duties.
+
+And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+said, "he didn't dumb 'em."
+
+"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.
+
+"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he
+has a chance to."
+
+But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
+
+"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
+farms.
+
+"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
+of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
+interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
+prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
+works generally?"
+
+And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
+
+"Dumb good works!"
+
+[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"]
+
+But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"
+
+And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
+a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
+
+"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+will 'tend to it."
+
+And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+have put the question to him.
+
+For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
+go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
+there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
+and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
+bimeby).
+
+There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
+mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
+brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
+and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
+theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
+
+But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
+
+Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
+this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+Henzy.
+
+Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
+
+"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez,
+"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."
+
+Some sez he duz.
+
+Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
+And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
+begin to feel bad.
+
+She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
+me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
+the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
+she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
+Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
+had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
+dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
+his face till dinner time.
+
+And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
+because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
+
+She is a dretful admirin' woman.
+
+She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls
+her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
+when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as
+Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
+
+[Illustration: "THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'"]
+
+But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+dreams is a place where you can't slip on  your sun-bonnet and foller
+neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+from hour to hour.
+
+No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
+into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
+
+No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
+
+But, as I said, this had been spozen.
+
+But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day
+what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+Drusillia Sypher.
+
+And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+"Miss Deacon Sypher."
+
+Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
+hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
+the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
+good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
+
+Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+into the buzz saw-mill business.
+
+But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
+every time he came in sight.
+
+They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest
+smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
+step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."
+
+But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+low.
+
+But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
+and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
+books. And he sez:
+
+"Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_"
+
+I guess he did say as much as that.
+
+But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to
+stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
+
+[Illustration: "ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT
+HIM."]
+
+And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
+smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
+effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
+was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
+get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
+and he makes a good deal of her.
+
+I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
+this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
+
+Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
+the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
+
+Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
+foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
+that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin'
+article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
+fun of the projeck.
+
+We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
+fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
+store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
+He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
+worshipped him.
+
+They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
+
+The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to
+work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+in the shop.)
+
+He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
+doubt of that.
+
+Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
+educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
+born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
+in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
+Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
+any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
+syllables wuz common in it.
+
+His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
+to be disseminated abroad.
+
+The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
+ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
+up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
+sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
+guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
+from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
+howsumever."
+
+Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
+painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
+strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would
+weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
+herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
+tottlin' eminence.
+
+The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+letters over each one.
+
+The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
+
+_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER;
+
+_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
+
+The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares
+and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+wimmen to do--not a single thing.
+
+Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors
+and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
+_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
+farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
+sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
+_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
+even the lightest and slightest.
+
+Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could
+be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
+great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
+place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
+
+And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
+Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
+the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
+in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
+posture as settin' up on a Conference.
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."]
+
+"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would
+endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
+would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
+It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm."  Why, Josiah Allen
+handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
+as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we
+had some words about it.
+
+And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second
+Galatians.
+
+And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+bed rid.
+
+Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
+
+And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+very first.
+
+Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
+next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
+it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
+idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
+so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
+
+And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
+
+But of this, more anon and bimeby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for
+I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays
+bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
+and so forth.
+
+But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
+old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
+on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
+
+(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
+
+Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
+there for some time alone.
+
+Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
+first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I
+had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
+oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
+
+Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
+sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a
+difference, a difference in visitors?
+
+Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
+
+And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose."
+
+I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+brung me startlin' intelligence.
+
+It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
+
+And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote
+dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."
+
+But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
+see it wuz writ on duty.
+
+She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
+and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
+in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
+on't.
+
+She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
+any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
+was mistook.
+
+She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
+for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
+said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
+had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
+own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
+man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
+round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
+two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
+mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
+couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
+broke in on her serenity.
+
+Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
+
+[Illustration: "FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM."]
+
+Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
+affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths
+emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
+actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
+impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
+accustomed to 'em.
+
+The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
+they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work.
+And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
+The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
+
+_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz
+small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
+got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
+as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
+near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
+of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
+lambs callin' on their dams.
+
+It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."
+
+[Illustration: THE LECTURE.]
+
+The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
+of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
+snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
+I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
+events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
+yesterday.
+
+I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
+there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
+the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
+
+And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
+Josiah hitched the mair.
+
+We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+life.
+
+And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
+lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."
+
+A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
+all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
+rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
+first rate.
+
+I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
+the heads of it.
+
+It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+bare heads.
+
+She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
+the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"
+
+She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
+hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+privilege, to speak in its praise.
+
+I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
+no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
+whose name vuz once Smith.
+
+I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
+time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
+side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
+Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+every word she said.
+
+But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
+school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
+how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
+
+How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
+
+And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+souls bathed in blissful repose!
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]
+
+It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'.  There wasn't a dry
+eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
+vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
+slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
+(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
+And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
+vest.
+
+Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
+
+And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
+
+I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
+
+And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
+see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
+fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+me.
+
+[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]
+
+Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
+over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
+foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
+lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
+a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
+miserable.
+
+Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
+
+And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
+bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
+broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
+cloud.
+
+And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
+
+She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
+of 'em brought the school-house down.
+
+And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
+together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
+forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
+
+And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
+hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
+perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
+
+Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
+
+He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
+
+But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
+
+I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
+deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
+lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
+its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
+stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
+wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
+occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
+sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
+
+And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very
+sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
+
+Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
+me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
+
+Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
+over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.
+
+She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
+spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
+day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
+have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
+as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
+hold of my opinion.
+
+Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
+her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
+
+I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
+meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey.
+
+But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How
+I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up
+against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+with every word of it."
+
+Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.
+
+And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of
+beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."
+
+"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."
+
+She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
+she didn't go too far."
+
+And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she
+didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."
+
+Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
+it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+hain't _all_ happiness."
+
+"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."
+
+[Illustration: "YOU GO TOO FUR."]
+
+And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I  wuz mistaken, "she
+thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said:
+
+"He _knew_ it wuz, and he would take his oath to it."
+
+But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most
+peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+But," sez I, "marriage hain't _all_ peace."
+
+Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it."
+
+Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds
+the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+hain't all radiance."
+
+"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it."
+
+And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+right; I think it is."
+
+"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married
+you will change your opinion, you mark my word."
+
+And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't;
+she guessed she was in the right of it."
+
+Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all
+earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?"
+
+And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called
+a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.
+
+"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care
+of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid,
+a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.
+
+"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+haint if you are ever married."
+
+But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken--she
+thought it wuz."
+
+"You do?" sez I.
+
+"Yes, mem," sez she.
+
+I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'."
+I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.
+
+She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+and have me criticise it. Sez she:
+
+"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have."
+
+"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way."
+
+And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two
+rocks that couldn't be moved."
+
+And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my
+advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where
+there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she
+was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed
+that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on."
+
+And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could."
+
+It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to
+drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and
+come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.
+
+And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped
+and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees
+of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand
+the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face
+a Greenland winter in.
+
+And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back
+and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's
+call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:
+
+She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and
+stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the
+lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a
+place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and
+she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and
+forth and try to convince each other.
+
+And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+my frame, though dreadin' the job some.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture--crazy as a loon. He
+raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it
+to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in
+a serene calm--a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew
+that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they
+wuz till to-night."
+
+"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents--not so dry as I keep by
+me, but pretty dry--"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel
+labor."
+
+"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger
+in emanuel labor."
+
+"Manuel, Josiah."
+
+"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?"
+
+"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I,
+firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+along without some work and care."
+
+"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care,
+not a single care. Not as long as I live--if it wuzn't for me, you might
+have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live."
+
+I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly
+anon--
+
+[Illustration: "OH, WHAT A LECTURE THAT WUZ."]
+
+"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life--did you
+notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified
+to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands."
+
+"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap
+on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been
+a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have
+never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and
+tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs,
+jest like any other human states."
+
+Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and
+I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea
+by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold
+their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies
+blow--and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It
+is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into
+billows. But our sea--the sea of married life--is not like that, it is
+ofttimes billowy and rough."
+
+"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the
+lecture, and enthused. "We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen,
+for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly
+smooth?"
+
+"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."
+
+"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"
+
+"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."
+
+Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+if I was in your place."
+
+"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
+till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
+
+"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
+Allen."
+
+"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or
+ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+lecture."
+
+Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
+and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
+company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
+did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
+have come in a much worse time.
+
+It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.
+
+Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish
+to have showed off to the public.
+
+He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward
+with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.
+
+He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
+and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
+see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.
+
+There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
+and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
+frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
+be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
+language he hurled at me acrost that stove.
+
+"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
+this side."
+
+And then he hollered at me, and asked me:
+
+"How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in." And then he wanted to know
+"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or
+if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
+of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He
+hollered wildly.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
+you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It
+would go in all right if you had started it the other way."
+
+"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
+with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
+perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
+But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
+out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
+be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the
+breath of life in me."
+
+Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."
+
+"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at
+that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."
+
+[Illustration: "WON'T YOU BE STILL?"]
+
+Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'."  "Wall, I want 'em to
+ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
+every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do
+I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I
+said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."
+
+Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:
+
+"Won't you be still?"
+
+"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go
+through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."
+
+I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
+stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
+she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
+awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
+took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
+to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
+to Josiah.
+
+And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
+about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"
+
+But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
+he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much
+repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
+tore to pieces to get that stove started."
+
+Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
+door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."
+
+"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
+for two hours as I have, and then see."
+
+Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who
+is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."
+"Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself."
+
+I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
+
+[Illustration: "AND HE SAID I HAD RUBBED 'EM OUT."]
+
+Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't
+go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with
+chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out."
+I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I
+see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'.
+
+But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose
+to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out
+for years and years--why, then I _had_ to correct him on the subject,
+and we had a little dialogue.
+
+I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple
+sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+machine a-comin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half
+an hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected
+onto him as it did onto me.
+
+Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they
+had to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.
+
+They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to
+go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get
+to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they
+wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
+heard that was the cap sheaf.
+
+Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
+enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
+the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
+and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
+every minute.
+
+Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
+wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
+three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
+the author of "Peaceful Repose," and me, almost to death.
+
+The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.
+
+I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.
+
+[Illustration: "IT DIDN'T FALL OUT ONLY THREE TIMES."]
+
+Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+beginnin'. If you'll believe it,  I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
+by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
+pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all
+kinds.
+
+The author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" came out into the kitchen. I
+told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.
+
+She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked
+it, to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement,
+to hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.
+
+But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to
+lift my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my
+hands.
+
+And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild
+man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by
+havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he
+couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And
+then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.
+
+[Illustration: "TO FIND A PIECE OF OLD ROPE TO TIE UP THE HARNESS."]
+
+Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's
+legs, where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I
+took my hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up
+the harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on
+Josiah Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or
+else to do somethin' for him that he couldn't do.
+
+Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm
+holt of my principles, and didn't groan--not when anybody could hear me.
+I won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a
+groan or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after,
+I was calm again.
+
+Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed
+a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
+had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+dinner.
+
+I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
+the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
+and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
+little piece of brown paper, or full cloth--everything, he said, that
+wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.
+
+And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+right by the notch.
+
+And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)
+
+But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
+shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
+and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
+when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED CURIUS, CURIUSER THAN THE FLOOR LOOKED."]
+
+But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must--for
+I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the  author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
+curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
+curosity, and metafor.
+
+Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
+to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+stay to dinner.
+
+I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
+Zoar--it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
+only made fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along.
+And I had a good dinner and enough of it.
+
+I had to wait on the table, of course--that is, the tea and coffee. And
+I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that wore
+out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.
+
+And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my
+lips, the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em--good,
+strong Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't
+fairly got it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had
+drinked a drop, for the case demanded help at once.
+
+Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+the company wuz very genteel--a minister and a Justice of the Peace--so
+she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.
+
+She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to
+get 'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house
+and onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse
+barn, for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the
+very second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her
+husband to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to
+let the cat out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em
+and comparin' 'em with hern.
+
+I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the
+shelf, so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the
+most went onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that
+that wuz tricklin' down my backbone.
+
+[Illustration: "I SEE THE NECESSITY FOR URGENT HASTE."]
+
+Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread,
+and then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for
+I wuz wet as sop--as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz a-waitin' for me to
+the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by
+me, and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than
+ever, and more sad like.
+
+She said, "she was dretful sorry for me," and I believed her.
+
+She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, "if I had such trials every day?"
+
+And I told her "No, I didn't." I told her that things would run along
+smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody
+to once. Sez I, "You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of
+'em,' or words to that effect."
+
+Sez I, in reasonable axents, "Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good
+things happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful
+agreeable days, and easy."
+
+Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', "Did you ever have
+another day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin'
+through?"
+
+"Oh, yes," sez I, "lots of'em--some worse ones, and," sez I, "the day
+has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever
+stop."
+
+Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:
+
+"You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+changin' your dress."
+
+"Oh, wall," sez I, "I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and
+get the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have
+got to do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and
+cakes and such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men."
+
+So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg "that
+the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things
+to happen before night," for I had only jest got well to work on the
+ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over "to see if I
+could let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her--she wanted
+'em to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through
+the winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots
+and seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+perfectly convenient," so the boy said.
+
+Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+said, "either make or break me."
+
+So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before
+I could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the
+total deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the
+last bag of seeds that I overhauled.
+
+But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.
+
+But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of
+garden and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent
+Submit the sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I
+possibly could.
+
+But I sez to the author of "Peaceful Repose," I sez to her, sez I:
+
+"I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will
+try to," sez I.
+
+"Oh," sez she, "it hain't no matter about that; I--I--I somehow--I don't
+feel like rehearsin' it as it was." Sez she, "I guess I shall make some
+changes in it before I rehearse it agin."
+
+Sez I, "You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum."
+
+"Yes," sez she, in faint axents, "I am a-thinkin' of it."
+
+[Illustration: "AS I STARTED FOR THE BUTTERY."]
+
+"Wall," sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of
+cups in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+napkins under my arm, "I believe I shall like it as well again if you
+do, any way," sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my
+dress, and opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.
+
+"Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it."
+
+Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my
+work quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the
+effort.
+
+And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised
+New Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as
+mebby I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk
+more'n an hour and three quarters.
+
+He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk;
+he'll make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles
+such large, curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz
+a-answerin' his questions.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WUZ SOMETHIN' WRONG ABOUT 'EM."]
+
+Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board
+in  her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had
+got another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.
+
+I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said "there wuz
+somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what."
+
+She said "she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much
+round, but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of
+the barriers, and he must have his coat."
+
+Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time,
+and took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it
+I see what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows
+come right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition
+to the funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms
+right acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.
+
+And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot
+the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it--and
+she went home feelin' first rate.
+
+I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would
+miss me if any thing should happen.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE IS APT TO GET THINGS WRONG."]
+
+I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little
+boy's pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would
+have to set down from the front side, or else stand up.
+
+And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way
+to get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the
+legs. But I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and
+bastin', and settin' her right, and I did now.
+
+Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an
+old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and
+the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he
+wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the
+first thing that "he wanted some of Hall's salve." And I told him "there
+wuzn't a mite in the house."
+
+And he hollered up and says, "There would be some if there wuz any sense
+in the head of the house."
+
+[Illustration: "HE WANTED SOME OF HALL'S SALVE."]
+
+I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for
+I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, "Why hain't there any
+Hall's salve?"  Sez I, "Because old Hall has been dead for years and
+years, and hain't made any salve."
+
+"Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,"
+he yelled out.
+
+"Why," sez I, "he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely
+onexpected five years ago last summer."
+
+"Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will
+become of me!" he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
+
+Sez I, "Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah."
+
+"Pond's Extract!" he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
+
+And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of
+man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to
+take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me
+all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him
+a-purpose.
+
+He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" would hear him, and he hollered
+back "he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he
+shouldn't live to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up."
+
+His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had
+brung down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back--a hull
+lot of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.
+
+There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children,
+and the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+a-visitin', and the editor of the _Augur'ses_ wife (she wuz related to
+the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go
+to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the
+West's bosom friend, or used to be.
+
+Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The author of "Peaceful Repose" sez to me, and she looked pale and
+skairt; she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful
+skairt and shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin',
+as I said prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as
+good as the very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I
+would allow spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she
+proposed, Miss Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man.
+And though I urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard
+as I would otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of
+visitors had reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE PROPOSED THAT SHE SHOULD RIDE BACK WITH THE LIVERY
+MAN."]
+
+I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I
+have got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different
+occasions, every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and
+curiusest ones.
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose" insisted on
+goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, "That
+if she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much
+work round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her
+rehearse the lecture."
+
+But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as
+wan agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): "That she should make
+_changes_ in it before she ever rehearsed it agin--_deep changes_!"
+
+And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+till I got this letter.
+
+Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all
+on the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot
+down to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens
+make a practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if
+they did--and have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt
+well, and the supper tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I
+told him Lodema wuz approachin' and would be there that very night or
+the next day--still the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin'
+mellowness of the hot tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other
+good things.
+
+[Illustration: "MY PARDNER ENJOYS GOOD VITTLES."]
+
+My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz
+enjoy good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.
+
+And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+lawyers would almost entirely disappear.
+
+For truly it seems that _no_ human man _could be_ more worrysome, and
+curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at times; still,
+by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from day to day,
+and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him to me by
+ties that can't never be broken into.
+
+He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.
+
+He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it
+in his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are
+the ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a
+cheerful countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright
+room, on a snowy table-cloth!
+
+Great--great is the mystery of men's love.
+
+I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that
+underlies married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much
+cannot be said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of
+female and male humanity--and it _cannot_ be too closely followed up and
+practised by female pardners.
+
+But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.
+
+Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early--I mean
+the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema--oh no, fur from it; Lodema is never
+bright and cheerful--she is the opposite and reverse always.
+
+She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to
+call 'em so rather than "old maid" (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful
+sharp before I could get him into it).
+
+I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of
+old maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that
+would but couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the
+"would-but-couldn't's," though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said
+so, not for the world.
+
+Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:
+
+"She hain't to blame, Josiah."
+
+And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.
+
+Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we
+had our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of
+makin' awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down
+onto us sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along--jest
+like a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind
+to bring up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.
+
+And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I
+done well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved
+to put on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for
+either on 'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time
+a'most. And it come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand
+the brunt on it.
+
+But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them
+that can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide
+world to suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather,
+and if the weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT SHE IS A DISAGREEABLE CREETER."]
+
+If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+groans aloud and says "she can't see."
+
+And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she
+spends the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at
+'em.
+
+You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of
+game you set out to hunt in the mornin'.
+
+If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+perseverin'--if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
+such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
+cattle--why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
+will be a noble and happy hunter.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT FIT WITH THEIR TONGUES, FEARFUL."]
+
+At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
+night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
+right along and chase 'em down.  Wall, Lodema never got led away from
+her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
+and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.
+
+But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
+always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
+huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
+It wuz! It wuz!
+
+And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
+wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
+visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
+the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues--they didn't
+fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
+tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
+themselves--boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
+boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
+it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
+and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
+truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
+had got to thinkin' so.
+
+But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
+
+Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+pious.
+
+[Illustration: "HIS FACE WUZ A GOOD MORAL FACE."]
+
+But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
+
+But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
+that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
+carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
+actin'.
+
+And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+found that he had always been a pattern man--never had done a single
+mean act, so fur as wuz known.
+
+Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
+talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
+wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
+told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
+
+Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+comin' to a end.
+
+She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
+her--and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
+extremely sot.
+
+But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+quite good ones.
+
+That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+and above disagreeable to me.
+
+Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
+they would be better off.
+
+But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+fur, they hain't megum enough.
+
+Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
+
+It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
+mebby will be agin.
+
+But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
+
+You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+even whip 'em.
+
+No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
+truth in it.
+
+[Illustration: "EF I FELL ON A STUN."]
+
+Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
+Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
+on a stun--I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
+and there hain't no stun--and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
+achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
+no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.
+
+No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
+subject.
+
+But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way--so nigh to it that
+seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
+
+I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+frequently, "before and after takin'."
+
+Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+calmness, and joy--refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
+
+Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
+brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
+so much peace and happiness.
+
+Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
+question, or ort to be.
+
+And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+lookin' at it, and commandin' it to--or call some posys to fall down
+into my lap, right through, the plasterin'--
+
+Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
+me stayed to Jonesville.
+
+Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
+do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
+deal of the time.
+
+I most know I couldn't.
+
+But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
+Natur.
+
+And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+it.
+
+And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
+of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
+breath leaves their body.
+
+Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
+beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
+
+Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
+never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
+
+And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
+meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
+felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
+lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
+
+They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
+at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of their
+childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
+
+I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
+or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
+imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
+imperfect world.
+
+But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+about 'em--you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
+
+Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
+last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
+end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
+didn't either. And I sez to her, "The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
+to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
+Father when that great day shall be." And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
+I, "How should _you_ be expected to know it?"
+
+Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, "My name
+wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that _wuzn't_ to know it!"
+
+And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side--you
+know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+side--you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
+did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
+use in disputin' back and forth.
+
+But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
+old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+naterally wanted to be round at the time.
+
+She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
+his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
+wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
+up as any way.
+
+Josiah didn't like it at all.
+
+Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance--not fierce, you know,
+or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
+ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
+fierce.
+
+[Illustration: "BURIED IN THE OLD RISLEY DEESIRICT."]
+
+Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
+
+And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
+jest _knew_ the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
+of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
+to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
+made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns--so she told me in
+confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
+
+She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
+for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
+
+But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
+old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
+
+His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length--Joe is
+tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
+for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
+likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
+what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
+she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
+human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
+joke, Jenette duz: "I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
+got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
+would be glad the world _wuz_ comin' to a end."
+
+But he _didn't_ look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
+see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
+have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
+everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
+
+He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
+reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
+'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
+house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
+handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
+barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
+order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
+more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
+
+He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+too.
+
+But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
+Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
+honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
+And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
+subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
+she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
+the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
+bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
+eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
+have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
+a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
+to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
+
+And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
+always said.
+
+She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
+girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
+said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
+gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
+said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
+said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
+goodness to 'em.
+
+That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
+pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
+to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
+and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
+life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
+enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
+night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
+little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
+comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
+and thought her eyes on him.
+
+And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
+home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
+weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
+
+That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+prior and beforehand.
+
+Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
+
+He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
+
+And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
+
+For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+think such a girl as Jenette had been--such a patient, good creeter, and
+such a good-tempered one, and everything--to think her pa should have
+forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+their money and make Jenette trouble.
+
+But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
+I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
+
+But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
+day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
+and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
+
+That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
+
+Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
+a bright face.
+
+If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
+dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
+locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
+laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
+to the rattle of a bone.
+
+And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
+
+The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
+by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
+the qualities kinder struck in and she _wuz_ happy, and she _wuz_
+contented--that is, I s'poze so.
+
+Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
+to home--not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+like a meteor.
+
+Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+movin' constantly through space--but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
+meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
+I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
+
+Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
+who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
+One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
+of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
+admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
+good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
+'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
+
+And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+got to goin'.
+
+[Illustration: "Dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz."]
+
+Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
+and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
+curls all over her head.
+
+Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
+a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
+on the other side, and got through with it.
+
+Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
+
+A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
+had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
+But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
+was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
+afternoon.
+
+Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
+case of the world's endin'.
+
+And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, "that
+she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
+the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes."
+
+And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
+
+She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
+time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
+Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
+in front.
+
+Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
+
+She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
+
+But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
+get better and she did.
+
+One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
+the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
+month.
+
+[Illustration: "Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur."]
+
+He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley
+school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the
+next mornin' Miss  Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that
+evenin'. It wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah
+had to be away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy
+loaded, and wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
+
+But she said "that she felt that the walk would do her good."
+
+I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said "stanchils and
+religion wuz two separate things." Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
+to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
+And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
+another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
+or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
+in onxiety--it hain't my way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
+Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
+carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
+his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
+Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
+with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
+her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
+size.
+
+Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
+enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
+been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach--a sort of
+a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
+her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
+old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
+thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
+wuz tightenin'.
+
+And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
+And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
+head and said, "she didn't approve of it--she thought a chicken ought to
+be brung up by a hen."
+
+But Miss Charnick said, "Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+perished right there in the nest."
+
+But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, "that it wuz
+a hen's business, and nobody else's."
+
+And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
+hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
+if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to--they ought to
+be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
+wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
+the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
+to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
+
+And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+and she said "that basks had gone out."
+
+And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
+Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
+
+"Basks _wuz out_, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+polenay."
+
+And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+"Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
+got so little time to wear 'em."
+
+And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+somethin' about "hired girls keepin' their place."
+
+And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
+
+They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
+their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
+others.
+
+It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
+
+And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
+her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
+fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
+in--I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
+knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
+
+Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
+do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
+sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
+his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
+her belief.
+
+But Josiah said, "he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
+if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
+guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand."
+
+Sez I, "Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself." And he owned up that
+he wuz.
+
+Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
+breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
+overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
+come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
+and press the seams.
+
+I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
+had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
+
+She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
+that day. She sez, "The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
+a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
+riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
+commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
+Hubbard."
+
+"It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.
+
+And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+bitterly reproved him. But he sez, "If the world don't come to a end,
+the corn will be needed."
+
+"But it will," she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ HE, "IF IT DOES, I MAY AS WELL BE DOIN'
+THAT AS TO BE SETTIN' ROUND."]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+settin' round." And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+jawed me for upholdin' him.
+
+And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+previous to eatin' it, sez she, "I should think _respect_, respect for
+the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+of the idea of goin' on with your work."
+
+Sez I calmly, "Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?"
+
+"Wall, not exactly scare," sez she, "but lift up, lift up far above
+bread and other kitchen work."
+
+And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, "I don't s'poze
+I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
+of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
+that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
+would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
+ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+grandchildren." (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
+to dinner.)
+
+"Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
+have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
+soar up above riz biscuit."
+
+And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
+another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, "What did
+they do there?"
+
+"Do!" sez she, "why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile."
+
+I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
+I do say it), and sez calmly, "Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
+have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
+_some_ things, things He has _commanded_. Everybody to their own way.
+I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever," sez I,
+"I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz _my_ way to lay speechless
+or holler much--not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
+principle, but I never seemed to have a call to."
+
+"You would be far better if you did," sez Trueman's wife, "far better.
+But you hain't good enough."
+
+"Oh!" sez I, reasonably, "I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
+the _use_ in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
+all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
+you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
+_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
+"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
+'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
+temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
+regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
+our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
+life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"
+
+"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
+attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."
+
+That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
+with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
+one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
+biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."
+
+Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
+agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
+years.
+
+But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
+
+But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
+companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
+her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+be sent up.
+
+Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
+in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
+by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
+had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
+
+The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
+it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
+goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
+enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
+
+The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
+stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
+talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
+had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
+
+But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+on white book muslin robes. Good land!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+about 3 o'clock P.M.--afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
+
+We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
+wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
+kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
+top of the him book.
+
+Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
+a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
+and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known--Miss Charnick is a
+smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
+
+Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through--as mournful,
+skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
+out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
+way, and wierd--dretful wierd.
+
+And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
+days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
+men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
+and wept and cried.
+
+I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
+serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought--jest
+as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
+very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
+mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
+the certainties of the other.
+
+[Illustration: "A SORT OF A LURID, WILD-LOOKING CHAP."]
+
+For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
+big that the hull world must pass through it--and yet so small that the
+hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.
+
+My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+mysterious arches, alone--and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
+onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had _got_ to be
+parted.
+
+And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+the bendin' heavens--we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
+on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.
+
+Not that I really _wanted_ the world to come to a end that day. No,
+I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
+for the _sake_ of livin'. I enjoy it.
+
+But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+a-shinin' in his'n.
+
+Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+three to quarter to 4--and so on--they shouted, they sung, they prayed,
+they shook each other's hands--they wuz fairly crazed with excitement
+and fervor, which they called religion--for they wuz in earnest, nobody
+could dispute that.
+
+Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time--though I ketched
+him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say, "Oh, how
+I hate to leave you, Jenette!"
+
+But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.
+
+Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on
+the puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say
+this, that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's
+time. And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep
+calm and serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there--no sign, no
+change--and Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.
+
+But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe,
+more than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been
+in for a week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this
+day, he jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and
+stood there in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had
+been calm enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice--his
+voice always did have a good honest ring to it:
+
+  Farewell my friends,
+  Farewell my foes;
+  Up to Heaven
+  Joe Charnick goes.
+
+And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he
+waved his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and
+sprung upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller
+him--and go right up into the heavens.
+
+And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+too--jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a camp
+chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred her
+dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks,
+and lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her
+way of applyin' of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "FAREWELL MY FRIENDS, FAREWELL MY FOES."]
+
+I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+only to put 'em on it.  But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.
+
+Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world--not a
+word--but a-naggin' about everything else.
+
+Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her
+healed, and started off.
+
+But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.
+
+He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+love--Joe never could be megum.
+
+Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell--but
+when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die,
+then she owned up to him that she worshipped him--and always had.
+
+And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death
+at the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl--she thinks her eyes on
+her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever
+wuz all around, if not agreeabler.
+
+Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of
+his bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin'
+her so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad
+on't, so they say.
+
+Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when
+Trueman's wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house
+still; that is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that
+Ma Charnick offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the
+ones she had brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please
+her, so's to get in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14
+of 'em, all fat and flourishing--they wuz well took care of. And Miss
+Charnick looked down on 'em fondly, and sez:
+
+"I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+married."
+
+[Illustration: "I LAY OUT TO HAVE A GOOD CHICKEN PIE THE DAY THAT JOE
+AND JENETTE ARE MARRIED."]
+
+"Married!" sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. "Yes,
+they are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough.
+Jenette is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'--with a
+bask," sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped
+down and gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much
+store she set by it for sickness.
+
+But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered
+and sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before
+the weddin'.
+
+They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here
+a-visitin'--and she asked me in confidence (and it _must_ be kep, it
+stands lo reason it must), "if I s'posed that book muslin robe would
+make two little dresses?"
+
+And I told her, "Good land! yes, three on 'em," and it did.
+
+She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would
+want the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the
+materials--
+
+It looks some like her and some like Joe--and they both think their eyes
+on it--but old Miss Charnick worships it--Wall, though es I said (and I
+have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and onheard on).
+
+Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a _plow_, that
+time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on--
+
+He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+(He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it,
+and don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)
+
+He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+from hour to hour.
+
+He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle
+the wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist
+wimmen wuz to work.
+
+After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+post-office for his daily _World_, and then he would stop on his way
+back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+give us his idees on't.
+
+[Illustration: "HE NEVER HAD TIME TO HELP."]
+
+And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the  very bone, with his
+dretful imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo
+herself, and ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to
+set!
+
+Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.
+
+He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do
+some little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.
+
+But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work.
+He wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about
+that buzz saw mill.
+
+And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz
+able to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and
+their buzz saws, and their inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc.,
+etc.
+
+And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+meetin' house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said
+they had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't
+do any more, any way.
+
+As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the
+male brethern.
+
+Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+come right out plain and said so.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said "he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right
+to his face that he hadn't done his share," and he said "he wuzn't the
+man either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things." I don't
+believe he wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like
+death to have him so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the
+tex' wuz; it wuz these words:
+
+"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."
+
+The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached
+about it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat
+to several of the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly
+pinched 'em.
+
+But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said "he
+wouldn't give a _darn_ cent."
+
+But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+that he had demeaned himself to that extent.
+
+Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain
+members of the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin'
+slightin' about buzz saws.
+
+I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws
+had a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I
+believe the subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these
+various hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the
+men kinder joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other,
+and they all baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the
+minister wuz, good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of
+life, and most half a year's salery due.
+
+I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her
+own sirname about how her Metilda had been used.
+
+The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.
+
+She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny
+it, and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said,
+and stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been
+to save her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when
+some of the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:
+
+"The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+unless it is when you can't help it."
+
+What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:
+
+There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+evenin' meetin's.
+
+She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it
+wuz s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.
+
+She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+a-cryin' before she got it all out.
+
+She always said "she wanted to be found always at the foot of the
+Cross."
+
+She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical,
+and then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out
+into tears somewhere through it from first to last.
+
+But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz
+present for the first time after his wive's death.
+
+But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly--she was most a
+head taller than any man there--and she sez out loud and strong:
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some
+time. And then she begun agin,
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted out agin.
+
+And so it went on for some time--she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+and firm, "that she wanted to be found--" and then bustin' into tears.
+
+Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+right out onto the him--
+
+  "Oh, that will be joyful!"
+
+And Sister Lum sot down.
+
+Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+bring forward that verse of scripter. That the Bible said "'there wuz a
+time to laugh,' and I didn't know when it wuz unless it wuz when you
+couldn't help it--"
+
+But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda--no, indeed. I only said it
+because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin'
+house down on her so heavy.
+
+But Josiah said, "What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+punish its unruly members?"
+
+And I sez to Josiah, "Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of,
+and the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it,
+Josiah Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And
+Miss Henn is a widder and poor."
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah, calmly, "she hain't been able to help the meetin'
+house much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely."
+
+Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, "I hearn he did at the time he wuz
+up--I hearn he contributed _lots_ to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+him--but," sez I, "do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay
+in the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that
+is sendin' men to ruin all round him--
+
+"Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way
+so it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every
+low saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and
+boy that wants it.
+
+"And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm--so he jest
+entices 'em down into the road to ruin--doin' as much agin harm as a
+whiskey seller.
+
+"And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are
+always appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by
+their peers, but wimmen never are.
+
+"I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked
+it to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+about Metilda's case--thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.
+
+[Illustration: "SUPPLYIN' EVERY LOW SALOON FUR AND NEAR."]
+
+"I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's
+mother set on him? She is a Sister  in the meetin' house and Charley is
+a ruined boy--and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin--
+jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if
+he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon."
+
+Sez I, "In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who
+have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of
+their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red
+with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and
+deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.
+
+"What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there
+and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other
+young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young
+hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that
+wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink.
+Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
+changed the smiles to curses?
+
+"Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+easy.
+
+"They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
+down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
+
+"Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
+But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
+no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
+downward?
+
+"How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+love, a divine purity?"
+
+Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
+
+And sez I, "Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
+Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
+the first cause of her goin' astray kep in--the handsome,
+smooth-faced hypocrite?--it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
+plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
+speeches and his money."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH LOOKED UP AND SEZ, 'HOW A STEEPLE WOULD LOOK
+A-PINTIN' DOWN'"]
+
+"Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
+pinted the other way."
+
+Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+sez he,
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
+most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
+anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
+storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
+
+Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+gently sarcestickle.
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."
+
+[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]
+
+Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
+that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
+that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."
+
+"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.
+
+Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
+man that led her astray."
+
+"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
+at the advertisement on the back side on't.
+
+"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
+against the mouths of the witnesses."
+
+"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+some composed.
+
+"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
+all to try her faith."
+
+I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+well what the story wuz he referred to.
+
+It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
+
+She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
+
+And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
+all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
+right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
+while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
+he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
+bitterly.
+
+She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
+
+And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
+it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
+'em.
+
+And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, "Bretheren and
+sisters, let us sing these lines:
+
+  "He did it all to try her faith."
+
+I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
+by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes--nor I didn't
+smile--oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+indignatin in my axents, and sez I, "Josiah Allen, can you look me in
+the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
+such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?" Sez
+I, "If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
+the influence of men that like hard drink?"
+
+"Wall, as it were," sez Josiah, "I--that is--wall, it is a-gettin'
+bed-time, Samantha."
+
+And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
+
+And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour--and I
+dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
+did.
+
+But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
+
+Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+we felt that she wuz a great loss.
+
+Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
+hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
+had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
+etc.
+
+And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
+a little help gin her when she needed it.
+
+And Miss Bobbet said "she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+bein' cast down." And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
+of 'em did. But I sez to 'em--
+
+"Good land!" sez I. "We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+and we can do it agin."
+
+Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
+jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
+the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
+spell.
+
+But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
+
+We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
+other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
+prayed--we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
+rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
+Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
+and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
+to nothin' or not.
+
+Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
+our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
+had a right to).
+
+After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+enough to raise some money.
+
+It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
+the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
+
+It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
+at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
+makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
+
+But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
+we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
+
+The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+fix up the old house a little.
+
+The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
+half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
+aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
+always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
+when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
+'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
+be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
+ways--nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
+meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
+resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
+which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
+meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
+approvals--and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint--we could
+_work_ all we wanted to.
+
+So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
+had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
+we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
+be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
+wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
+to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
+and the scrapin' had begun.
+
+[Illustration: "APPEARIN' IN PUBLIC."]
+
+The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+together, and raised enough money to get the paper--it wuz very nice,
+and fifty cents a roll (double roll).  These young females appearin' in
+public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
+and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
+I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
+sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
+our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
+
+I sez, "I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
+es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
+of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
+sights of quavers."
+
+But they all said that wuz a _very_ different thing.
+
+And sez I, "How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
+of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
+congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
+'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
+see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"--and
+sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
+had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and I
+wouldn't nuther.
+
+But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
+scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
+could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
+say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
+And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.
+
+Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
+have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
+and 'Piscopals.
+
+No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
+do the scrapin' with case knives.
+
+It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
+as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
+fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
+standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
+strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
+got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
+that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
+is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
+before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
+to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
+
+But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
+there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
+what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
+Methodist Meetin' House.
+
+Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
+all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
+to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
+strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
+we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.
+
+[Illustration: "EVERY NIGHT JOSIAH WOULD TACKLE ME ON IT."]
+
+And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+thought quelled us down a sight.
+
+Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
+and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
+up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.
+
+And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
+the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
+house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
+to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
+Conference.
+
+It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+Jonesville with a extra grip.
+
+So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
+
+Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
+from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
+
+I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
+brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
+
+He would talk _very_ skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
+of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
+by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
+
+I suffered.
+
+Josiah would set with the _World_ and other papers in his hand,
+a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
+left off, the nite mairs would begin.
+
+I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
+
+The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
+wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
+rostrums. And sez he, "That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
+stand."
+
+[Illustration: "IS ROSTRUMS MUCH HIGHER THAN THEM BARELLS TO STAND ON?"]
+
+And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
+not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
+work, I sez to him:
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+meetin' house?"
+
+And Josiah said, "it wuz suthin' altogether different." And he assured
+me agin,
+
+"That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
+to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
+why," sez he, "that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
+most all the hard work in the church--such as raisin' money for church
+work--earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
+of charity work connected with it--teachin' the children, nursin' the
+sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But," sez he, "this is
+fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
+Conference. Why," sez he, in a haughty tone, "I should think they'd know
+without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women."
+
+Sez I, "Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
+wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
+vote for them?"
+
+"That is the pint," sez Josiah, "that is the very pint I have been
+tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
+help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+explain it to you that the word laymen _always_ means woman when she can
+help men in any way, but _not_ when he can help her, or in any other
+sense."
+
+Sez I, "It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+meetin' house."
+
+"Oh, yes," sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, "the word laymen always means
+wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+men."
+
+Sez I, in a very dry axent, "Then the word man, when it is used in
+church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
+and drowdgin' round?"
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah haughtily, "And it always means men in the higher and
+more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
+on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so," sez he.
+
+"Who settled it?" sez I.
+
+"Why the men, of course," sez he. "The men have always made the rules
+of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+difficult," sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, "It
+seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+and when it means wimmen."
+
+"That is so," sez Josiah. "It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
+and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
+taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
+right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
+votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
+
+"I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
+where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
+
+"Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
+
+"Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+born.' That means men and wimmen both--men and wimmen are both born,
+nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
+Now that means men only--anybody with one eye can see that.
+
+"Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+both--consists--of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
+'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?" sez he.
+
+I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
+hand waitin' for it to bile--"I see a great deal, Josiah Allen."
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH WORK.]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "I am glad on't. Now to sum it up," sez he, with some
+the mean of a preacher--or, ruther, a exhauster--"to sum the matter all
+up, the  words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
+the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
+all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
+missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
+from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
+the meanin' of the word--sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
+both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
+their own idees, preachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?" sez
+he, proudly and loftily.
+
+"Yes," sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
+biled. "Yes, I see."
+
+And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
+and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
+anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
+his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
+sect if I tried--clergymen, statesmen and all--so I didn't try, and I
+wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
+idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
+some good cream into it--I merely sez:
+
+"There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+men."
+
+"Yes," sez he, "that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,"
+and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
+and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
+
+And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+question I had put to him--for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
+recuperation, and so I sez agin them words--
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?" And Josiah said
+agin, "it wuz suthin' entirely different;" he said barells and rostrums
+wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
+hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
+argument full of Bible quotations and everything.
+
+And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
+the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
+that meetin house.
+
+And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
+we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
+
+Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
+
+Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+and nerved up her body.
+
+Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+"Cleanliness _next_ to godliness."
+
+So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+with a willin' mind.
+
+Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
+say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
+and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
+workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked--and all of the wimmen who
+wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
+a-workin' hard on articles for the fair--when all of a suddin the
+outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
+bretheren.
+
+They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
+Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
+wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
+
+Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
+to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
+it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
+that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
+derectin'.
+
+And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
+and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
+house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
+me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
+
+And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
+near time for us to go home.
+
+Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
+they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
+then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
+
+I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
+the heat.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE.]
+
+Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
+partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
+manners, and didn't say much.
+
+But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
+way--
+
+"Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+jest like you?"
+
+"No," sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, "no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
+your days at church work under the direction of us men."
+
+"Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you," sez she admirin'ly,
+"I could work jest like you--pass round the bread and wine and the
+contribution box Sundays?"
+
+"Oh, no, Drusilly," sez he condesendinly, "these hard and arjuous dutys
+belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
+the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc."
+
+"But," sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+deacon), "wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers--work for
+the good of the church together--go about doin' good?"
+
+"No, Drusilly," sez he, "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
+for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
+
+"We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+generally."
+
+Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
+of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
+the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
+side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
+usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
+transparent manner of speakin'.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+"he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+Conference, because it would _weaken_ the Conference."
+
+"Yes," sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+floor.
+
+"You see," sez he, "we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
+weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
+her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
+would admit would keep out a man. And that," sez he (a-leanin' back in
+a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), "that, you see, would
+tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church."
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ I, "MOVE ROUND A LITTLE, WON'T YOU, FOR WE
+WANT TO SET THE BENCH."]
+
+"Wall," sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, "move round a
+little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
+under it. And," sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
+and sweat offen my face, "Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
+holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
+'em? Some of 'em are very hefty," sez I, "and all of us Sisters almost
+are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
+and bile down; we would dearly love a little help," sez I.
+
+"I would help," sez Josiah in a willin' tone, "I would help in a minute,
+if I hadn't got so much work to do at home."
+
+And all the other male bretheren said the same thing--they had got to
+git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
+and I knew it.)
+
+But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
+his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
+of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
+the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
+the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
+she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
+
+She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
+of his folks that day, over to Loontown.
+
+And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
+and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
+one work--deacon work--and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
+hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
+plain deacon work.
+
+It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
+and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
+piece had convinced her--
+
+She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
+be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
+would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SEE THIS WILD AND SKAIRFUL MACHINE APPROACHIN'."]
+
+When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
+up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
+tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
+bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his.  There was a bet upon these
+two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
+where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
+hollerin'.
+
+And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
+
+His mean wuz wild.
+
+And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
+she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
+old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
+after 'em.
+
+And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
+a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
+
+Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+nuther.
+
+And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
+
+It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+long, long time, and it wuz what he called "A Travellin' Rat Trap." It
+wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
+
+[Illustration: DEACON HENZY'S RAT TRAP (LIKE A CIRCUS FOR THE RATS).]
+
+It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em--rats
+or mice, or anything--and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
+
+Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
+
+It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
+
+But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
+machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
+
+Deacon Sypher had took the agency for "The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+Boy of the Plain," and wuz doin' well by it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
+and arneky.
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD TO LAY BOUND UP IN LINEMENTS A GOOD DEAL OF THE
+TIME."]
+
+So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
+
+And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
+his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
+
+He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
+away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
+his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
+about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
+as he could, to try it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
+break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
+hardly dast to go nigh 'em.
+
+And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
+to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
+him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the
+"Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
+home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
+wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping Cow Boy."
+
+And then they said--the hull three of the deacons did--that any minute
+them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
+saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
+
+And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+demanded the hull of their time--every minute of it.
+
+So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
+
+We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
+would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
+
+Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
+
+But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
+to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
+
+"Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?"
+
+"It is on account of their minds," sez Josiah. "Men have got stronger
+minds than wimmen, that is the reason."
+
+And Sister Meechim sez agin--
+
+"Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
+deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
+if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?"
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, "that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+brains hain't so hefty es men's."
+
+But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+loud, clear tone,
+
+"Oh, shaw!"
+
+And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
+
+"If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
+you are a-standin'."
+
+"Certainly," sez Josiah, in a polite axent, "certainly."
+
+And so the rest of the men said.
+
+And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,
+
+"You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+puddin', and so forth."
+
+And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, "Have I ever failed, Josiah
+Allen, to have good dinners for you, and on time too?"
+
+"No," sez he, "but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it,
+and also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+deaconesses."
+
+And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work
+in the meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister
+Arvilly Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue
+(some think that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had
+chances).
+
+But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,
+
+"I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH ADDED TO HIS REMARKS."]
+
+"Wall," sez Sister Gowdy--she loves to put on Arvilly--"wall, you have
+got one qualificatin', Arvilly!"
+
+"Yes, thank the Lord," sez she.
+
+And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, _I_ think.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say
+it.
+
+Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me
+to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long,
+so I didn't care.
+
+Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay
+to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+wuz company, or lay out to.
+
+Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
+
+He had jest got home from the city.
+
+It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had
+to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody
+else couldn't sign.
+
+[Illustration: CASPER KEELER.]
+
+His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
+
+Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
+
+He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+cetery, et cetery.
+
+He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in
+the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very
+highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
+
+And I sez, "Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?"
+
+And he acted real scorfin'.
+
+"Wimmen's work!" sez he. "No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and
+too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such
+little trifles as wimmen's work."
+
+Sez I, "Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if
+it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you
+are a-usin'?" sez I, "who educated you and made your life easy before
+you?"
+
+And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother
+wuz a good woman.
+
+But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin'
+it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
+
+But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over
+with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz
+a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of
+my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc.,
+etc.
+
+[Illustration: "HE SEEMED TO HAVE A HORROW OF WOMAN A-RAISIN' OUT OF HER
+SPEAR."]
+
+Sez Casper, "It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life," sez he,
+"when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen
+keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in
+that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+reasons why poor weak wimmen should _not_ be admitted into that sacred
+enclosure--
+
+"When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I
+have ever experienced. Why, he said," sez Casper, "that if wimmen wuz
+allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The
+next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly
+argument," sez Casper.
+
+"It must have been," sez my Josiah.
+
+"He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear."
+
+"Well he might," sez Josiah, "well he might."
+
+Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This
+wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real
+solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only
+more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig
+some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its
+feet--no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of
+truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and
+curius I felt hearin' their talk.
+
+"And," sez I, "nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I
+have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf," sez I, "deep
+and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his
+burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his
+unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the
+very depths of my soul at his freedom.
+
+"But," sez I, "when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
+
+"Yes," sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
+
+"When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen
+are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach,
+I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and
+where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand
+and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all
+over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody
+says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the
+old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted
+and bring forth freedom.
+
+"If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster
+would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him
+up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought
+and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many
+animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
+him so."
+
+"Oh, no," sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', "no, you wouldn't."
+
+"Yes, I would," sez I. "And I'd 've enjoyed it _richly_" sez I, es I
+turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
+
+[Illustration: SAMANTHA EXPRESSES HER VIEWS.]
+
+Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+machin' for about the same length of time.
+
+But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+dinner.
+
+After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
+
+But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
+Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
+and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
+several days.
+
+And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
+
+But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
+of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
+own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
+his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
+failure, and such.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER BOBBET, OUR DEPENDENCE, FELL DOWN ON A APPLE
+PARIN'".]
+
+And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she--
+
+"Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
+I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
+to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake." Rosy wuz
+Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+now a father's strong hand.
+
+Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always
+been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the
+savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property
+with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took
+his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
+
+Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
+
+Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz
+lost--a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits,
+and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
+
+[Illustration: RALPH SMITH ROBINSON.]
+
+He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time--he felt
+weak and mauger.
+
+And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got
+in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she
+_needed_ a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else
+she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with
+her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father
+wuz--so wouldn't Ralph come home.
+
+Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked
+and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love
+and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith
+Robinson.
+
+Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that
+the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost
+crazed him.
+
+He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with
+him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The
+world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so
+near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, "he
+walked with God." Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they
+wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for
+Yankees.
+
+And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+Presidential election.
+
+Ralph suffered.
+
+But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
+
+Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+the droppin's of the sanctuary.
+
+She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered
+up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under
+the steeple.
+
+Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by
+the voice of his soul and his good silver watch--this volume of clamor,
+this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz
+perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin'
+dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he
+come down with nervous fever.
+
+He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he
+wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he
+bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no
+idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got
+it.
+
+I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work
+of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't
+languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the
+female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in
+Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled
+me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel
+divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what
+day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend
+when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear
+a hankerchif pin or not--or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc.,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
+
+Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case
+before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful
+that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence.
+One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder
+deprestin' about it.
+
+But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
+
+We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go
+into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has
+always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice
+to Josiah Allen.
+
+Howsumever, I don't _know_ that. But I do know that they started off
+a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back
+home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
+
+[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS.]
+
+And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+said they bought 'em.
+
+And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either
+one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the
+truth of this. I know what they _said_, they _said_ the huntin' wuz
+excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
+
+And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
+
+But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+bigger ones, and shot more deers.
+
+Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a
+good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and,
+suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our
+journey to Loontown.
+
+[Illustration: "MISS TIMSON AND ROSY SEEMED DRETFUL GLAD TO SEE ME."]
+
+Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale
+and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been
+there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well
+as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts
+and their souls and their idealized fancies.
+
+Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good
+a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
+
+And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24
+hours I begun to feel some as they did.
+
+But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
+
+But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
+
+His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all,
+had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and
+struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine
+sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
+
+He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost
+as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But
+under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his
+good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire
+that wuz a-consumin' of him.
+
+Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms
+and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+Timson to understand that I wuz there to _help_ 'em if I could.
+
+"For," sez I softly, "the hull future time is left for us to weep in,
+but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson."
+
+Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves
+or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all
+through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
+
+Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to
+give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+refused.
+
+Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+sleep, "buzz saw mill."
+
+[Illustration: "DIDN'T SEE HOW FOLKS NEEDED SO MUCH SLEEP."]
+
+But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly--
+
+"Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful." And I wouldn't
+waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+in haste--
+
+"That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+real treat to keep awake all night, now and then."
+
+No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case
+might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without
+disputin' with my Josiah.
+
+Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
+language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
+feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
+strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
+said:
+
+"And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
+the peace! the peace!"
+
+His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
+wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
+and inside, that he invoked.
+
+Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
+down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
+wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
+
+Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
+he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
+would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
+then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
+
+Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
+excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
+bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
+it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
+tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
+perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
+goes.
+
+Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
+to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
+of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+tenderness and sweetness of nater.
+
+A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
+hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
+Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
+would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
+
+Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
+if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+"business!"
+
+So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
+spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
+then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
+one of 'em good ones).
+
+He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
+or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
+make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
+and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
+to be.
+
+[Illustration: "THE DEACON DID MAKE ME THINK OF A STEEL TRAP."]
+
+Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
+in the mornin' would roust him up,  and I had come to see if he would
+omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
+
+"Not ring the bells!" sez he, in wild amaze. "Not ring the church bells
+on the Sabbath day?"
+
+His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez--
+
+"Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+bells in the mornin'."
+
+"A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a _Christian_ to not ring the
+Sabbath bells!"
+
+I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
+the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
+the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
+a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
+a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
+his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
+depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.
+
+But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+anybody ever could, as he sez: "The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
+for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
+broke down and weak?" sez he.
+
+"No," sez I, honestly. "No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
+trap."
+
+"Wall," sez he, "what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else."
+
+"But," sez I, "folks are made up different." Sez I, "The Bible sez so,
+and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you
+ever nervous?" sez I.
+
+"Never," sez he. And he added firmly, "I don't believe in nerves. I
+never did. There hain't no use in 'm."
+
+"It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then," sez I. "As a generel thing the
+Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever," sez I,
+"there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any
+way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one
+state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the
+sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to
+him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not
+have 'em rung in the mornin'."
+
+"Are you a professor?" sez he.
+
+"Yes," sez I.
+
+"What perswaision?" sez he.
+
+"Methodist Episcopal," sez I.
+
+"And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set
+aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the
+Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause
+of religion languish--I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread
+desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
+
+  "'The sound of the church-going bells,
+  These valleys and hills never heard.'"
+
+"No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances."
+
+"Why," sez I, "that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks
+seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and
+better time than they do to meetin'," sez I. "In your opinin' it hain't
+necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz,
+to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear."
+
+"Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+agrivatin' to saint and sinner."
+
+"But," sez I, "they say they do it for the sake of religion."
+
+"Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks," sez he bitterly.
+
+"No," sez I, "nor in a bell clapper."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+worshippers together, that is necessary."
+
+Sez I, "One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion."
+
+Sez he, "Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded
+out."
+
+"Yes," sez I candidly, "and in the sweet past they wuz necessary," sez
+I. "In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz
+fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what
+is runnin' over with clocks--everybody knows the time; they know it so
+much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals,
+their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their
+visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They
+time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
+through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
+time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
+hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
+no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
+supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
+bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
+started.
+
+"Take a man with the Sunday _World_ jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
+with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
+hain't a-goin' to start him.
+
+"And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
+and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
+won't start 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "BELLS HAIN'T A-GOIN' TO START HIM."]
+
+"And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
+church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
+trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
+bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
+bell on earth."
+
+"Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject," sez he (I had convinced
+him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
+wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). "But," sez he
+wavin' off that side of the subject, "the observance is so time honored,
+so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past."
+
+"Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven," sez I, "that I know every single
+emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony."
+
+"Agony!" sez he, "talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a
+more heavenly sound on earth."
+
+[Illustration: "A-LEANIN' OVER THE FRONT GATE ON A STILL SPRING
+MORNIN'."]
+
+"So it has been to me," sez I candidly. "To me they have always sounded
+beautiful, heavenly. Why," sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond
+Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and
+insperation come to me borne out of  the past into my very soul, by the
+tender memories of the bells--thoughts of the great host of believers
+who had gathered together at the sound of the bells--the great army of
+the Redeemed--
+
+  'Some of the host have crossed the flood, and some
+  are crossin' now,'
+
+thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+used to him,
+
+"Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a
+still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier
+roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine
+a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the
+hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over
+all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur
+off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells,
+a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin'
+memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears
+listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer
+beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet
+emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts,
+inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together
+at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the
+children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts
+of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their
+ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to
+their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave
+hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz
+ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed
+out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how
+the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
+(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
+
+"As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+have rung into my very soul.
+
+"But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+lead me round a good deal of the time.
+
+"Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
+step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
+sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
+the year, better than they can without sleep.
+
+"You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
+a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
+it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
+hain't so fortunate as I am.
+
+"I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
+also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
+get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
+I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
+gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
+than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
+in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
+on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
+subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
+of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.
+
+"What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
+from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep--the bells to them seem
+murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: "TOSSIN' ON BEDS OF NERVOUS SUFFERIN'."]
+
+"To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
+last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
+than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
+instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
+screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
+Religion.
+
+"I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
+sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
+we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
+have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
+So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
+the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
+can sleep in peace.
+
+"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
+benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
+can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
+can.
+
+"Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
+world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
+the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
+a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
+wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.
+
+"The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
+could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
+to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
+for 'em--the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
+It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.
+
+"Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+coarser, more sensual vision."
+
+Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
+spread the Gospel."
+
+"And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+could, "Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without
+the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he
+ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with
+his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "it wuz different times now."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+the sick, and tender hearted always."
+
+"Wall, _I_ will help him," sez Deacon Garven, "I will watch, and I will
+pray, and I will work for him."
+
+Sez I, "Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if
+he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?"
+
+"Wall," sez he kinder meltin' down a little, "I will talk with the
+bretheren."
+
+Sez I, "Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em."
+
+Sez he, "I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of
+the church."
+
+Sez I, "Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+and I believe it is safe to foller 'em."
+
+But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren,
+and I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out
+afterwuds, I wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon
+Garven in his own smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a
+guard over him, armed nearly to the teeth with clubs.
+
+But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.
+
+Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for
+a few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up
+in bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift
+up his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long
+sermons in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon
+right through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know
+it by the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little
+in that same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless,
+in our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--
+
+[Illustration: "THE LORD BE PRAISED, WE SHALL PULL HIM THROUGH."]
+
+"Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through."
+
+She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried
+and wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.
+
+Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks
+to the Lord for his mercy.
+
+As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a
+teaspoon ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if
+he needed it, or medicine.
+
+When all of a sudden--slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the
+bells.
+
+Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+died.
+
+And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it.
+He who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.
+
+[Illustration: "AND I THOUGHT HE WUZ PRONOUNCIN' A BENEDICTION ON THE
+SAVAGES."]
+
+His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them
+strange words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I
+thought then, and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction
+on the savages. And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from
+on High at that last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all
+benighted savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
+met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
+very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
+
+For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
+scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
+and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift _both_
+arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
+
+I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+homes on the run.
+
+But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
+our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
+in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
+
+[Illustration: "WE HAD TO WAIT FOR THE PASTE TO BILE."]
+
+Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
+paper--we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
+conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
+bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
+poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+[Illustration: "WE ALL SET AND LAID ON OUR PLANS, AND CUT THE EDGES
+OFFEN THE PAPER."]
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
+our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
+offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
+very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
+weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
+arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
+next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
+and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
+depend on, and what she had to do with.
+
+And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
+one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
+fair.
+
+And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+melancholy groan all to herself.
+
+[Illustration: "THE HANDLE COME OUT."]
+
+I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
+I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
+wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
+always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
+
+But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
+us, and the hull of mine wuz.
+
+Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
+sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.
+
+It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
+at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
+foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
+the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
+own livin'.
+
+Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
+very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
+
+[Illustration: "I WOULD MEANDER OUT THERE IN A ICY NIGHT TO FEED IT."]
+
+We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+there in a icy night to feed it.  But jest as it is always the way with
+wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
+on me, the better I liked it.
+
+Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
+
+So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
+
+That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
+
+And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
+about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
+
+He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
+other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it "horse corset" in a kind of
+a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
+with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
+
+[Illustration: "BEEN OUT TO TEND TO YOUR 'HORSE CORSET,' HAVE YOU?"]
+
+He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+feather piller and say to me:  "Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+have you?"
+
+"_Horse corset_! 'Wall, what if it wuz?"
+
+Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
+a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
+
+And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms--and
+he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took--etc., etc., etc.
+
+(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
+get up and get my feet so cold).
+
+But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
+
+And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
+got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
+stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
+increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.
+
+And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
+
+Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
+least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the
+wants and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female
+sisters wuz a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our
+ingregiencies with for the fair.
+
+He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There
+wuz four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the
+very least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and
+mebby both on 'em.
+
+But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.
+
+[Illustration: "HANDED ME A TEN CENT PIECE."]
+
+I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+least I said some words  to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of
+how I felt on the subject.
+
+Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't
+want a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+wuz.
+
+Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the
+subject--and spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my
+back to him, a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece
+of mind. And thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be
+repentent, and hand me out a ten dollar bill.
+
+But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:
+
+"Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit."
+
+I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+hand, and sez I:
+
+"What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?"
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, JOSIAH ALLEN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?"]
+
+"Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I
+dare persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions
+that there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked
+over, and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have
+been worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that."
+
+"How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?" sez I.
+
+"Why m-i-t-e, mit."
+
+"I should think," sez I, "that that spells mite."
+
+"Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite."
+
+And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute
+remark, bringin' the "mite" in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no,
+there wuzn't a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement,
+but solemn and bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the
+stove, solemn, and took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his
+shirt collar agin with solemnety and deep earnest. "No," Josiah Allen
+continued, "there hain't no sense in that--but mit! there you have
+sense. All wimmen wear mits; they love 'em. She most probable had a good
+pair, and lost one on 'em, and then give the other to the church. I tell
+you it takes men to translate the Bible, they have such a realizin'
+sense of the weaknesses of wimmen, and how necessary it is to translate
+it in such a way as to show up them weaknesses, and quell her down, and
+make her know her place, make her know that man is her superior in every
+way, and it is her duty as well as privilege to look up to him."
+
+And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty
+and over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up
+haughtily at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,
+
+"But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is
+jest my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be."
+
+"Yes," sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+wuz fairly hissin' hot. "She most probable had some man to advise her,
+and to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
+house." Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
+one I keep by me--and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
+necessity.
+
+"Most probable," sez Josiah, "most probable she did." He thought I wuz
+praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.
+
+"Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to
+mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
+up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me."
+
+But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:
+
+"If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
+livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you." And I would, if it wuz the
+last move I ever made.
+
+But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
+every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
+and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
+I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
+carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
+'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.
+
+And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their
+money, told jest how they come by it.
+
+Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
+mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
+cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
+exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
+has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.
+
+Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
+(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
+rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
+had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
+ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
+but she concluded to make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.
+
+And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who
+married a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents
+apiece, and Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the
+feathers offen her own back.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE HAD PICKED TEN GEESE AT TWO CENTS APIECE."]
+
+And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and
+warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift
+'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she
+picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.
+
+But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over
+to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice
+ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.
+
+Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four
+dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took
+it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and
+sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and
+besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'),
+she gin the hull to the meetin' house.
+
+There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in
+the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.
+
+And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+got in that way.
+
+But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.
+
+But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of
+it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her--she wuz the widder
+Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn
+what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to
+Sister Grimshaw, by right.
+
+Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:
+
+"Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+use, and for church work, and charity?"
+
+"Because he is so hard with her," sez Sister Lanfear, "and tears round
+so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should
+dress well--wants her to--and live well. But he don't want her to spend
+a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she
+should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin."
+
+"Wall," sez I, "what business is it to him what she does with her own
+money and her own property?"
+
+I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more
+openly.
+
+And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled
+three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day
+for contogglin'.
+
+She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a
+old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+would be willin', so it is spozed.
+
+Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz
+kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more
+of'em.
+
+But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.
+
+[Illustration: "SUBMIT TEWKSBURY DID BRING THAT PLATE."]
+
+And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+part with it, but she did bring _that plate_. That pink edged, chiny
+plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel
+Danker for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in
+front of it.
+
+Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full
+part towerds helpin' the meetin' house along--so she tore up her
+memorial, a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a
+burnt chiny offerin' to the Lord.
+
+Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+begun to affect us like that.
+
+To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand
+in that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she
+didn't, but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we
+all knew the feelin' she felt for the plate.
+
+It affected all on us fearfully.
+
+But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+merely sez, when she wuz thanked: "Oh, you are entirely welcome to it,
+and I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along."
+
+And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+more pitiful than tears would have been.
+
+Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.
+
+Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em,
+too. Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot
+down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever
+happened in Jonesville, or the world--although it is eppisodin' to tell
+on it now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you
+may say, my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I
+don't know but I may as well tell it now as any time.
+
+Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+the livin' truth.
+
+That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she
+heard a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears
+and opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the
+warm cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin
+Submit a look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look
+that had in it the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of
+faithfulness and heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.
+
+Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white,
+and she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,
+
+"Who be you?"
+
+And he sez,
+
+"I am Samuel Danker."
+
+And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin'
+chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.
+
+And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair
+cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and
+the feather oozed out.
+
+I don't tell this for truth, I only say that _they say_ thus and so.
+
+[Illustration: "I AM SAMUEL DANKER."]
+
+But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+that they wuz married that  very night of his return, that too can be
+swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit--superanuated,
+but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the
+ceremony.
+
+It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.
+
+But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I
+don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years
+younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy
+he looks, and how he has renewed his age.
+
+The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+wuz spozed to be envius.
+
+And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+over both religous and seckuler grounds.
+
+One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for
+him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the
+plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself.
+How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of
+extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets
+down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY DON'T COME!"] _They don't come!_
+
+But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and
+go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the
+frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to
+her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of
+company at that time of day.
+
+_They come!_
+
+Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin'
+tears on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all
+hope and happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is
+a-standin' right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with
+'em.
+
+Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her--Samuel
+Danker by name.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY COME."]
+
+Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that  I dropped in the
+Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.
+
+Wall, Submit brought the plate.
+
+Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.
+
+And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse
+takin' 'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala
+Crane, Joe Cranes'es widder.
+
+She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.
+
+She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us
+extremely worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it
+with such a cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz
+so thin and wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin',
+and all darned in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the
+money to get her a new dress.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER ARVILLY LANFRAR, CANVASSIN' FOR A BOOK."]
+
+But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I  wouldn't have been the one to
+tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.
+
+Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages--she is a
+millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+day's work wuz done.
+
+And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight
+cents by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: "The Wild,
+Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man."
+
+And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she
+had to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the
+time, a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She
+said she loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page
+to the back bindin'.
+
+As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had
+some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I
+wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to--sez I,
+"Arvilly, men are _jest_ as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+better."
+
+And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I
+gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+but'nuts.
+
+[Illustration: "OLD MISS BALCH."]
+
+Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+the worth on it.
+
+And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't
+no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a
+halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she
+calculated to make the old ones do.
+
+And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years
+old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all
+swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three
+pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have
+laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said
+a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she
+felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very
+strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
+
+She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she _had_ to have to get
+Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
+
+Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now
+he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't
+have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
+
+Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+emergincies or bunnets.
+
+She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out
+of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+Deacon's feet.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
+
+And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and
+gin it to the fair to sell.
+
+We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+needed it.
+
+But she would make us take it; she said "if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+she would say to her,
+
+"Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress
+and mourn fer me in a black calico."
+
+_That_ Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say
+to her if she wuz alive.
+
+And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything.
+She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps,
+and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
+
+  [Illustration: "I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD."]
+
+  "I love thy kingdom, Lord,
+  The house of thine abode,
+  The church our dear Redeemer bought
+  With His most precious blood."
+
+The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes,
+and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse--
+
+  "For her my tears shall fall,
+  For her my prayers ascend,
+  For her my toil and life be given,
+  Till life and toil shall end."
+
+The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how
+she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought
+of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
+
+Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars;
+the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten
+to the fair.
+
+It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived
+with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+meetin' house.
+
+Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do
+it.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+paperin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best
+qualified to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.
+
+And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet
+es it hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it
+hadn't been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly
+have shirked out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy
+constituent.
+
+Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on
+the ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up
+fur, fur beyond the strength of their sockets.
+
+[Illustration: "WE FELT NERVED UP TO DO OUR BEST."]
+
+But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen  also, and it wuzn't for
+me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out
+of hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin'
+House wuz at the Bay.
+
+No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped
+holt of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly
+Lanfear and Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur
+a-holdin' up Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our
+two barells, Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy
+for us to mount up on.
+
+Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the
+time but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more
+wearin' and awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it
+day and night for weeks and weeks, every one on us.
+
+The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair
+to loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility
+that laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.
+
+It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+hull life.
+
+Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+eyes--Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).
+
+Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled--smiles broke out on every
+face, about thirty smiles--a half a minute more and it would be done,
+and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate of
+our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.
+
+But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin'
+house that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had
+been standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned.
+But as I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in
+the land wuz there and present.
+
+They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.
+
+They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.
+
+They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen
+that had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't
+set, that they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.
+
+And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+Josiah to read it out to us.
+
+So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us.
+But he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great
+and triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.
+
+[Illustration: "THE METHODIST CONFERENCE HAD DECIDED THAT WIMMEN WUZ
+TOO WEAK TO SET."]
+
+And so he read it out to us, and as we see that  that
+breadth wuz spilte, we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.
+
+And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend
+with such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men
+in a bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair
+sex had been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they
+sez, some on 'em, "Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for,
+if it hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?"
+
+And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, "cooin' doves" and "sweet
+tender flowerets," as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in
+too big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction.
+They had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in
+Jonesville and up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.
+
+But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door
+as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the
+nation on the decesion, for, sez they,
+
+"Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the
+time."
+
+And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits--
+
+"If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on
+anything--a Conference or anything else."
+
+And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,
+
+"For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so."
+
+And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+house agin.
+
+[Illustration: The End]
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.
+
+
+In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in
+and preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
+of 1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers
+have deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered
+on the floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.
+
+The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+Conference are held quadrennially.
+
+Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women
+delegates were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral
+Conferences--namely, The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference,
+The Pittsburgh Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was
+made against the admission of these delegates on the ground that the
+admission of women delegates was not in accord with the constitutional
+provisions of the Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive
+Rules. A special Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in
+the General Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members,
+to whom the protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported
+adversely to the admission of the four women delegates, the report
+alleging "that under the Constitution and laws of the Church as they now
+are, women are not eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference."
+From the discussion following this report, and lasting several days, the
+following six addresses, three in favor of and three against the
+admission of the women delegates, are selected and presented, with a few
+verbal corrections, as published in the official journal of the
+Conference.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.
+
+I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body,
+ought to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the
+Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules
+is that these women elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this
+General Conference.
+
+Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet
+it was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they
+would be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and
+afterward demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not
+enrolled with the others were called, and the protests were read. Their
+names have been called as members of this body, and they are simply here
+as "challenged" members. From that standpoint this question must be
+discussed, and any disposition of this case under the circumstances must
+be in this direction. These women delegates must be put out of this
+General Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges
+of members here. It is not a question of "admitting" them. Before this
+report, before the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to
+vote and act, and millions of people will hold us responsible, and I
+dare say that our votes will be recorded as to whether they shall be
+"put out" or "stay in."
+
+Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists
+for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the
+membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was
+made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea
+in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the
+fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers
+and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical
+government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question
+to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of
+petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General
+Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question
+not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble
+man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England
+Conference, moved himself to strike out the word "male" from the report
+of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was
+stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the
+Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay
+delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of
+suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed
+the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be
+questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts
+abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the
+right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law.
+Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government--and it has
+often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United
+States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in
+the government of the Church--you will find that the right of suffrage
+in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the
+most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right
+to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and
+for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American
+citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and
+trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this
+way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member
+of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little
+later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and
+under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the
+right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the "plan"
+of lay delegation, but on the "principle" of lay delegation. That was
+decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop
+Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences. On the principle
+of lay delegation, the women of the Church were granted the right of
+suffrage; presently they appeared in the Quarterly Conference, to vote
+as class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents; and it
+created a little excitement, a feverish state of feeling in the Church,
+and the General Conference simply passed a resolution or a rule
+interpreting that action on the part of women claiming this privilege
+in the Quarterly Conference as being a "right," and it was continued.
+Presently, as the right of suffrage of women passed on and grew, they
+voted in the Electoral Conferences, and there was no outcry made against
+it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in the Church, or any presiding
+elder, or any minister challenging the right of women to vote in
+Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and yet for sixteen
+years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to send laymen here
+to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to elect Bishops
+and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to where votes
+count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen years, and
+only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that the
+General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+"constitution of the men," who challenge these women.
+
+Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should
+be protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was
+placed in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the
+National Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor
+of it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to
+the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
+South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.
+
+Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
+to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
+find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
+their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
+"stop!" "we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality"? No. They
+were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
+been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
+United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
+protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
+States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
+the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
+constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
+the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
+office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
+the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
+to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
+interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
+for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
+interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
+books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
+goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
+find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a
+woman practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back
+through the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and
+you will find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in
+the Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted
+in order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the
+judges of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the
+Constitution of the United States, said, "Women may be officers of the
+Supreme Court, and may practise law there." The same kind of a spirit,
+in interpreting the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the
+Discipline of the Church, will place these women delegates in this body
+where they have been sent. The same thing is true of the Supreme Court
+of Pennsylvania and in the Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out,
+as my judgment sees, and as my conscience tells me, since before the
+government of God man and woman are equally responsible. There is no way
+out of this dilemma for this General Conference, but to say that these
+women delegates shall sit in this body, where they have been sent, and
+where their names have been called.
+
+Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+this body.
+
+We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor
+of Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+ranks of her membership--(Time called.)
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.
+
+
+Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification
+of a passage of Scripture occurred to me, "The enemy cometh in like
+a flood, but I will lift up a standard against him." It is somewhat
+peculiar that he should begin by making a statement about one of the
+most honored names in American Methodism, a statement that has been
+published in the papers, and that nine tenths of this body knew as well
+as he did. It must have been intended as a part of his argument, and I
+regard it as of as much force as anything he said after it. But in
+point of fact the question does not turn upon the person, but upon the
+principle. I have received an anonymous letter containing the following
+among other things, "Beware how you attack the holy cause of woman. Do
+you not know that obstacles to progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the
+way?" The signature of that letter is ingenious. I cannot tell whether
+it was a man or a woman, for it reads as follows, "A Lover of your Soul
+and of Woman." Now, Mr. President, the only candlestick that ought to be
+removed out of its place is the candlestick that contains a candle that
+does not burn the pure oil of truth. And I believe, sir, that with the
+best of intentions the three speakers who have appeared have given us
+three chapters in different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my
+duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says,
+"An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding
+discerneth where he slippeth." I have no claim to eloquence; never
+pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist
+history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any
+fear of the results, either present or prospective.
+
+Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot
+command the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are
+in, and defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take
+in the full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has
+a certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here,
+they have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a
+contested case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who
+ought to vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing
+up documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read
+it _verbatim_. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read
+_verbatim_ from his letter:
+
+"No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question,
+and, therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact,
+a vote of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when
+the credentials appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no
+notorious and undisputed fact or circumstance against the qualifications
+and election of a senator, to admit him at once and settle the question
+of his right afterward. But there have been cases in which the Senate
+declined to admit a claimant holding a regular certificate upon the
+ground that enough was known to the Senate to justify its declining to
+receive him until an inquiry should be had. Very truly yours,
+
+"GEORGE F. EDMUNDS."
+
+Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows
+that they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard
+to them at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional
+challenge. I champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion
+their cause against their being introduced into this body without their
+own sex having had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon
+the subject. I stand here to protect them against being connected with
+movements without law or contrary to law, and those who wish to bring
+them in and those who say it is the constitution of the man and
+prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said prejudice), they are persons,
+indeed, to stand up here as, _par excellence_ the champions of women!
+Is it the constitution of the men? Have you read the letter of
+Mrs. Caroline Wright in the _Christian Advocate_, one of our most
+distinguished American Methodist women? She does not wish to see them
+here. It is the constitution of the woman in that case, and I am opposed
+to their being admitted until the general sentiment of the women and the
+men of our Church have an opportunity of being heard upon it.
+
+Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but
+my opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the
+Methodist Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is
+to-day, not on account of the admission of these women, two of whom I
+believe to be as competent to sit in judgment on this question as any
+man on this floor. That is not the question, as I propose to show. I
+assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
+Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
+Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
+upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
+has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
+thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
+delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
+intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
+we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
+cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
+not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
+capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
+goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "layman." There
+is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
+the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
+Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
+history of the Church. Who is the "General Superintendent" by Webster or
+Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
+the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
+Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
+seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
+not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
+the word "layman" ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
+clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
+world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
+for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
+from the _clergy_men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
+laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A
+woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
+the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit
+he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham
+Lincoln said, "All these things are done and suffered, that government
+of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish
+from the earth." Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women, and
+children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this.
+When he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, "The
+intent of the lawmaker is the law."
+
+I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived
+to think of awhile--John Selden: "The only honest meaning of any word is
+the intent of the man that wrote it." At the time that the plan of lay
+delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church
+on this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and
+the laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body.
+Some one will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the
+Church, the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between
+the ministry and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever
+one Church in the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make
+its laws. There is not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name
+one that has allowed women in its law-making body; and yet such is the
+blinding power of gush that men will say that our fathers all understood
+it and proposed to put women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to
+allow them to put us in. As soon as the General Conference adjourned the
+women made an appeal in a public statement. They were asked to vote for
+lay delegation, and were told that then they could set the Church right.
+The opponents appealed to them to vote against it on the ground that it
+would not make any difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr.
+Hodgson (Professor Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote
+a series of articles in the _Advocate_, and it never occurred to them
+that the women could come into the General Conference. Lay delegation
+was only admitted by 33 votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they
+would not have come in. Every member of the New York East Conference
+knows that Dr. Curry's influence was so powerful that he could almost
+get a majority against it. And they know if any one had set up an
+opposition to it on this ground, the whole Conference would have voted
+against the movement, and that if it had not been for Bishop Ames and
+Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming Conference where the majority was
+opposed to lay delegation, and by their influence there converted my
+friend Olin and others, he knows that if this matter of the women had
+been in or understood, the whole Conference would have been against it.
+It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that it is prejudice.
+Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000 Methodist ministers
+that are ciphers all the time except when they vote for delegates? Are
+you going to presume that when the Church has a multitude of members,
+that it is going to sit here and change, by an interpretation, a
+Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never understood to
+be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial delegates. Every
+time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject has never come
+up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive Rules mean
+anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the fathers did
+not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can read those
+Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the Restrictive
+Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if you do
+it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do
+is to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then
+put any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this
+you call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress,
+and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
+a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
+believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
+said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
+that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction--they must be
+interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
+despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
+the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
+house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
+Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.
+
+If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, "I think it
+best to send the question around." True progress is not gained in any
+other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, "He that cometh
+in by the door," the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.
+
+
+Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous
+letters. And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with
+which to introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under
+any fear of being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future
+prospects blasted. It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this
+morning upon this subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive
+to either suppress or exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr.
+Buckley, threatening to remove him as an obstruction, must be highly
+gratified to know that that obstruction has already been removed.
+Brother Hughey removed the obstruction, extinguished the candle, and
+destroyed the candlestick.
+
+We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will
+be heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It
+remains for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here
+and there, or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a
+new point of view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be
+helpful to some that has already been presented in part touching the
+administration of our law and the interpretation of terms that is
+worthy, I think, of still further consideration.
+
+Dr. Buckley said in the New York _Christian Advocate_ of March 15th,
+1888:
+
+"The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of
+the Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five
+years of age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If
+women are found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the
+same plane with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five
+years, etc."
+
+Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law
+by a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+would say) the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopal Address, which
+declares that no definition of "layman" settles the question of
+eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as
+laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it
+officially as laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well,
+in this case, we have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both
+are right and both are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a
+woman, if she be a lay member her right is clear as that of any duly
+elected man. But he is wrong when he denies to her a right to a seat in
+this body as a layman. The Episcopal Address is wrong when it says
+that "no definition of the word 'layman' settles the question of
+eligibility." But it is right when it says, "Many are classed as laymen
+for purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+lay members who are not themselves eligible as delegates."
+
+In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and
+if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
+over the "Million dollars for Missions." They pray and testify in our
+class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
+us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
+amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
+are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
+they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
+laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
+two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
+one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
+General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
+marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
+this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
+step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
+question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
+over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
+if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
+this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
+and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
+misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
+out the word "male" was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
+"rider" on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
+known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
+it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
+amendment would let women into the General Conference.
+
+Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the "women coming
+in" being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
+lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment
+and the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow
+women to come in also.
+
+L. C. Queal said:
+
+I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.
+
+Bishop Foss:
+
+Are you misrepresented?
+
+L. C. Queal:
+
+I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman
+put that on as a "rider," with a view to defeating the bill, that
+immediately after thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of
+securing the approval of the principle in the laity of the Church. That
+is all I stated. All the rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own
+inference--a misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:
+
+I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to
+the speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the
+privilege of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in
+reference to this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the
+idea of the possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds
+that were both in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.
+
+Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of
+1868, laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this
+body. That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by
+the laity of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity
+here, why allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And,
+having allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the
+very foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow
+them a place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened
+the way for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not
+remember that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that
+the lay delegation scheme was defeated, and the _Methodist_, that was
+published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+that "votes ought to be weighed, not counted"? And then the question was
+sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of
+construing pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences
+previously to that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard
+to their legality there. The General Conference by its action did not
+propose to admit women to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed
+to clear away the mist and recognize their legal right to sit in the
+Quarterly Conference. Being in the Quarterly Conference, and in the
+District Conference, they have the right to vote on every question that
+comes before such bodies. They vote to license ministers, to recommend
+ministers to Annual Conferences, to recommend local preachers for
+deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on sending delegates to our Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates to Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates from Lay
+Electoral Conferences to this General Conference. And there are men
+on this floor to-day that would not be in this at all if they had
+not received the support of women in Lay Electoral Conferences. Now,
+brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the women to send
+delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never challenged until
+they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to elect laymen
+to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen in this
+body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes of the
+women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some of
+the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to
+vote there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would
+be consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+"foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection."
+And I am not in favor of going back.
+
+If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed
+for altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General
+Conference has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary.
+Every paragraph of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning
+with Sec.63, and closing with Sec.69, was put into that Constitution without
+any voice from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single
+one of them was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; Sec.20, �183, stood
+for many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred
+bodily from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position
+it now occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was
+not submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely
+stated when he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote
+ordered in 1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the
+laity into the General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the
+laity and by the Annual Conferences, but the "plan" was not submitted
+to either to be voted upon, and the "plan" for lay delegation by which
+these lay brethren occupy their seats here this morning was made in
+every jot and tittle by the General Conference without any reference to
+the Annual Conferences at all.
+
+I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once
+a legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law;
+in the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.
+
+It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme
+court to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General
+Conference, we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing
+the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions
+on the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision
+of the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so
+we construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we
+touch the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the
+Annual Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.
+
+What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to
+limit the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for
+illustration, we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our
+Legislature to license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a
+license under the guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license
+law in form. The Constitution prevents it. There are States that have
+Constitutions that have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all,
+while they may either tax, license, or prohibit.
+
+This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a
+limitation of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation
+there is no restriction.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.
+
+
+Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question
+of law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as
+those who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I
+understand it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by
+those who are advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not
+a matter of sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place
+for knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.
+
+There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of
+the Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+circumstances, oppose their coming in.
+
+It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.
+
+Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I
+do not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the
+history of lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the
+most remote intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the
+General Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the
+field now toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last
+ten or fifteen years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism
+that would be fatal to all just interpretation of law.
+
+I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in
+1868. And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I
+know, the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in
+to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
+that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
+have embraced this design--the design of bringing women into the General
+Conference. I leave that.
+
+Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
+of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
+the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
+General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
+argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
+Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
+introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
+according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
+General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
+endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
+prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
+been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
+interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
+The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
+placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
+accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
+that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
+_personnel_ of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
+Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
+consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
+that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
+is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
+law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
+peril ahead of us.
+
+A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an
+organic body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its
+own security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the
+law that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.
+
+Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said,
+it has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences
+must be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of
+1872. I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One
+is, that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it
+is also a judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as
+a legislative body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872
+interpreted law, and the General Conference may reverse itself with
+just as much propriety as a court can reverse itself. And if it be
+the judgment of this General Conference that that interpretation was
+incorrect, it is perfectly competent for this Conference to say so, and
+have its action correspond with its own decision.
+
+There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference
+of 1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that
+local preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the
+principle of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is
+decided in general terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision
+must be limited to the particular case itself. And if a court in its
+decision embraces more than was involved in the particular case, it has
+no force whatever. And as this was a particular case submitted to
+the General Conference, and the decision was in general terms, it
+comprehends simply the case that was before it, and cannot be advanced
+to comprehend more. And the reason of this is very obvious; for if it
+was not the case, then cases might be brought before the court for its
+decision that had never occurred.
+
+There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women
+to certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when
+it says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to
+sell in quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880
+decided that women should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as
+superintendents of Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by
+that very affirmative conclusion, the subject was passed upon about
+their taking any other position. That, I think, must be regarded as
+sound, and a just interpretation of the law.
+
+But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands,
+that the pronoun "he," wherever employed, shall not be considered
+as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school
+Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward.
+
+Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing
+the _personnel_ of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a
+suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as
+soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and
+so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and
+I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard
+with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The
+only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the
+relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference,
+and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect,
+honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same
+way that their husbands and brothers are here.
+
+There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of
+those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful?
+You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and
+pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect
+their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus
+lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this
+suggestion, but it is an _in posse_, and it may easily be made an _in
+esse_. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they
+have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make
+them more perfect.
+
+No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement
+or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the
+Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe
+course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious,
+and conservative--I mean every word--and conservative course we have
+heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what
+Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is
+because of her firm adherence to law.
+
+It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon
+race--everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we
+pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.
+
+
+Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene,
+this great debate now in the third day of its progress must be
+suggestive of some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have
+made the hearts of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place
+of meeting in the past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear
+as to the outcome of the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The
+visitors to this General Conference, seated in their boxes and in the
+family circle, Will say surely these honored men of God who have been
+called as Superintendents of the affairs of our great conquering Church,
+these chosen ministers of reconciliation and peace, these _male_
+laymen called by their brethren to their high places in this General
+Conference, whose names at home are the synonym of chivalrous
+goodness--surely all these of rank and talent and authority, whose able
+and eloquent words have been ringing through the arches and dome of this
+temple of music on the wrong side of the question, are but simply acting
+the parts assigned them. In the final scene they will join hands around
+the eligible women elect, who, in obedience to the call of the laity in
+their several Conferences, are in their seats with us, and say, "Whom
+God hath joined, let not _male_ put asunder." My brothers, let us
+briefly restate the case. Five noble women of the laymen of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as delegates to this General
+Conference under the Constitution and by the forms prescribed by the
+laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to enter, the portals of
+this great assemblage they hear a voice from the platform, in words not
+to be misunderstood, "Thou shalt not," and voices from all parts of the
+house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement the voices of the
+Bishops, "Thou shalt not." And one would think, from the vehement
+oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference, that the
+foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence of
+these "elect ladies" among us.
+
+Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and
+in all its battles fought until the day of victory.
+
+In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question
+of lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it
+carried, there would have been plausibility in the argument this
+day made against the eligibility of women to seats in this General
+Conference. The evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to
+a higher appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her
+rights and privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the
+bounds of the Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent
+man, that grand old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this
+question, said:
+
+"If it is _rights_ they talk of, every competent member of the Church of
+Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained."
+
+And in answer to the expected fling, "But you are a woman's rights man,"
+he replied:
+
+"We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the
+question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living
+God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When
+that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal
+righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the
+ground!"
+
+The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the
+Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as
+belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in
+the government of the Church, and having rights under that government.
+During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for
+submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman
+moved to strike out the word "male." While that motion was under
+consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, "If it were the last
+moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter,
+I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, _wherever church
+privileges are concerned_."
+
+Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the
+question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the
+Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask
+women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church
+should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then
+enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived
+of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few
+noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, "No, no," but
+they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the
+right thinking, orderly delegates.
+
+What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+out the word "male," now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:
+
+"Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed
+in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that
+women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The
+Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take
+these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried
+with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter
+interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences
+laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the
+moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it,
+but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go
+back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?"
+
+It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore
+the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could
+the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+General Conference when it said, "The General Conference holds that
+in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who
+are not members of the Annual Conferences"? This decision must include
+women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means
+the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears
+from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle
+in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the
+membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would
+have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted
+women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, "The
+General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election
+of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the
+members of the Annual Conferences, _and who are not women_." We would
+have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an
+utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its
+membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and
+the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and
+interchangeably. See Bingham's "Antiquities," Blackstone's
+"Commentaries," Schaffs "History," and kindred authorities. It is sheer
+trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between lay_men_
+and lay_women_.
+
+Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before
+the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so
+appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the
+pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the
+voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from
+the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this
+debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.
+
+It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+there be a _specific enactment discriminating against the elector_. Our
+law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five
+years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a
+delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.
+
+Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited.
+We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the
+just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from
+membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual
+Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to
+send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their
+action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will
+say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our
+Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot
+be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very
+front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the
+spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the
+banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and
+righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon
+tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's
+Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now
+waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not
+cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse
+of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church
+of the Redeemer.
+
+Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among
+the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous
+productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in
+that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries
+old. In it you may read as follows: "Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has
+a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a
+Saviour for which I gave a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could
+do so much." Three and a half centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her
+master-piece in the chief places of the galleries of the world, and
+Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many of the best marbles that adorn
+the parlors of Europe and America, and no one wonders that a woman can
+do so much. From that day when Martin Luther, the protesting monk, and
+Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at the altar and the
+twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her faith in her sex
+and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the organized
+selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or privilege
+to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery and
+barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do
+ought that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from
+our advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us
+rather strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and
+privilege of every member of our Church, without distinction of race,
+color, or sex. Amen and Amen.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.
+
+
+Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have
+now, a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work.
+No man on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them
+by all lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every
+privilege enjoyed by men.
+
+But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.
+
+That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of
+the Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in
+this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by
+Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their
+right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this
+body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.
+
+It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After
+the most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+body.
+
+Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when
+the General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the
+entire membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was
+not the intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a
+large number of men of business experience, who could render service
+by their knowledge and experience touching the temporal affairs of the
+Church. When the principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon
+by the laity, this idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual
+Conferences voted for the principle and the plan, this and this only was
+their intent.
+
+When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea,
+and none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit
+women, but to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+Constitution.
+
+Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by
+allowing sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.
+
+Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.
+
+In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+Board of Bishops, he says:
+
+
+"For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear
+that any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The
+Electoral Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action,
+being guided, as we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the
+General Conference of 1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen," in
+answer to a question touching the classification and rights of ordained
+local and located ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution
+is carried beyond its original design when applied to a subject not
+before the body when it was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the
+language itself. This also should be understood, that no definition of
+the word 'laymen' settles the question of eligibility as to any class
+of persons, for many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay
+representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, who are
+themselves not eligible as delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly
+ineligible, who are not old enough to be delegates, or have not been
+members long enough, may be stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local
+preachers and exhorters, and, as such, be members of the Quarterly
+Conference, and vote for delegates to the Electoral Conference without
+themselves being eligible.
+
+"The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by
+a resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here
+by constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the
+power of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the
+formal amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in
+their enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their
+power to work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval
+of the high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments
+of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved
+in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the
+assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they
+were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of
+law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible,
+by special enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+Sunday-school superintendent, and naturally the question arises as
+to whether the necessity for special legislation, in order to their
+eligibility to those specified offices, does not indicate similar
+necessity for special provision in order to their eligibility as
+delegates, and if so it is further to be considered that the offices of
+steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school superintendent may be created
+and filled by simple enactments of the General Conference itself; but to
+enter the General Conference, and form part of the law-making body
+of the Church, requires special provision in the Constitution, and,
+therefore, such provision as the General Conference alone cannot make."
+
+
+Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from
+whom I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on "Constitutional
+Limitations," says:
+
+
+"A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another
+at some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as
+perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal
+share of the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be
+lost, if the rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to
+circumstances, or be modified by public opinion.
+
+"The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+different at any subsequent time."
+
+
+This same great author says:
+
+"Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting
+it. In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is
+to be enforced.
+
+"But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in
+many particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great
+charters of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights
+of the subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people
+must be supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot
+understand these unless we understand their history.
+
+"It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the
+common law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.
+
+"It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+law shall be construed strictly."
+
+Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear
+as the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine
+that the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when
+it is adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject
+anything into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when
+adopted. And you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to
+give it the construction which was intended when adopted. No man of
+common honesty and common sense dares to assert on this floor that it
+was the intent when the Constitution was amended to admit women as lay
+delegates. It follows inevitably that they are not constitutionally
+eligible, and to admit them is to violate the Constitution of the
+Church, which, as a Court, we are in honor bound not to do.
+
+It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person
+for office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited
+by positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been.
+We have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended,
+the intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference
+can, by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules. Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action
+in 1880, had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as
+stewards and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay
+delegate in the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay
+delegates to this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules, according to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is
+fundamental law that where general disabilities exist, not simply by
+statute, but by common law, the removal of lesser disabilities does not
+carry with it the removal of the greater ones.
+
+Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I
+defy any lawyer to show the contrary.
+
+Sec.3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:
+
+"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty
+years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall
+not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be
+chosen."
+
+
+These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the
+Constitution of the United States touching the qualification of
+Senators. Is there a layman on this floor who will dare assert that
+under the Constitution of the United States women are eligible as
+Representatives or Senators? Words of common gender are exclusively
+used as applied to the qualification of Senators. The words persons and
+citizens include women the same as they include men. Nevertheless, in
+the light of the past, I am bold to assert, that any man who would dare
+stand in the Senate of the United States, and contend that women are
+eligible to the office of United States Senators, would be regarded by
+the civilized world as a person of gush and void of judgment.
+
+Article 14, United States Constitution, Sec.1:
+
+
+"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+_privileges_ or _immunities_ of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law, _nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws_."
+
+
+(Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor _vs_. Judges of Election.
+53 Mo. 68.)
+
+The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+rights includes corporations.
+
+The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.
+
+The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United
+States. Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did
+not entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri
+held the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able
+opinion written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively
+demonstrated that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon
+woman the right to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right
+had not obtained in favor of woman, and these words of common gender
+should not be so construed as to confer this right, since it was not
+intended when made to affect their status in this regard.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
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+Project Gutenberg's Samantha Among the Brethren, by Josiah Allen's Wife
+#1 in our series by Marietta Holley
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9450]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 1, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration] SAMANTHA
+
+AMONG THE BRETHREN.
+
+BY
+
+"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"
+
+(MARIETTA HOLLEY).
+
+
+_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_.
+
+
+
+
+1890
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+All Women
+
+WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES
+
+THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A
+
+BETTER COUNTRY,
+
+_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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:
+
+"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"
+
+And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal
+Justice, Josiah Allen."
+
+"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.)
+
+"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."
+
+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:
+
+"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he."
+
+And sez I, "How do you know?"
+
+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?"
+
+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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
+work and back combs."
+
+I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
+reasonable:
+
+"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.
+
+"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
+Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."
+
+"Wall, hain't _he_?" sez Josiah.
+
+"No, _she_ hain't," sez I.
+
+"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to
+rile you up?"
+
+Sez I, "_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
+Conference."
+
+"Wall, I say _he_ wuz right," sez Josiah. "_He_ knew, and I knew, that
+wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."
+
+"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."
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't
+be too severe with the Meetin' House."
+
+And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head
+in and sez:
+
+"Don't be too hard on _him_"
+
+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.
+
+  JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE,
+  Bonny View,
+  near Adams, New York,
+  Oct. 14th, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_Publishers' Appendix_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
+
+And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
+our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze
+because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
+
+Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
+from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
+our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
+particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.
+
+It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
+answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
+
+The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
+other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
+
+As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own
+particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all  on 'em to be divided
+up equal among the five deacons.
+
+[Illustration: "A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME."]
+
+They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
+that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
+the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
+not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
+and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+salvation.
+
+I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+deacons ought to cultivate.
+
+But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
+to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the
+deed."
+
+They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
+wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.]
+
+But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--"If bein' set
+apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to
+go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+enterprise?"
+
+And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man,
+the better the deed. We need buzz saws."
+
+And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+high-headed.
+
+And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
+
+But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
+prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
+of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
+
+And I sez to him in solemn axents:
+
+"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
+your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"
+
+And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
+he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
+I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+religious duties.
+
+And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+said, "he didn't dumb 'em."
+
+"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.
+
+"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he
+has a chance to."
+
+But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
+
+"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
+farms.
+
+"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
+of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
+interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
+prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
+works generally?"
+
+And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
+
+"Dumb good works!"
+
+[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"]
+
+But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"
+
+And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
+a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
+
+"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+will 'tend to it."
+
+And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+have put the question to him.
+
+For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
+go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
+there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
+and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
+bimeby).
+
+There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
+mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
+brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
+and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
+theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
+
+But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
+
+Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
+this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+Henzy.
+
+Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
+
+"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez,
+"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."
+
+Some sez he duz.
+
+Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
+And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
+begin to feel bad.
+
+She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
+me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
+the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
+she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
+Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
+had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
+dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
+his face till dinner time.
+
+And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
+because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
+
+She is a dretful admirin' woman.
+
+She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls
+her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
+when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as
+Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
+
+[Illustration: "THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'"]
+
+But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+dreams is a place where you can't slip on  your sun-bonnet and foller
+neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+from hour to hour.
+
+No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
+into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
+
+No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
+
+But, as I said, this had been spozen.
+
+But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day
+what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+Drusillia Sypher.
+
+And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+"Miss Deacon Sypher."
+
+Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
+hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
+the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
+good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
+
+Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+into the buzz saw-mill business.
+
+But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
+every time he came in sight.
+
+They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest
+smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
+step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."
+
+But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+low.
+
+But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
+and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
+books. And he sez:
+
+"Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_"
+
+I guess he did say as much as that.
+
+But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to
+stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
+
+[Illustration: "ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT
+HIM."]
+
+And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
+smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
+effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
+was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
+get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
+and he makes a good deal of her.
+
+I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
+this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
+
+Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
+the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
+
+Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
+foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
+that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin'
+article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
+fun of the projeck.
+
+We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
+fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
+store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
+He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
+worshipped him.
+
+They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
+
+The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to
+work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+in the shop.)
+
+He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
+doubt of that.
+
+Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
+educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
+born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
+in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
+Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
+any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
+syllables wuz common in it.
+
+His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
+to be disseminated abroad.
+
+The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
+ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
+up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
+sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
+guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
+from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
+howsumever."
+
+Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
+painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
+strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would
+weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
+herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
+tottlin' eminence.
+
+The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+letters over each one.
+
+The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
+
+_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER;
+
+_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
+
+The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares
+and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+wimmen to do--not a single thing.
+
+Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors
+and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
+_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
+farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
+sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
+_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
+even the lightest and slightest.
+
+Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could
+be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
+great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
+place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
+
+And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
+Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
+the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
+in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
+posture as settin' up on a Conference.
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."]
+
+"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would
+endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
+would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
+It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm."  Why, Josiah Allen
+handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
+as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we
+had some words about it.
+
+And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second
+Galatians.
+
+And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+bed rid.
+
+Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
+
+And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+very first.
+
+Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
+next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
+it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
+idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
+so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
+
+And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
+
+But of this, more anon and bimeby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for
+I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays
+bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
+and so forth.
+
+But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
+old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
+on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
+
+(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
+
+Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
+there for some time alone.
+
+Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
+first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I
+had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
+oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
+
+Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
+sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a
+difference, a difference in visitors?
+
+Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
+
+And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose."
+
+I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+brung me startlin' intelligence.
+
+It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
+
+And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote
+dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."
+
+But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
+see it wuz writ on duty.
+
+She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
+and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
+in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
+on't.
+
+She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
+any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
+was mistook.
+
+She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
+for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
+said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
+had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
+own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
+man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
+round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
+two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
+mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
+couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
+broke in on her serenity.
+
+Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
+
+[Illustration: "FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM."]
+
+Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
+affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths
+emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
+actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
+impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
+accustomed to 'em.
+
+The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
+they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work.
+And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
+The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
+
+_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz
+small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
+got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
+as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
+near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
+of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
+lambs callin' on their dams.
+
+It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."
+
+[Illustration: THE LECTURE.]
+
+The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
+of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
+snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
+I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
+events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
+yesterday.
+
+I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
+there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
+the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
+
+And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
+Josiah hitched the mair.
+
+We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+life.
+
+And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
+lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."
+
+A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
+all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
+rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
+first rate.
+
+I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
+the heads of it.
+
+It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+bare heads.
+
+She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
+the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"
+
+She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
+hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+privilege, to speak in its praise.
+
+I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
+no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
+whose name vuz once Smith.
+
+I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
+time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
+side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
+Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+every word she said.
+
+But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
+school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
+how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
+
+How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
+
+And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+souls bathed in blissful repose!
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]
+
+It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'.  There wasn't a dry
+eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
+vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
+slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
+(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
+And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
+vest.
+
+Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
+
+And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
+
+I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
+
+And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
+see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
+fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+me.
+
+[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]
+
+Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
+over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
+foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
+lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
+a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
+miserable.
+
+Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
+
+And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
+bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
+broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
+cloud.
+
+And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
+
+She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
+of 'em brought the school-house down.
+
+And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
+together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
+forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
+
+And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
+hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
+perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
+
+Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
+
+He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
+
+But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
+
+I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
+deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
+lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
+its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
+stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
+wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
+occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
+sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
+
+And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very
+sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
+
+Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
+me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
+
+Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
+over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.
+
+She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
+spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
+day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
+have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
+as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
+hold of my opinion.
+
+Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
+her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
+
+I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
+meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey.
+
+But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How
+I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up
+against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+with every word of it."
+
+Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.
+
+And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of
+beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."
+
+"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."
+
+She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
+she didn't go too far."
+
+And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she
+didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."
+
+Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
+it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+hain't _all_ happiness."
+
+"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."
+
+[Illustration: "YOU GO TOO FUR."]
+
+And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I  wuz mistaken, "she
+thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said:
+
+"He _knew_ it wuz, and he would take his oath to it."
+
+But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most
+peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+But," sez I, "marriage hain't _all_ peace."
+
+Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it."
+
+Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds
+the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+hain't all radiance."
+
+"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it."
+
+And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+right; I think it is."
+
+"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married
+you will change your opinion, you mark my word."
+
+And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't;
+she guessed she was in the right of it."
+
+Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all
+earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?"
+
+And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called
+a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.
+
+"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care
+of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid,
+a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.
+
+"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+haint if you are ever married."
+
+But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken--she
+thought it wuz."
+
+"You do?" sez I.
+
+"Yes, mem," sez she.
+
+I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'."
+I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.
+
+She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+and have me criticise it. Sez she:
+
+"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have."
+
+"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way."
+
+And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two
+rocks that couldn't be moved."
+
+And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my
+advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where
+there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she
+was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed
+that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on."
+
+And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could."
+
+It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to
+drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and
+come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.
+
+And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped
+and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees
+of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand
+the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face
+a Greenland winter in.
+
+And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back
+and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's
+call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:
+
+She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and
+stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the
+lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a
+place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and
+she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and
+forth and try to convince each other.
+
+And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+my frame, though dreadin' the job some.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture--crazy as a loon. He
+raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it
+to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in
+a serene calm--a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew
+that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they
+wuz till to-night"
+
+"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents--not so dry as I keep by
+me, but pretty dry--"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel
+labor."
+
+"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger
+in emanuel labor."
+
+"Manuel, Josiah."
+
+"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?"
+
+"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I,
+firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+along without some work and care."
+
+"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care,
+not a single care. Not as long as I live--if it wuzn't for me, you might
+have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live."
+
+I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly
+anon--
+
+[Illustration: "OH, WHAT A LECTURE THAT WUZ."]
+
+"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life--did you
+notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified
+to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands."
+
+"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap
+on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been
+a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have
+never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and
+tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs,
+jest like any other human states."
+
+Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and
+I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea
+by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold
+their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies
+blow--and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It
+is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into
+billows. But our sea--the sea of married life--is not like that, it is
+ofttimes billowy and rough."
+
+"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the
+lecture, and enthused. "We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen,
+for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly
+smooth?"
+
+"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."
+
+"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"
+
+"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."
+
+Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+if I was in your place."
+
+"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
+till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
+
+"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
+Allen."
+
+"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or
+ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+lecture."
+
+Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
+and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
+company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
+did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
+have come in a much worse time.
+
+It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.
+
+Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish
+to have showed off to the public.
+
+He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward
+with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.
+
+He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
+and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
+see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.
+
+There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
+and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
+frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
+be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
+language he hurled at me acrost that stove.
+
+"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
+this side."
+
+And then he hollered at me, and asked me:
+
+"How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in." And then he wanted to know
+"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or
+if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
+of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He
+hollered wildly.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
+you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It
+would go in all right if you had started it the other way."
+
+"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
+with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
+perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
+But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
+out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
+be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the
+breath of life in me."
+
+Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."
+
+"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at
+that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."
+
+[Illustration: "WON'T YOU BE STILL?"]
+
+Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'."  "Wall, I want 'em to
+ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
+every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do
+I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I
+said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."
+
+Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:
+
+"Won't you be still?"
+
+"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go
+through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."
+
+I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
+stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
+she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
+awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
+took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
+to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
+to Josiah.
+
+And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
+about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"
+
+But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
+he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much
+repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
+tore to pieces to get that stove started."
+
+Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
+door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."
+
+"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
+for two hours as I have, and then see."
+
+Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who
+is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."
+"Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself."
+
+I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
+
+[Illustration: "AND HE SAID I HAD RUBBED 'EM OUT."]
+
+Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't
+go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with
+chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out."
+I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I
+see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'.
+
+But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose
+to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out
+for years and years--why, then I _had_ to correct him on the subject,
+and we had a little dialogue.
+
+I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple
+sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+machine a-comin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half
+an hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected
+onto him as it did onto me.
+
+Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they
+had to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.
+
+They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to
+go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get
+to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they
+wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
+heard that was the cap sheaf.
+
+Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
+enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
+the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
+and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
+every minute.
+
+Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
+wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
+three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
+the author of "Peaceful Repose," and me, almost to death.
+
+The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.
+
+I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.
+
+[Illustration: "IT DIDN'T FALL OUT ONLY THREE TIMES."]
+
+Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+beginnin'. If you'll believe it,  I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
+by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
+pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all
+kinds.
+
+The author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" came out into the kitchen. I
+told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.
+
+She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked
+it, to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement,
+to hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.
+
+But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to
+lift my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my
+hands.
+
+And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild
+man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by
+havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he
+couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And
+then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.
+
+[Illustration: "TO FIND A PIECE OF OLD ROPE TO TIE UP THE HARNESS."]
+
+Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's
+legs, where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I
+took my hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up
+the harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on
+Josiah Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or
+else to do somethin' for him that he couldn't do.
+
+Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm
+holt of my principles, and didn't groan--not when anybody could hear me.
+I won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a
+groan or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after,
+I was calm again.
+
+Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed
+a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
+had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+dinner.
+
+I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
+the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
+and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
+little piece of brown paper, or full cloth--everything, he said, that
+wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.
+
+And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+right by the notch.
+
+And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)
+
+But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
+shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
+and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
+when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED CURIUS, CURIUSER THAN THE FLOOR LOOKED."]
+
+But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must--for
+I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the  author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
+curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
+curosity, and metafor.
+
+Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
+to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+stay to dinner.
+
+I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
+Zoar--it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
+only made fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along.
+And I had a good dinner and enough of it.
+
+I had to wait on the table, of course--that is, the tea and coffee. And
+I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that wore
+out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.
+
+And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my
+lips, the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em--good,
+strong Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't
+fairly got it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had
+drinked a drop, for the case demanded help at once.
+
+Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+the company wuz very genteel--a minister and a Justice of the Peace--so
+she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.
+
+She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to
+get 'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house
+and onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse
+barn, for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the
+very second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her
+husband to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to
+let the cat out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em
+and comparin' 'em with hern.
+
+I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the
+shelf, so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the
+most went onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that
+that wuz tricklin' down my backbone.
+
+[Illustration: "I SEE THE NECESSITY FOR URGENT HASTE."]
+
+Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread,
+and then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for
+I wuz wet as sop--as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz a-waitin' for me to
+the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by
+me, and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than
+ever, and more sad like.
+
+She said, "she was dretful sorry for me," and I believed her.
+
+She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, "if I had such trials every day?"
+
+And I told her "No, I didn't." I told her that things would run along
+smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody
+to once. Sez I, "You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of
+'em,' or words to that effect."
+
+Sez I, in reasonable axents, "Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good
+things happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful
+agreeable days, and easy."
+
+Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', "Did you ever have
+another day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin'
+through?"
+
+"Oh, yes," sez I, "lots of'em--some worse ones, and," sez I, "the day
+has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever
+stop."
+
+Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:
+
+"You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+changin' your dress."
+
+"Oh, wall," sez I, "I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and
+get the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have
+got to do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and
+cakes and such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men."
+
+So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg "that
+the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things
+to happen before night," for I had only jest got well to work on the
+ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over "to see if I
+could let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her--she wanted
+'em to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through
+the winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots
+and seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+perfectly convenient," so the boy said.
+
+Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+said, "either make or break me."
+
+So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before
+I could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the
+total deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the
+last bag of seeds that I overhauled.
+
+But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.
+
+But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of
+garden and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent
+Submit the sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I
+possibly could.
+
+But I sez to the author of "Peaceful Repose," I sez to her, sez I:
+
+"I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will
+try to," sez I.
+
+"Oh," sez she, "it hain't no matter about that; I--I--I somehow--I don't
+feel like rehearsin' it as it was." Sez she, "I guess I shall make some
+changes in it before I rehearse it agin."
+
+Sez I, "You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum."
+
+"Yes," sez she, in faint axents, "I am a-thinkin' of it."
+
+[Illustration: "AS I STARTED FOR THE BUTTERY."]
+
+"Wall," sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of
+cups in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+napkins under my arm, "I believe I shall like it as well again if you
+do, any way," sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my
+dress, and opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.
+
+"Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it."
+
+Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my
+work quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the
+effort.
+
+And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised
+New Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as
+mebby I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk
+more'n an hour and three quarters.
+
+He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk;
+he'll make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles
+such large, curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz
+a-answerin' his questions.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WUZ SOMETHIN' WRONG ABOUT 'EM."]
+
+Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board
+in  her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had
+got another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.
+
+I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said "there wuz
+somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what."
+
+She said "she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much
+round, but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of
+the barriers, and he must have his coat."
+
+Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time,
+and took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it
+I see what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows
+come right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition
+to the funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms
+right acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.
+
+And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot
+the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it--and
+she went home feelin' first rate.
+
+I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would
+miss me if any thing should happen.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE IS APT TO GET THINGS WRONG."]
+
+I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little
+boy's pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would
+have to set down from the front side, or else stand up.
+
+And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way
+to get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the
+legs. But I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and
+bastin', and settin' her right, and I did now.
+
+Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an
+old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and
+the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he
+wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the
+first thing that "he wanted some of Hall's salve." And I told him "there
+wuzn't a mite in the house."
+
+And he hollered up and says, "There would be some if there wuz any sense
+in the head of the house."
+
+[Illustration: "HE WANTED SOME OF HALL'S SALVE."]
+
+I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for
+I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, "Why hain't there any
+Hall's salve?"  Sez I, "Because old Hall has been dead for years and
+years, and hain't made any salve."
+
+"Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,"
+he yelled out.
+
+"Why," sez I, "he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely
+onexpected five years ago last summer."
+
+"Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will
+become of me!" he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
+
+Sez I, "Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah."
+
+"Pond's Extract!" he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
+
+And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of
+man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to
+take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me
+all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him
+a-purpose.
+
+He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" would hear him, and he hollered
+back "he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he
+shouldn't live to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up."
+
+His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had
+brung down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back--a hull
+lot of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.
+
+There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children,
+and the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+a-visitin', and the editor of the _Augur'ses_ wife (she wuz related to
+the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go
+to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the
+West's bosom friend, or used to be.
+
+Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The author of "Peaceful Repose" sez to me, and she looked pale and
+skairt; she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful
+skairt and shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin',
+as I said prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as
+good as the very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I
+would allow spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she
+proposed, Miss Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man.
+And though I urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard
+as I would otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of
+visitors had reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE PROPOSED THAT SHE SHOULD RIDE BACK WITH THE LIVERY
+MAN."]
+
+I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I
+have got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different
+occasions, every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and
+curiusest ones.
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose" insisted on
+goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, "That
+if she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much
+work round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her
+rehearse the lecture."
+
+But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as
+wan agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): "That she should make
+_changes_ in it before she ever rehearsed it agin--_deep changes_!"
+
+And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+till I got this letter.
+
+Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all
+on the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot
+down to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens
+make a practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if
+they did--and have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt
+well, and the supper tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I
+told him Lodema wuz approachin' and would be there that very night or
+the next day--still the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin'
+mellowness of the hot tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other
+good things.
+
+[Illustration: "MY PARDNER ENJOYS GOOD VITTLES."]
+
+My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz
+enjoy good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.
+
+And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+lawyers would almost entirely disappear.
+
+For truly it seems that _no_ human man _could be_ more worrysome, and
+curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at times; still,
+by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from day to day,
+and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him to me by
+ties that can't never be broken into.
+
+He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.
+
+He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it
+in his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are
+the ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a
+cheerful countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright
+room, on a snowy table-cloth!
+
+Great--great is the mystery of men's love.
+
+I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that
+underlies married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much
+cannot be said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of
+female and male humanity--and it _cannot_ be too closely followed up and
+practised by female pardners.
+
+But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.
+
+Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early--I mean
+the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema--oh no, fur from it; Lodema is never
+bright and cheerful--she is the opposite and reverse always.
+
+She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to
+call 'em so rather than "old maid" (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful
+sharp before I could get him into it).
+
+I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of
+old maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that
+would but couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the
+"would-but-couldn't's," though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said
+so, not for the world.
+
+Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:
+
+"She hain't to blame, Josiah."
+
+And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.
+
+Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we
+had our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of
+makin' awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down
+onto us sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along--jest
+like a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind
+to bring up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.
+
+And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I
+done well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved
+to put on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for
+either on 'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time
+a'most. And it come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand
+the brunt on it.
+
+But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them
+that can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide
+world to suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather,
+and if the weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT SHE IS A DISAGREEABLE CREETER."]
+
+If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+groans aloud and says "she can't see."
+
+And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she
+spends the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at
+'em.
+
+You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of
+game you set out to hunt in the mornin'.
+
+If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+perseverin'--if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
+such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
+cattle--why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
+will be a noble and happy hunter.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT FIT WITH THEIR TONGUES, FEARFUL."]
+
+At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
+night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
+right along and chase 'em down.  Wall, Lodema never got led away from
+her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
+and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.
+
+But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
+always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
+huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
+It wuz! It wuz!
+
+And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
+wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
+visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
+the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues--they didn't
+fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
+tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
+themselves--boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
+boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
+it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
+and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
+truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
+had got to thinkin' so.
+
+But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
+
+Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+pious.
+
+[Illustration: "HIS FACE WUZ A GOOD MORAL FACE."]
+
+But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
+
+But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
+that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
+carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
+actin'.
+
+And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+found that he had always been a pattern man--never had done a single
+mean act, so fur as wuz known.
+
+Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
+talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
+wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
+told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
+
+Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+comin' to a end.
+
+She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
+her--and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
+extremely sot.
+
+But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+quite good ones.
+
+That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+and above disagreeable to me.
+
+Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
+they would be better off.
+
+But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+fur, they hain't megum enough.
+
+Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
+
+It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
+mebby will be agin.
+
+But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
+
+You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+even whip 'em.
+
+No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
+truth in it.
+
+[Illustration: "EF I FELL ON A STUN."]
+
+Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
+Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
+on a stun--I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
+and there hain't no stun--and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
+achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
+no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.
+
+No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
+subject.
+
+But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way--so nigh to it that
+seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
+
+I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+frequently, "before and after takin'."
+
+Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+calmness, and joy--refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
+
+Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
+brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
+so much peace and happiness.
+
+Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
+question, or ort to be.
+
+And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+lookin' at it, and commandin' it to--or call some posys to fall down
+into my lap, right through, the plasterin'--
+
+Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
+me stayed to Jonesville.
+
+Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
+do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
+deal of the time.
+
+I most know I couldn't.
+
+But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
+Natur.
+
+And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+it.
+
+And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
+of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
+breath leaves their body.
+
+Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
+beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
+
+Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
+never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
+
+And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
+meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
+felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
+lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
+
+They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
+at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of thier
+childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
+
+I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
+or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
+imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
+imperfect world.
+
+But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+about 'em--you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
+
+Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
+last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
+end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
+didn't either. And I sez to her, "The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
+to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
+Father when that great day shall be." And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
+I, "How should _you_ be expected to know it?"
+
+Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, "My name
+wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that _wuzn't_ to know it!"
+
+And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side--you
+know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+side--you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
+did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
+use in disputin' back and forth.
+
+But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
+old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+naterally wanted to be round at the time.
+
+She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
+his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
+wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
+up as any way.
+
+Josiah didn't like it at all.
+
+Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance--not fierce, you know,
+or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
+ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
+fierce.
+
+[Illustration: "BURIED IN THE OLD RISLEY DEESIRICT."]
+
+Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
+
+And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
+jest _knew_ the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
+of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
+to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
+made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns--so she told me in
+confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
+
+She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
+for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
+
+But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
+old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
+
+His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length--Joe is
+tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
+for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
+likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
+what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
+she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
+human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
+joke, Jenette duz: "I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
+got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
+would be glad the world _wuz_ comin' to a end."
+
+But he _didn't_ look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
+see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
+have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
+everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
+
+He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
+reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
+'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
+house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
+handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
+barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
+order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
+more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
+
+He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+too.
+
+But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
+Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
+honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
+And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
+subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
+she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
+the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
+bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
+eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
+have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
+a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
+to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
+
+And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
+always said.
+
+She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
+girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
+said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
+gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
+said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
+said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
+goodness to 'em.
+
+That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
+pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
+to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
+and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
+life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
+enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
+night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
+little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
+comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
+and thought her eyes on him.
+
+And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
+home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
+weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
+
+That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+prior and beforehand.
+
+Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
+
+He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
+
+And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
+
+For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+think such a girl as Jenette had been--such a patient, good creeter, and
+such a good-tempered one, and everything--to think her pa should have
+forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+their money and make Jenette trouble.
+
+But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
+I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
+
+But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
+day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
+and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
+
+That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
+
+Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
+a bright face.
+
+If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
+dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
+locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
+laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
+to the rattle of a bone.
+
+And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
+
+The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
+by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
+the qualities kinder struck in and she _wuz_ happy, and she _wuz_
+contented--that is, I s'poze so.
+
+Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
+to home--not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+like a meteor.
+
+Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+movin' constantly through space--but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
+meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
+I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
+
+Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
+who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
+One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
+of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
+admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
+good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
+'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
+
+And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+got to goin'.
+
+[Illustration: "Dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz."]
+
+Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
+and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
+curls all over her head.
+
+Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
+a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
+on the other side, and got through with it.
+
+Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
+
+A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
+had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
+But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
+was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
+afternoon.
+
+Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
+case of the world's endin'.
+
+And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, "that
+she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
+the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes."
+
+And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
+
+She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
+time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
+Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
+in front.
+
+Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
+
+She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
+
+But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
+get better and she did.
+
+One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
+the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
+month.
+
+[Illustration: "Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur."]
+
+He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley school-
+house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the next
+mornin' Miss  Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that evenin'. It
+wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah had to be
+away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy loaded, and
+wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
+
+But she said "that she felt that the walk would do her good."
+
+I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said "stanchils and
+religion wuz two separate things." Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
+to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
+And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
+another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
+or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
+in onxiety--it hain't my way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
+Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
+carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
+his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
+Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
+with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
+her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
+size.
+
+Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
+enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
+been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach--a sort of
+a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
+her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
+old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
+thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
+wuz tightenin'.
+
+And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
+And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
+head and said, "she didn't approve of it--she thought a chicken ought to
+be brung up by a hen."
+
+But Miss Charnick said, "Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+perished right there in the nest."
+
+But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, "that it wuz
+a hen's business, and nobody else's."
+
+And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
+hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
+if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to--they ought to
+be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
+wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
+the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
+to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
+
+And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+and she said "that basks had gone out."
+
+And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
+Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
+
+"Basks _wuz out_, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+polenay."
+
+And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+"Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
+got so little time to wear 'em."
+
+And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+somethin' about "hired girls keepin' their place."
+
+And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
+
+They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
+their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
+others.
+
+It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
+
+And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
+her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
+fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
+in--I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
+knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
+
+Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
+do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
+sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
+his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
+her belief.
+
+But Josiah said, "he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
+if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
+guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand."
+
+Sez I, "Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself." And he owned up that
+he wuz.
+
+Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
+breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
+overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
+come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
+and press the seams.
+
+I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
+had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
+
+She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
+that day. She sez, "The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
+a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
+riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
+commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
+Hubbard."
+
+"It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.
+
+And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+bitterly reproved him. But he sez, "If the world don't come to a end,
+the corn will be needed."
+
+"But it will," she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ HE, "IF IT DOES, I MAY AS WELL BE DOIN'
+THAT AS TO BE SETTIN' ROUND."]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+settin' round." And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+jawed me for upholdin' him.
+
+And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+previous to eatin' it, sez she, "I should think _respect_, respect for
+the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+of the idea of goin' on with your work."
+
+Sez I calmly, "Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?"
+
+"Wall, not exactly scare," sez she, "but lift up, lift up far above
+bread and other kitchen work."
+
+And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, "I don't s'poze
+I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
+of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
+that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
+would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
+ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+grandchildren." (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
+to dinner.)
+
+"Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
+have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
+soar up above riz biscuit."
+
+And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
+another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, "What did
+they do there?"
+
+"Do!" sez she, "why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile."
+
+I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
+I do say it), and sez calmly, "Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
+have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
+_some_ things, things He has _commanded_. Everybody to their own way.
+I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever," sez I,
+"I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz _my_ way to lay speechless
+or holler much--not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
+principle, but I never seemed to have a call to."
+
+"You would be far better if you did," sez Trueman's wife, "far better.
+But you hain't good enough."
+
+"Oh!" sez I, reasonably, "I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
+the _use_ in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
+all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
+you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
+_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
+"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
+'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
+temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
+regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
+our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
+life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"
+
+"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
+attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."
+
+That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
+with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
+one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
+biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."
+
+Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
+agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
+years.
+
+But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
+
+But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
+companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
+her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+be sent up.
+
+Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
+in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
+by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
+had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
+
+The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
+it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
+goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
+enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
+
+The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
+stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
+talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
+had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
+
+But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+on white book muslin robes. Good land!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+about 3 o'clock P.M.--afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
+
+We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
+wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
+kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
+top of the him book.
+
+Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
+a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
+and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known--Miss Charnick is a
+smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
+
+Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through--as mournful,
+skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
+out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
+way, and wierd--dretful wierd.
+
+And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
+days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
+men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
+and wept and cried.
+
+I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
+serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought--jest
+as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
+very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
+mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
+the certainties of the other.
+
+[Illustration: "A SORT OF A LURID, WILD-LOOKING CHAP."]
+
+For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
+big that the hull world must pass through it--and yet so small that the
+hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.
+
+My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+mysterious arches, alone--and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
+onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had _got_ to be
+parted.
+
+And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+the bendin' heavens--we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
+on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.
+
+Not that I really _wanted_ the world to come to a end that day. No,
+I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
+for the _sake_ of livin'. I enjoy it.
+
+But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+a-shinin' in his'n.
+
+Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+three to quarter to 4--and so on--they shouted, they sung, they prayed,
+they shook each other's hands--they wuz fairly crazed with excitement
+and fervor, which they called religion--for they wuz in earnest, nobody
+could dispute that.
+
+Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time--though I ketched
+him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say, "Oh, how
+I hate to leave you, Jenette!"
+
+But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.
+
+Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on
+the puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say
+this, that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's
+time. And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep
+calm and serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there--no sign, no
+change--and Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.
+
+But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe,
+more than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been
+in for a week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this
+day, he jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and
+stood there in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had
+been calm enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice--his
+voice always did have a good honest ring to it:
+
+  Farewell my friends,
+  Farewell my foes;
+  Up to Heaven
+  Joe Charnick goes.
+
+And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he
+waved his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and
+sprung upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller
+him--and go right up into the heavens.
+
+And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+too--jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a camp
+chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred her
+dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks,
+and lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her
+way of applyin' of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "FAREWELL MY FRIENDS, FAREWELL MY FOES."]
+
+I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+only to put 'em on it.  But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.
+
+Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world--not a
+word--but a-naggin' about everything else.
+
+Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her
+healed, and started off.
+
+But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.
+
+He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+love--Joe never could be megum.
+
+Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell--but
+when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die,
+then she owned up to him that she worshipped him--and always had.
+
+And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death
+at the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl--she thinks her eyes on
+her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever
+wuz all around, if not agreeabler.
+
+Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of
+his bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin'
+her so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad
+on't, so they say.
+
+Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when
+Trueman's wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house
+still; that is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that
+Ma Charnick offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the
+ones she had brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please
+her, so's to get in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14
+of 'em, all fat and flourishing--they wuz well took care of. And Miss
+Charnick looked down on 'em fondly, and sez:
+
+"I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+married."
+
+[Illustration: "I LAY OUT TO HAVE A GOOD CHICKEN PIE THE DAY THAT JOE
+AND JENETTE ARE MARRIED."]
+
+"Married!" sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. "Yes,
+they are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough.
+Jenette is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'--with a
+bask," sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped
+down and gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much
+store she set by it for sickness.
+
+But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered
+and sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before
+the weddin'.
+
+They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here
+a-visitin'--and she asked me in confidence (and it _must_ be kep, it
+stands lo reason it must), "if I s'posed that book muslin robe would
+make two little dresses?"
+
+And I told her, "Good land! yes, three on 'em," and it did.
+
+She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would
+want the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the
+materials--
+
+It looks some like her and some like Joe--and they both think their eyes
+on it--but old Miss Charnick worships it--Wall, though es I said (and I
+have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and onheard on).
+
+Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a _plow_, that
+time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on--
+
+He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+(He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it,
+and don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)
+
+He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+from hour to hour.
+
+He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle
+the wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist
+wimmen wuz to work.
+
+After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+post-office for his daily _World_, and then he would stop on his way
+back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+give us his idees on't.
+
+[Illustration: "HE NEVER HAD TIME TO HELP."]
+
+And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the  very bone, with his
+dretful imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo
+herself, and ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to
+set!
+
+Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.
+
+He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do
+some little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.
+
+But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work.
+He wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about
+that buzz saw mill.
+
+And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz
+able to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and
+their buzz saws, and fheir inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc.,
+etc.
+
+And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+meetin' house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said
+they had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't
+do any more, any way.
+
+As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the
+male brethern.
+
+Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+come right out plain and said so.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said "he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right
+to his face that he hadn't done his share," and he said "he wuzn't the
+man either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things." I don't
+believe he wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like
+death to have him so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the
+tex' wuz; it wuz these words:
+
+"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."
+
+The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached
+about it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat
+to several of the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly
+pinched 'em.
+
+But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said "he
+wouldn't give a _darn_ cent."
+
+But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+that he had demeaned himself to that extent.
+
+Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain
+members of the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin'
+slightin' about buzz saws.
+
+I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws
+had a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I
+believe the subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these
+various hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the
+men kinder joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other,
+and they all baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the
+minister wuz, good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of
+life, and most half a year's salery due.
+
+I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her
+own sirname about how her Metilda had been used.
+
+The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.
+
+She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny
+it, and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said,
+and stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been
+to save her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when
+some of the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:
+
+"The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+unless it is when you can't help it."
+
+What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:
+
+There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+evenin' meetin's.
+
+She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it
+wuz s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.
+
+She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+a-cryin' before she got it all out.
+
+She always said "she wanted to be found always at the foot of the
+Cross."
+
+She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical,
+and then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out
+into tears somewhere through it from first to last.
+
+But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz
+present for the first time after his wive's death.
+
+But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly--she was most a
+head taller than any man there--and she sez out loud and strong:
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some
+time. And then she begun agin,
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted out agin.
+
+And so it went on for some time--she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+and firm, "that she wanted to be found--" and then bustin' into tears.
+
+Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+right out onto the him--
+
+  "Oh, that will be joyful!"
+
+And Sister Lum sot down.
+
+Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+bring forward that verse of scripter. That the Bible said "'there wuz a
+time to laugh,' and I didn't know when it wuz unless it wuz when you
+couldn't help it--"
+
+But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda--no, indeed. I only said it
+because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin'
+house down on her so heavy.
+
+But Josiah said, "What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+punish its unruly members?"
+
+And I sez to Josiah, "Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of,
+and the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it,
+Josiah Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And
+Miss Henn is a widder and poor."
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah, calmly, "she hain't been able to help the meetin'
+house much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely."
+
+Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, "I hearn he did at the time he wuz
+up--I hearn he contributed _lots_ to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+him--but," sez I, "do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay
+in the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that
+is sendin' men to ruin all round him--
+
+"Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way
+so it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every
+low saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and
+boy that wants it.
+
+"And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm--so he jest
+entices 'em down into the road to ruin--doin' as much agin harm as a
+whiskey seller.
+
+"And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are
+always appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by
+their peers, but wimmen never are.
+
+"I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked
+it to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+about Metilda's case--thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.
+
+[Illustration: "SUPPLYIN' EVERY LOW SALOON FUR AND NEAR."]
+
+"I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's
+mother set on him? She is a Sister  in the meetin' house and Charley is
+a ruined boy--and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin--
+jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if
+he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon."
+
+Sez I, "In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who
+have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of
+their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red
+with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and
+deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.
+
+"What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there
+and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other
+young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young
+hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that
+wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink.
+Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
+changed the smiles to curses?
+
+"Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+easy.
+
+"They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
+down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
+
+"Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
+But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
+no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
+downward?
+
+"How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+love, a divine purity?"
+
+Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
+
+And sez I, "Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
+Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
+the first cause of her goin' astray kep in--the handsome,
+smooth-faced hypocrite?--it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
+plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
+speeches and his money."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH LOOKED UP AND SEZ, 'HOW A STEEPLE WOULD LOOK
+A-PINTIN' DOWN'"]
+
+"Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
+pinted the other way."
+
+Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+sez he,
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
+most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
+anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
+storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
+
+Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+gently sarcestickle.
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."
+
+[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]
+
+Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
+that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
+that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."
+
+"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.
+
+Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
+man that led her astray."
+
+"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
+at the advertisement on the back side on't.
+
+"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
+against the mouths of the witnesses."
+
+"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+some composed.
+
+"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
+all to try her faith."
+
+I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+well what the story wuz he referred to.
+
+It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
+
+She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
+
+And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
+all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
+right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
+while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
+he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
+bitterly.
+
+She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
+
+And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
+it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
+'em.
+
+And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, "Bretheren and
+sisters, let us sing these lines:
+
+  "He did it all to try her faith."
+
+I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
+by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes--nor I didn't
+smile--oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+indignatin in my axents, and sez I, "Josiah Allen, can you look me in
+the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
+such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?" Sez
+I, "If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
+the influence of men that like hard drink?"
+
+"Wall, as it were," sez Josiah, "I--that is--wall, it is a-gettin'
+bed-time, Samantha."
+
+And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
+
+And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour--and I
+dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
+did.
+
+But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
+
+Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+we felt that she wuz a great loss.
+
+Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
+hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
+had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
+etc.
+
+And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
+a little help gin her when she needed it.
+
+And Miss Bobbet said "she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+bein' cast down." And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
+of 'em did. But I sez to 'em--
+
+"Good land!" sez I. "We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+and we can do it agin."
+
+Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
+jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
+the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
+spell.
+
+But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
+
+We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
+other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
+prayed--we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
+rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
+Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
+and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
+to nothin' or not.
+
+Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
+our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
+had a right to).
+
+After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+enough to raise some money.
+
+It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
+the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
+
+It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
+at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
+makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
+
+But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
+we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
+
+The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+fix up the old house a little.
+
+The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
+half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
+aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
+always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
+when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
+'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
+be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
+ways--nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
+meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
+resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
+which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
+meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
+approvals--and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint--we could
+_work_ all we wanted to.
+
+So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
+had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
+we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
+be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
+wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
+to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
+and the scrapin' had begun.
+
+[Illustration: "APPEARIN' IN PUBLIC."]
+
+The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+together, and raised enough money to get the paper--it wuz very nice,
+and fifty cents a roll (double roll).  These young females appearin' in
+public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
+and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
+I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
+sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
+our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
+
+I sez, "I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
+es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
+of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
+sights of quavers."
+
+But they all said that wuz a _very_ different thing.
+
+And sez I, "How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
+of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
+congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
+'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
+see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"--and
+sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
+had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and I
+wouldn't nuther.
+
+But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
+scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
+could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
+say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
+And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.
+
+Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
+have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
+and 'Piscopals.
+
+No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
+do the scrapin' with case knives.
+
+It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
+as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
+fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
+standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
+strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
+got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
+that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
+is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
+before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
+to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
+
+But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
+there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
+what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
+Methodist Meetin' House.
+
+Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
+all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
+to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
+strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
+we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.
+
+[Illustration: "EVERY NIGHT JOSIAH WOULD TACKLE ME ON IT."]
+
+And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+thought quelled us down a sight.
+
+Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
+and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
+up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.
+
+And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
+the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
+house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
+to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
+Conference.
+
+It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+Jonesville with a extra grip.
+
+So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
+
+Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
+from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
+
+I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
+brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
+
+He would talk _very_ skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
+of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
+by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
+
+I suffered.
+
+Josiah would set with the _World_ and other papers in his hand,
+a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
+left off, the nite mairs would begin.
+
+I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
+
+The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
+wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
+rostrums. And sez he, "That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
+stand."
+
+[Illustration: "IS ROSTRUMS MUCH HIGHER THAN THEM BARELLS TO STAND ON?"]
+
+And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
+not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
+work, I sez to him:
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+meetin' house?"
+
+And Josiah said, "it wuz suthin' altogether different." And he assured
+me agin,
+
+"That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
+to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
+why," sez he, "that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
+most all the hard work in the church--such as raisin' money for church
+work--earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
+of charity work connected with it--teachin' the children, nursin' the
+sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But," sez he, "this is
+fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
+Conference. Why," sez he, in a haughty tone, "I should think they'd know
+without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women."
+
+Sez I, "Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
+wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
+vote for them?"
+
+"That is the pint," sez Josiah, "that is the very pint I have been
+tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
+help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+explain it to you that the word laymen _always_ means woman when she can
+help men in any way, but _not_ when he can help her, or in any other
+sense."
+
+Sez I, "It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+meetin' house."
+
+"Oh, yes," sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, "the word laymen always means
+wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+men."
+
+Sez I, in a very dry axent, "Then the word man, when it is used in
+church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
+and drowdgin' round?"
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah haughtily, "And it always means men in the higher and
+more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
+on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so," sez he.
+
+"Who settled it?" sez I.
+
+"Why the men, of course," sez he. "The men have always made the rules
+of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+difficult," sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, "It
+seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+and when it means wimmen."
+
+"That is so," sez Josiah. "It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
+and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
+taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
+right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
+votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
+
+"I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
+where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
+
+"Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
+
+"Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+born.' That means men and wimmen both--men and wimmen are both born,
+nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
+Now that means men only--anybody with one eye can see that.
+
+"Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+both--consists--of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
+'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?" sez he.
+
+I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
+hand waitin' for it to bile--"I see a great deal, Josiah Allen."
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH WORK.]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "I am glad on't. Now to sum it up," sez he, with some
+the mean of a preacher--or, ruther, a exhauster--"to sum the matter all
+up, the  words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
+the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
+all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
+missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
+from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
+the meanin' of the word--sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
+both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
+their own idees, prcachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?" sez
+he, proudly and loftily.
+
+"Yes," sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
+biled. "Yes, I see."
+
+And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
+and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
+anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
+his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
+sect if I tried--clergymen, statesmen and all--so I didn't try, and I
+wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
+idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
+some good cream into it--I merely sez:
+
+"There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+men."
+
+"Yes," sez he, "that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,"
+and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
+and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
+
+And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+question I had put to him--for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
+recuperation, and so I sez agin them words--
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?" And Josiah said
+agin, "it wuz suthin' entirely different;" he said barells and rostrums
+wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
+hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
+argument full of Bible quotations and everything.
+
+And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
+the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
+that meetin house.
+
+And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
+we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
+
+Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
+
+Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+and nerved up her body.
+
+Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+"Cleanliness _next_ to godliness."
+
+So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+with a willin' mind.
+
+Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
+say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
+and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
+workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked--and all of the wimmen who
+wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
+a-workin' hard on articles for the fair--when all of a suddin the
+outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
+bretheren.
+
+They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
+Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
+wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
+
+Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
+to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
+it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
+that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
+derectin'.
+
+And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
+and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
+house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
+me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
+
+And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
+near time for us to go home.
+
+Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
+they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
+then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
+
+I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
+the heat.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE.]
+
+Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
+partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
+manners, and didn't say much.
+
+But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
+way--
+
+"Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+jest like you?"
+
+"No," sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, "no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
+your days at church work under the direction of us men."
+
+"Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you," sez she admirin'ly,
+"I could work jest like you--pass round the bread and wine and the
+contribution box Sundays?"
+
+"Oh, no, Drusilly," sez he condesendinly, "these hard and arjuous dutys
+belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
+the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc."
+
+"But," sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+deacon), "wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers--work for
+the good of the church together--go about doin' good?"
+
+"No, Drusilly," sez he, "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
+for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
+
+"We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+generally."
+
+Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
+of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
+the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
+side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
+usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
+transparent manner of speakin'.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+"he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+Conference, because it would _weaken_ the Conference."
+
+"Yes," sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+floor.
+
+"You see," sez he, "we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
+weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
+her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
+would admit would keep out a man. And that," sez he (a-leanin' back in
+a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), "that, you see, would
+tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church."
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ I, "MOVE ROUND A LITTLE, WON'T YOU, FOR WE
+WANT TO SET THE BENCH."]
+
+"Wall," sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, "move round a
+little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
+under it. And," sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
+and sweat offen my face, "Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
+holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
+'em? Some of 'em are very hefty," sez I, "and all of us Sisters almost
+are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
+and bile down; we would dearly love a little help," sez I.
+
+"I would help," sez Josiah in a willin' tone, "I would help in a minute,
+if I hadn't got so much work to do at home."
+
+And all the other male bretheren said the same thing--they had got to
+git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
+and I knew it.)
+
+But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
+his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
+of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
+the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
+the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
+she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
+
+She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
+of his folks that day, over to Loontown.
+
+And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
+and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
+one work--deacon work--and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
+hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
+plain deacon work.
+
+It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
+and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
+piece had convinced her--
+
+She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
+be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
+would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SEE THIS WILD AND SKAIRFUL MACHINE APPROACHIN'."]
+
+When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
+up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
+tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
+bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his.  There was a bet upon these
+two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
+where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
+hollerin'.
+
+And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
+
+His mean wuz wild.
+
+And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
+she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
+old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
+after 'em.
+
+And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
+a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
+
+Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+nuther.
+
+And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
+
+It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+long, long time, and it wuz what he called "A Travellin' Rat Trap." It
+wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
+
+[Illustration: DEACON HENZY'S RAT TRAP (LIKE A CIRCUS FOR THE RATS).]
+
+It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em--rats
+or mice, or anything--and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
+
+Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
+
+It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
+
+But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
+machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
+
+Deacon Sypher had took the agency for "The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+Boy of the Plain," and wuz doin' well by it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
+and arneky.
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD TO LAY BOUND UP IN LINEMENTS A GOOD DEAL OF THE
+TIME."]
+
+So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
+
+And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
+his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
+
+He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
+away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
+his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
+about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
+as he could, to try it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
+break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
+hardly dast to go nigh 'em.
+
+And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
+to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
+him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the
+"Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
+home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
+wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping Cow Boy."
+
+And then they said--the hull three of the deacons did--that any minute
+them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
+saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
+
+And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+demanded the hull of their time--every minute of it.
+
+So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
+
+We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
+would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
+
+Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
+
+But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
+to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
+
+"Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?"
+
+"It is on account of their minds," sez Josiah. "Men have got stronger
+minds than wimmen, that is the reason."
+
+And Sister Meechim sez agin--
+
+"Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
+deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
+if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?"
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, "that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+brains hain't so hefty es men's."
+
+But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+loud, clear tone,
+
+"Oh, shaw!"
+
+And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
+
+"If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
+you are a-standin'."
+
+"Certainly," sez Josiah, in a polite axent, "certainly."
+
+And so the rest of the men said.
+
+And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,
+
+"You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+puddin', and so forth."
+
+And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, "Have I ever failed, Josiah
+Allen, to have good dinners for you, and on time too?"
+
+"No," sez he, "but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it,
+and also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+deaconesses."
+
+And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work
+in the meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister
+Arvilly Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue
+(some think that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had
+chances).
+
+But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,
+
+"I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH ADDED TO HIS REMARKS."]
+
+"Wall," sez Sister Gowdy--she loves to put on Arvilly--"wall, you have
+got one qualificatin', Arvilly!"
+
+"Yes, thank the Lord," sez she.
+
+And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, _I_ think.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say
+it.
+
+Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me
+to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long,
+so I didn't care.
+
+Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay
+to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+wuz company, or lay out to.
+
+Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
+
+He had jest got home from the city.
+
+It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had
+to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody
+else couldn't sign.
+
+[Illustration: CASPER KEELER.]
+
+His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
+
+Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
+
+He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+cetery, et cetery.
+
+He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in
+the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very
+highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
+
+And I sez, "Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?"
+
+And he acted real scorfin'.
+
+"Wimmen's work!" sez he. "No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and
+too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such
+little trifles as wimmen's work."
+
+Sez I, "Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if
+it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you
+are a-usin'?" sez I, "who educated you and made your life easy before
+you?"
+
+And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother
+wuz a good woman.
+
+But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin'
+it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
+
+But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over
+with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz
+a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of
+my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc.,
+etc.
+
+[Illustration: "HE SEEMED TO HAVE A HORROW OF WOMAN A-RAISIN' OUT OF HER
+SPEAR."]
+
+Sez Casper, "It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life," sez he,
+"when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen
+keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in
+that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+reasons why poor weak wimmen should _not_ be admitted into that sacred
+enclosure--
+
+"When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I
+have ever experienced. Why, he said," sez Casper, "that if wimmen wuz
+allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The
+next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly
+argument," sez Casper.
+
+"It must have been," sez my Josiah.
+
+"He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear."
+
+"Well he might," sez Josiah, "well he might."
+
+Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This
+wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real
+solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only
+more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig
+some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its
+feet--no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of
+truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and
+curius I felt hearin' their talk.
+
+"And," sez I, "nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I
+have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf," sez I, "deep
+and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his
+burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his
+unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the
+very depths of my soul at his freedom.
+
+"But," sez I, "when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
+
+"Yes," sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
+
+"When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen
+are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach,
+I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and
+where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand
+and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all
+over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody
+says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the
+old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted
+and bring forth freedom.
+
+"If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster
+would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him
+up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought
+and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many
+animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
+him so."
+
+"Oh, no," sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', "no, you wouldn't."
+
+"Yes, I would," sez I. "And I'd 've enjoyed it _richly_" sez I, es I
+turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
+
+[Illustration: SAMANTHA EXPRESSES HER VIEWS.]
+
+Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+machin' for about the same length of time.
+
+But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+dinner.
+
+After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
+
+But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
+Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
+and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
+several days.
+
+And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
+
+But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
+of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
+own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
+his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
+failure, and such.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER BOBBET, OUR DEPENDENCE, FELL DOWN ON A APPLE
+PARIN'".]
+
+And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she--
+
+"Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
+I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
+to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake." Rosy wuz
+Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+now a father's strong hand.
+
+Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always
+been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the
+savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property
+with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took
+his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
+
+Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
+
+Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz
+lost--a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits,
+and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
+
+[Illustration: RALPH SMITH ROBINSON.]
+
+He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time--he felt
+weak and mauger.
+
+And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got
+in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she
+_needed_ a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else
+she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with
+her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father
+wuz--so wouldn't Ralph come home.
+
+Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked
+and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love
+and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith
+Robinson.
+
+Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that
+the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost
+crazed him.
+
+He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with
+him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The
+world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so
+near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, "he
+walked with God." Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they
+wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for
+Yankees.
+
+And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+Presidential election.
+
+Ralph suffered.
+
+But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
+
+Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+the droppin's of the sanctuary.
+
+She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered
+up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under
+the steeple.
+
+Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by
+the voice of his soul and his good silver watch--this volume of clamor,
+this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz
+perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin'
+dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he
+come down with nervous fever.
+
+He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he
+wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he
+bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no
+idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got
+it.
+
+I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work
+of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't
+languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the
+female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in
+Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled
+me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel
+divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what
+day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend
+when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear
+a hankerchif pin or not--or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc.,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
+
+Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case
+before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful
+that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence.
+One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder
+deprestin' about it.
+
+But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
+
+We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go
+into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has
+always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice
+to Josiah Allen.
+
+Howsumever, I don't _know_ that. But I do know that they started off
+a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back
+home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
+
+[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS.]
+
+And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+said they bought 'em.
+
+And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either
+one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the
+truth of this. I know what they _said_, they _said_ the huntin' wuz
+excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
+
+And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
+
+But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+bigger ones, and shot more deers.
+
+Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a
+good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and,
+suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our
+journey to Loontown.
+
+[Illustration: "MISS TIMSON AND ROSY SEEMED DRETFUL GLAD TO SEE ME."]
+
+Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale
+and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been
+there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well
+as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts
+and their souls and their idealized fancies.
+
+Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good
+a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
+
+And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24
+hours I begun to feel some as they did.
+
+But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
+
+But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
+
+His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all,
+had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and
+struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine
+sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
+
+He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost
+as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But
+under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his
+good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire
+that wuz a-consumin' of him.
+
+Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms
+and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+Timson to understand that I wuz there to _help_ 'em if I could.
+
+"For," sez I softly, "the hull future time is left for us to weep in,
+but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson."
+
+Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves
+or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all
+through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
+
+Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to
+give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+refused.
+
+Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+sleep, "buzz saw mill."
+
+[Illustration: "DIDN'T SEE HOW FOLKS NEEDED SO MUCH SLEEP."]
+
+But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly--
+
+"Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful." And I wouldn't
+waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+in haste--
+
+"That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+real treat to keep awake all night, now and then."
+
+No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case
+might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without
+disputin' with my Josiah.
+
+Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
+language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
+feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
+strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
+said:
+
+"And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
+the peace! the peace!"
+
+His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
+wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
+and inside, that he invoked.
+
+Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
+down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
+wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
+
+Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
+he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
+would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
+then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
+
+Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
+excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
+bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
+it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
+tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
+perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
+goes.
+
+Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
+to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
+of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+tenderness and sweetness of nater.
+
+A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
+hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
+Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
+would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
+
+Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
+if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+"business!"
+
+So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
+spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
+then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
+one of 'em good ones).
+
+He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
+or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
+make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
+and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
+to be.
+
+[Illustration: "THE DEACON DID MAKE ME THINK OF A STEEL TRAP."]
+
+Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
+in the mornin' would roust him up,  and I had come to see if he would
+omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
+
+"Not ring the bells!" sez he, in wild amaze. "Not ring the church bells
+on the Sabbath day?"
+
+His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez--
+
+"Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+bells in the mornin'."
+
+"A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a _Christian_ to not ring the
+Sabbath bells!"
+
+I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
+the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
+the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
+a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
+a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
+his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
+depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.
+
+But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+anybody ever could, as he sez: "The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
+for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
+broke down and weak?" sez he.
+
+"No," sez I, honestly. "No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
+trap."
+
+"Wall," sez he, "what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else."
+
+"But," sez I, "folks are made up different." Sez I, "The Bible sez so,
+and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you
+ever nervous?" sez I.
+
+"Never," sez he. And he added firmly, "I don't believe in nerves. I
+never did. There hain't no use in 'm."
+
+"It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then," sez I. "As a generel thing the
+Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever," sez I,
+"there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any
+way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one
+state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the
+sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to
+him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not
+have 'em rung in the mornin'."
+
+"Are you a professor?" sez he.
+
+"Yes," sez I.
+
+"What perswaision?" sez he.
+
+"Methodist Episcopal," sez I.
+
+"And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set
+aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the
+Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause
+of religion languish--I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread
+desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
+
+  "'The sound of the church-going bells,
+  These valleys and hills never heard.'"
+
+"No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances."
+
+"Why," sez I, "that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks
+seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and
+better time than they do to meetin'," sez I. "In your opinin' it hain't
+necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz,
+to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear."
+
+"Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+agrivatin' to saint and sinner."
+
+"But," sez I, "they say they do it for the sake of religion."
+
+"Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks," sez he bitterly.
+
+"No," sez I, "nor in a bell clapper."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+worshippers together, that is necessary."
+
+Sez I, "One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion."
+
+Sez he, "Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded
+out."
+
+"Yes," sez I candidly, "and in the sweet past they wuz necessary," sez
+I. "In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz
+fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what
+is runnin' over with clocks--everybody knows the time; they know it so
+much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals,
+their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their
+visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They
+time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
+through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
+time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
+hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
+no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
+supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
+bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
+started.
+
+"Take a man with the Sunday _World_ jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
+with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
+hain't a-goin' to start him.
+
+"And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
+and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
+won't start 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "BELLS HAIN'T A-GOIN' TO START HIM."]
+
+"And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
+church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
+trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
+bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
+bell on earth."
+
+"Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject," sez he (I had convinced
+him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
+wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). "But," sez he
+wavin' off that side of the subject, "the observance is so time honored,
+so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past."
+
+"Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven," sez I, "that I know every single
+emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony."
+
+"Agony!" sez he, "talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a
+more heavenly sound on earth."
+
+[Illustration: "A-LEANIN' OVER THE FRONT GATE ON A STILL SPRING
+MORNIN'."]
+
+"So it has been to me," sez I candidly. "To me they have always sounded
+beautiful, heavenly. Why," sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond
+Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and
+insperation come to me borne out of  the past into my very soul, by the
+tender memories of the bells--thoughts of the great host of believers
+who had gathered together at the sound of the bells--the great army of
+the Redeemed--
+
+  'Some of the host have crossed the flood, and some
+  are crossin' now,'
+
+thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+used to him,
+
+"Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a
+still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier
+roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine
+a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the
+hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over
+all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur
+off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells,
+a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin'
+memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears
+listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer
+beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet
+emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts,
+inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together
+at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the
+children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts
+of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their
+ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to
+their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave
+hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz
+ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed
+out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how
+the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
+(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
+
+"As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+have rung into my very soul.
+
+"But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+lead me round a good deal of the time.
+
+"Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
+step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
+sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
+the year, better than they can without sleep.
+
+"You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
+a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
+it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
+hain't so fortunate as I am.
+
+"I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
+also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
+get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
+I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
+gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
+than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
+in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
+on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
+subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
+of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.
+
+"What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
+from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep--the bells to them seem
+murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: "TOSSIN' ON BEDS OF NERVOUS SUFFERIN'."]
+
+"To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
+last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
+than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
+instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
+screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
+Religion.
+
+"I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
+sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
+we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
+have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
+So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
+the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
+can sleep in peace.
+
+"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
+benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
+can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
+can.
+
+"Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
+world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
+the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
+a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
+wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.
+
+"The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
+could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
+to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
+for 'em--the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
+It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.
+
+"Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+coarser, more sensual vision."
+
+Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
+spread the Gospel."
+
+"And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+could, "Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without
+the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he
+ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with
+his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "it wuz different times now."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+the sick, and tender hearted always."
+
+"Wall, _I_ will help him," sez Deacon Garven, "I will watch, and I will
+pray, and I will work for him."
+
+Sez I, "Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if
+he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?"
+
+"Wall," sez he kinder meltin' down a little, "I will talk with the
+bretheren."
+
+Sez I, "Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em."
+
+Sez he, "I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of
+the church."
+
+Sez I, "Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+and I believe it is safe to foller 'em."
+
+But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren,
+and I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out
+afterwuds, I wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon
+Garven in his own smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a
+guard over him, armed nearly to the teeth with clubs.
+
+But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.
+
+Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for
+a few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up
+in bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift
+up his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long
+sermons in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon
+right through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know
+it by the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little
+in that same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless,
+in our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--
+
+[Illustration: "THE LORD BE PRAISED, WE SHALL PULL HIM THROUGH."]
+
+"Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through."
+
+She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried
+and wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.
+
+Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks
+to the Lord for his mercy.
+
+As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a
+teaspoon ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if
+he needed it, or medicine.
+
+When all of a sudden--slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the
+bells.
+
+Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+died.
+
+And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it.
+He who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.
+
+[Illustration: "AND I THOUGHT HE WUZ PRONOUNCIN' A BENEDICTION ON THE
+SAVAGES."]
+
+His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them
+strange words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I
+thought then, and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction
+on the savages. And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from
+on High at that last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all
+benighted savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
+met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
+very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
+
+For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
+scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
+and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift _both_
+arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
+
+I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+homes on the run.
+
+But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
+our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
+in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
+
+[Illustration: "WE HAD TO WAIT FOR THE PASTE TO BILE."]
+
+Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
+paper--we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
+conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
+bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
+poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+[Illustration: "WE ALL SET AND LAID ON OUR PLANS, AND CUT THE EDGES
+OFFEN THE PAPER."]
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
+our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
+offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
+very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
+weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
+arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
+next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
+and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
+depend on, and what she had to do with.
+
+And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
+one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
+fair.
+
+And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+melancholy groan all to herself.
+
+[Illustration: "THE HANDLE COME OUT."]
+
+I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
+I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
+wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
+always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
+
+But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
+us, and the hull of mine wuz.
+
+Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
+sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.
+
+It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
+at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
+foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
+the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
+own livin'.
+
+Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
+very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
+
+[Illustration: "I WOULD MEANDER OUT THERE IN A ICY NIGHT TO FEED IT."]
+
+We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+there in a icy night to feed it.  But jest as it is always the way with
+wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
+on me, the better I liked it.
+
+Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
+
+So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
+
+That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
+
+And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
+about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
+
+He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
+other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it "horse corset" in a kind of
+a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
+with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
+
+[Illustration: "BEEN OUT TO TEND TO YOUR 'HORSE CORSET,' HAVE YOU?"]
+
+He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+feather piller and say to me:  "Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+have you?"
+
+"_Horse corset_! 'Wall, what if it wuz?"
+
+Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
+a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
+
+And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms--and
+he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took--etc., etc., etc.
+
+(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
+get up and get my feet so cold).
+
+But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
+
+And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
+got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
+stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
+increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.
+
+And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
+
+Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
+least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the
+wants and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female
+sisters wuz a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our
+ingregiencies with for the fair.
+
+He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There
+wuz four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the
+very least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and
+mebby both on 'em.
+
+But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.
+
+[Illustration: "HANDED ME A TEN CENT PIECE."]
+
+I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+least I said some words  to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of
+how I felt on the subject.
+
+Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't
+want a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+wuz.
+
+Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the
+subject--and spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my
+back to him, a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece
+of mind. And thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be
+repentent, and hand me out a ten dollar bill.
+
+But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:
+
+"Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit."
+
+I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+hand, and sez I:
+
+"What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?"
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, JOSIAH ALLEN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?"]
+
+"Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I
+dare persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions
+that there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked
+over, and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have
+been worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that."
+
+"How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?" sez I.
+
+"Why m-i-t-e, mit."
+
+"I should think," sez I, "that that spells mite."
+
+"Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite."
+
+And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute
+remark, bringin' the "mite" in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no,
+there wuzn't a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement,
+but solemn and bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the
+stove, solemn, and took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his
+shirt collar agin with solemnety and deep earnest. "No," Josiah Allen
+continued, "there hain't no sense in that--but mit! there you have
+sense. All wimmen wear mits; they love 'em. She most probable had a good
+pair, and lost one on 'em, and then give the other to the church. I tell
+you it takes men to translate the Bible, they have such a realizin'
+sense of the weaknesses of wimmen, and how necessary it is to translate
+it in such a way as to show up them weaknesses, and quell her down, and
+make her know her place, make her know that man is her superior in every
+way, and it is her duty as well as privilege to look up to him."
+
+And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty
+and over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up
+haughtily at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,
+
+"But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is
+jest my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be."
+
+"Yes," sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+wuz fairly hissin' hot. "She most probable had some man to advise her,
+and to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
+house." Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
+one I keep by me--and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
+necessity.
+
+"Most probable," sez Josiah, "most probable she did." He thought I wuz
+praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.
+
+"Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to
+mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
+up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me."
+
+But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:
+
+"If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
+livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you." And I would, if it wuz the
+last move I ever made.
+
+But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
+every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
+and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
+I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
+carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
+'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.
+
+And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their
+money, told jest how they come by it.
+
+Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
+mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
+cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
+exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
+has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.
+
+Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
+(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
+rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
+had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
+ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
+but she concluded to make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.
+
+And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who
+married a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents
+apiece, and Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the
+feathers offen her own back.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE HAD PICKED TEN GEESE AT TWO CENTS APIECE."]
+
+And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and
+warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift
+'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she
+picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.
+
+But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over
+to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice
+ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.
+
+Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four
+dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took
+it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and
+sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and
+besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'),
+she gin the hull to the meetin' house.
+
+There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in
+the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.
+
+And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+got in that way.
+
+But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.
+
+But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of
+it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her--she wuz the widder
+Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn
+what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to
+Sister Grimshaw, by right.
+
+Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:
+
+"Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+use, and for church work, and charity?"
+
+"Because he is so hard with her," sez Sister Lanfear, "and tears round
+so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should
+dress well--wants her to--and live well. But he don't want her to spend
+a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she
+should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin."
+
+"Wall," sez I, "what business is it to him what she does with her own
+money and her own property?"
+
+I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more
+openly.
+
+And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled
+three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day
+for contogglin'.
+
+She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a
+old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+would be willin', so it is spozed.
+
+Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz
+kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more
+of'em.
+
+But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.
+
+[Illustration: "SUBMIT TEWKSBURY DID BRING THAT PLATE."]
+
+And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+part with it, but she did bring _that plate_. That pink edged, chiny
+plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel
+Danker for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in
+front of it.
+
+Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full
+part towerds helpin' the meetin' house along--so she tore up her
+memorial, a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a
+burnt chiny offerin' to the Lord.
+
+Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+begun to affect us like that.
+
+To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand
+in that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she
+didn't, but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we
+all knew the feelin' she felt for the plate.
+
+It affected all on us fearfully.
+
+But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+merely sez, when she wuz thanked: "Oh, you are entirely welcome to it,
+and I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along."
+
+And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+more pitiful than tears would have been.
+
+Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.
+
+Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em,
+too. Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot
+down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever
+happened in Jonesville, or the world--although it is eppisodin' to tell
+on it now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you
+may say, my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I
+don't know but I may as well tell it now as any time.
+
+Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+the livin' truth.
+
+That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she
+heard a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears
+and opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the
+warm cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin
+Submit a look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look
+that had in it the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of
+faithfulness and heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.
+
+Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white,
+and she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,
+
+"Who be you?"
+
+And he sez,
+
+"I am Samuel Danker."
+
+And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin'
+chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.
+
+And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair
+cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and
+the feather oozed out.
+
+I don't tell this for truth, I only say that _they say_ thus and so.
+
+[Illustration: "I AM SAMUEL DANKER."]
+
+But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+that they wuz married that  very night of his return, that too can be
+swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit--superanuated,
+but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the
+ceremony.
+
+It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.
+
+But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I
+don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years
+younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy
+he looks, and how he has renewed his age.
+
+The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+wuz spozed to be envius.
+
+And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+over both religous and seckuler grounds.
+
+One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for
+him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the
+plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself.
+How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of
+extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets
+down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY DON'T COME!"] _They don't come!_
+
+But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and
+go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the
+frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to
+her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of
+company at that time of day.
+
+_They come!_
+
+Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin'
+tears on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all
+hope and happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is
+a-standin' right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with
+'em.
+
+Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her--Samuel
+Danker by name.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY COME."]
+
+Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that  I dropped in the
+Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.
+
+Wall, Submit brought the plate.
+
+Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.
+
+And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse
+takin' 'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala
+Crane, Joe Cranes'es widder.
+
+She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.
+
+She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us
+extremely worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it
+with such a cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz
+so thin and wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin',
+and all darned in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the
+money to get her a new dress.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER ARVILLY LANFRAR, CANVASSIN' FOR A BOOK."]
+
+But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I  wouldn't have been the one to
+tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.
+
+Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages--she is a
+millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+day's work wuz done.
+
+And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight
+cents by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: "The Wild,
+Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man."
+
+And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she
+had to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the
+time, a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She
+said she loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page
+to the back bindin'.
+
+As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had
+some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I
+wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to--sez I,
+"Arvilly, men are _jest_ as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+better."
+
+And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I
+gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+but'nuts.
+
+[Illustration: "OLD MISS BALCH."]
+
+Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+the worth on it.
+
+And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't
+no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a
+halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she
+calculated to make the old ones do.
+
+And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years
+old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all
+swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three
+pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have
+laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said
+a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she
+felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very
+strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
+
+She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she _had_ to have to get
+Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
+
+Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now
+he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't
+have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
+
+Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+emergincies or bunnets.
+
+She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out
+of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+Deacon's feet.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
+
+And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and
+gin it to the fair to sell.
+
+We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+needed it.
+
+But she would make us take it; she said "if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+she would say to her,
+
+"Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress
+and mourn fer me in a black calico."
+
+_That_ Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say
+to her if she wuz alive.
+
+And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything.
+She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps,
+and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
+
+  [Illustration: "I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD."]
+
+  "I love thy kingdom, Lord,
+  The house of thine abode,
+  The church our dear Redeemer bought
+  With His most precious blood."
+
+The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes,
+and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse--
+
+  "For her my tears shall fall,
+  For her my prayers ascend,
+  For her my toil and life be given,
+  Till life and toil shall end."
+
+The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how
+she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought
+of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
+
+Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars;
+the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten
+to the fair.
+
+It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived
+with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+meetin' house.
+
+Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do
+it.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+paperin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best
+qualified to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.
+
+And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet
+es it hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it
+hadn't been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly
+have shirked out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy
+constituent.
+
+Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on
+the ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up
+fur, fur beyond the strength of their sockets.
+
+[Illustration: "WE FELT NERVED UP TO DO OUR BEST."]
+
+But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen  also, and it wuzn't for
+me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out
+of hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin'
+House wuz at the Bay.
+
+No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped
+holt of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly
+Lanfear and Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur
+a-holdin' up Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our
+two barells, Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy
+for us to mount up on.
+
+Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the
+time but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more
+wearin' and awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it
+day and night for weeks and weeks, every one on us.
+
+The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair
+to loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility
+that laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.
+
+It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+hull life.
+
+Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+eyes--Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).
+
+Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled--smiles broke out on every
+face, about thirty smiles--a half a minute more and it would be done,
+and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate of
+our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.
+
+But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin'
+house that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had
+been standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned.
+But as I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in
+the land wuz there and present.
+
+They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.
+
+They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.
+
+They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen
+that had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't
+set, that they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.
+
+And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+Josiah to read it out to us.
+
+So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us.
+But he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great
+and triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.
+
+[Illustration: "THE METHODIST CONFERENCE HAD DECIDED THAT WIMMEN WUZ
+TOO WEAK TO SET."]
+
+And so he read it out to us, and as we see that  that
+breadth wuz spilte, we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.
+
+And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend
+with such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men
+in a bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair
+sex had been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they
+sez, some on 'em, "Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for,
+if it hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?"
+
+And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, "cooin' doves" and "sweet
+tender flowerets," as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in
+too big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction.
+They had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in
+Jonesville and up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.
+
+But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door
+as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the
+nation on the decesion, for, sez they,
+
+"Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the
+time."
+
+And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits--
+
+"If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on
+anything--a Conference or anything else."
+
+And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,
+
+"For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so."
+
+And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+house agin.
+
+[Illustration: The End]
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.
+
+
+In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in
+and preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
+of 1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers
+have deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered
+on the floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.
+
+The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+Conference are held quadrennially.
+
+Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women
+delegates were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral
+Conferences--namely, The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference,
+The Pittsburgh Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was
+made against the admission of these delegates on the ground that the
+admission of women delegates was not in accord with the constitutional
+provisions of the Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive
+Rules. A special Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in
+the General Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members,
+to whom the protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported
+adversely to the admission of the four women delegates, the report
+alleging "that under the Constitution and laws of the Church as they now
+are, women are not eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference."
+From the discussion following this report, and lasting several days, the
+following six addresses, three in favor of and three against the
+admission of the women delegates, are selected and presented, with a few
+verbal corrections, as published in the official journal of the
+Conference.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.
+
+I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body,
+ought to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the
+Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules
+is that these women elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this
+General Conference.
+
+Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet
+it was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they
+would be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and
+afterward demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not
+enrolled with the others were called, and the protests were read. Their
+names have been called as members of this body, and they are simply here
+as "challenged" members. From that standpoint this question must be
+discussed, and any disposition of this case under the circumstances must
+be in this direction. These women delegates must be put out of this
+General Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges
+of members here. It is not a question of "admitting" them. Before this
+report, before the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to
+vote and act, and millions of people will hold us responsible, and I
+dare say that our votes will be recorded as to whether they shall be
+"put out" or "stay in."
+
+Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists
+for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the
+membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was
+made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea
+in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the
+fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers
+and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical
+government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question
+to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of
+petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General
+Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question
+not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble
+man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England
+Conference, moved himself to strike out the word "male" from the report
+of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was
+stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the
+Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay
+delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of
+suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed
+the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be
+questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts
+abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the
+right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law.
+Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government--and it has
+often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United
+States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in
+the government of the Church--you will find that the right of suffrage
+in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the
+most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right
+to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and
+for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American
+citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and
+trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this
+way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member
+of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little
+later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and
+under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the
+right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the "plan"
+of lay delegation, but on the "principle" of lay delegation. That was
+decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop
+Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences. On the principle
+of lay delegation, the women of the Church were granted the right of
+suffrage; presently they appeared in the Quarterly Conference, to vote
+as class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents; and it
+created a little excitement, a feverish state of feeling in the Church,
+and the General Conference simply passed a resolution or a rule
+interpreting that action on the part of women claiming this privilege
+in the Quarterly Conference as being a "right," and it was continued.
+Presently, as the right of suffrage of women passed on and grew, they
+voted in the Electoral Conferences, and there was no outcry made against
+it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in the Church, or any presiding
+elder, or any minister challenging the right of women to vote in
+Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and yet for sixteen
+years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to send laymen here
+to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to elect Bishops
+and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to where votes
+count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen years, and
+only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that the
+General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+"constitution of the men," who challenge these women.
+
+Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should
+be protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was
+placed in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the
+National Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor
+of it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to
+the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
+South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.
+
+Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
+to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
+find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
+their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
+"stop!" "we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality"? No. They
+were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
+been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
+United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
+protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
+States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
+the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
+constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
+the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
+office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
+the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
+to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
+interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
+for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
+interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
+books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
+goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
+find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a
+woman practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back
+through the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and
+you will find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in
+the Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted
+in order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the
+judges of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the
+Constitution of the United States, said, "Women may be officers of the
+Supreme Court, and may practise law there." The same kind of a spirit,
+in interpreting the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the
+Discipline of the Church, will place these women delegates in this body
+where they have been sent. The same thing is true of the Supreme Court
+of Pennsylvania and in the Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out,
+as my judgment sees, and as my conscience tells me, since before the
+government of God man and woman are equally responsible. There is no way
+out of this dilemma for this General Conference, but to say that these
+women delegates shall sit in this body, where they have been sent, and
+where their names have been called.
+
+Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+this body.
+
+We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor
+of Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+ranks of her membership--(Time called.)
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.
+
+
+Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification
+of a passage of Scripture occurred to me, "The enemy cometh in like
+a flood, but I will lift up a standard against him." It is somewhat
+peculiar that he should begin by making a statement about one of the
+most honored names in American Methodism, a statement that has been
+published in the papers, and that nine tenths of this body knew as well
+as he did. It must have been intended as a part of his argument, and I
+regard it as of as much force as anything he said after it. But in
+point of fact the question does not turn upon the person, but upon the
+principle. I have received an anonymous letter containing the following
+among other things, "Beware how you attack the holy cause of woman. Do
+you not know that obstacles to progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the
+way?" The signature of that letter is ingenious. I cannot tell whether
+it was a man or a woman, for it reads as follows, "A Lover of your Soul
+and of Woman." Now, Mr. President, the only candlestick that ought to be
+removed out of its place is the candlestick that contains a candle that
+does not burn the pure oil of truth. And I believe, sir, that with the
+best of intentions the three speakers who have appeared have given us
+three chapters in different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my
+duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says,
+"An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding
+discerneth where he slippeth." I have no claim to eloquence; never
+pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist
+history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any
+fear of the results, either present or prospective.
+
+Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot
+command the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are
+in, and defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take
+in the full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has
+a certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here,
+they have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a
+contested case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who
+ought to vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing
+up documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read
+it _verbatim_. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read
+_verbatim_ from his letter:
+
+"No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question,
+and, therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact,
+a vote of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when
+the credentials appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no
+notorious and undisputed fact or circumstance against the qualifications
+and election of a senator, to admit him at once and settle the question
+of his right afterward. But there have been cases in which the Senate
+declined to admit a claimant holding a regular certificate upon the
+ground that enough was known to the Senate to justify its declining to
+receive him until an inquiry should be had. Very truly yours,
+
+"GEORGE F. EDMUNDS."
+
+Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows
+that they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard
+to them at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional
+challenge. I champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion
+their cause against their being introduced into this body without their
+own sex having had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon
+the subject. I stand here to protect them against being connected with
+movements without law or contrary to law, and those who wish to bring
+them in and those who say it is the constitution of the man and
+prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said prejudice), they are persons,
+indeed, to stand up here as, _par excellence_ the champions of women!
+Is it the constitution of the men? Have you read the letter of
+Mrs. Caroline Wright in the _Christian Advocate_, one of our most
+distinguished American Methodist women? She does not wish to see them
+here. It is the constitution of the woman in that case, and I am opposed
+to their being admitted until the general sentiment of the women and the
+men of our Church have an opportunity of being heard upon it.
+
+Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but
+my opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the
+Methodist Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is
+to-day, not on account of the admission of these women, two of whom I
+believe to be as competent to sit in judgment on this question as any
+man on this floor. That is not the question, as I propose to show. I
+assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
+Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
+Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
+upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
+has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
+thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
+delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
+intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
+we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
+cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
+not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
+capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
+goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "layman." There
+is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
+the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
+Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
+history of the Church. Who is the "General Superintendent" by Webster or
+Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
+the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
+Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
+seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
+not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
+the word "layman" ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
+clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
+world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
+for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
+from the _clergy_men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
+laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A
+woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
+the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit
+he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham
+Lincoln said, "All these things are done and suffered, that government
+of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish
+from the earth." Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women, and
+children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this.
+When he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, "The
+intent of the lawmaker is the law."
+
+I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived
+to think of awhile--John Selden: "The only honest meaning of any word is
+the intent of the man that wrote it." At the time that the plan of lay
+delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church
+on this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and
+the laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body.
+Some one will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the
+Church, the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between
+the ministry and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever
+one Church in the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make
+its laws. There is not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name
+one that has allowed women in its law-making body; and yet such is the
+blinding power of gush that men will say that our fathers all understood
+it and proposed to put women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to
+allow them to put us in. As soon as the General Conference adjourned the
+women made an appeal in a public statement. They were asked to vote for
+lay delegation, and were told that then they could set the Church right.
+The opponents appealed to them to vote against it on the ground that it
+would not make any difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr.
+Hodgson (Professor Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote
+a series of articles in the _Advocate_, and it never occurred to them
+that the women could come into the General Conference. Lay delegation
+was only admitted by 33 votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they
+would not have come in. Every member of the New York East Conference
+knows that Dr. Curry's influence was so powerful that he could almost
+get a majority against it. And they know if any one had set up an
+opposition to it on this ground, the whole Conference would have voted
+against the movement, and that if it had not been for Bishop Ames and
+Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming Conference where the majority was
+opposed to lay delegation, and by their influence there converted my
+friend Olin and others, he knows that if this matter of the women had
+been in or understood, the whole Conference would have been against it.
+It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that it is prejudice.
+Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000 Methodist ministers
+that are ciphers all the time except when they vote for delegates? Are
+you going to presume that when the Church has a multitude of members,
+that it is going to sit here and change, by an interpretation, a
+Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never understood to
+be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial delegates. Every
+time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject has never come
+up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive Rules mean
+anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the fathers did
+not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can read those
+Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the Restrictive
+Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if you do
+it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do
+is to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then
+put any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this
+you call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress,
+and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
+a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
+believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
+said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
+that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction--they must be
+interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
+despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
+the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
+house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
+Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.
+
+If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, "I think it
+best to send the question around." True progress is not gained in any
+other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, "He that cometh
+in by the door," the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.
+
+
+Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous
+letters. And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with
+which to introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under
+any fear of being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future
+prospects blasted. It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this
+morning upon this subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive
+to either suppress or exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr.
+Buckley, threatening to remove him as an obstruction, must be highly
+gratified to know that that obstruction has already been removed.
+Brother Hughey removed the obstruction, extinguished the candle, and
+destroyed the candlestick.
+
+We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will
+be heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It
+remains for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here
+and there, or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a
+new point of view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be
+helpful to some that has already been presented in part touching the
+administration of our law and the interpretation of terms that is
+worthy, I think, of still further consideration.
+
+Dr. Buckley said in the New York _Christian Advocate_ of March 15th,
+1888:
+
+"The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of
+the Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five
+years of age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If
+women are found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the
+same plane with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five
+years, etc."
+
+Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law
+by a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+would say) the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopal Address, which
+declares that no definition of "layman" settles the question of
+eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as
+laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it
+officially as laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well,
+in this case, we have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both
+are right and both are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a
+woman, if she be a lay member her right is clear as that of any duly
+elected man. But he is wrong when he denies to her a right to a seat in
+this body as a layman. The Episcopal Address is wrong when it says
+that "no definition of the word 'layman' settles the question of
+eligibility." But it is right when it says, "Many are classed as laymen
+for purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+lay members who are not themselves eligible as delegates."
+
+In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and
+if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
+over the "Million dollars for Missions." They pray and testify in our
+class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
+us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
+amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
+are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
+they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
+laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
+two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
+one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
+General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
+marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
+this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
+step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
+question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
+over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
+if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
+this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
+and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
+misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
+out the word "male" was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
+"rider" on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
+known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
+it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
+amendment would let women into the General Conference.
+
+Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the "women coming
+in" being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
+lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment
+and the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow
+women to come in also.
+
+L. C. Queal said:
+
+I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.
+
+Bishop Foss:
+
+Are you misrepresented?
+
+L. C. Queal:
+
+I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman
+put that on as a "rider," with a view to defeating the bill, that
+immediately after thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of
+securing the approval of the principle in the laity of the Church. That
+is all I stated. All the rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own
+inference--a misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:
+
+I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to
+the speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the
+privilege of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in
+reference to this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the
+idea of the possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds
+that were both in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.
+
+Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of
+1868, laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this
+body. That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by
+the laity of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity
+here, why allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And,
+having allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the
+very foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow
+them a place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened
+the way for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not
+remember that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that
+the lay delegation scheme was defeated, and the _Methodist_, that was
+published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+that "votes ought to be weighed, not counted"? And then the question was
+sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of
+construing pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences
+previously to that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard
+to their legality there. The General Conference by its action did not
+propose to admit women to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed
+to clear away the mist and recognize their legal right to sit in the
+Quarterly Conference. Being in the Quarterly Conference, and in the
+District Conference, they have the right to vote on every question that
+comes before such bodies. They vote to license ministers, to recommend
+ministers to Annual Conferences, to recommend local preachers for
+deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on sending delegates to our Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates to Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates from Lay
+Electoral Conferences to this General Conference. And there are men
+on this floor to-day that would not be in this at all if they had
+not received the support of women in Lay Electoral Conferences. Now,
+brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the women to send
+delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never challenged until
+they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to elect laymen
+to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen in this
+body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes of the
+women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some of
+the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to
+vote there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would
+be consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+"foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection."
+And I am not in favor of going back.
+
+If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed
+for altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General
+Conference has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary.
+Every paragraph of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning
+with Sec.63, and closing with Sec.69, was put into that Constitution without
+any voice from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single
+one of them was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; Sec.20, 183, stood
+for many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred
+bodily from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position
+it now occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was
+not submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely
+stated when he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote
+ordered in 1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the
+laity into the General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the
+laity and by the Annual Conferences, but the "plan" was not submitted
+to either to be voted upon, and the "plan" for lay delegation by which
+these lay brethren occupy their seats here this morning was made in
+every jot and tittle by the General Conference without any reference to
+the Annual Conferences at all.
+
+I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once
+a legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law;
+in the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.
+
+It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme
+court to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General
+Conference, we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing
+the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions
+on the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision
+of the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so
+we construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we
+touch the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the
+Annual Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.
+
+What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to
+limit the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for
+illustration, we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our
+Legislature to license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a
+license under the guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license
+law in form. The Constitution prevents it. There are States that have
+Constitutions that have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all,
+while they may either tax, license, or prohibit.
+
+This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a
+limitation of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation
+there is no restriction.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.
+
+
+Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question
+of law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as
+those who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I
+understand it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by
+those who are advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not
+a matter of sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place
+for knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.
+
+There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of
+the Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+circumstances, oppose their coming in.
+
+It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.
+
+Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I
+do not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the
+history of lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the
+most remote intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the
+General Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the
+field now toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last
+ten or fifteen years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism
+that would be fatal to all just interpretation of law.
+
+I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in
+1868. And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I
+know, the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in
+to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
+that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
+have embraced this design--the design of bringing women into the General
+Conference. I leave that.
+
+Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
+of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
+the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
+General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
+argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
+Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
+introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
+according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
+General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
+endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
+prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
+been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
+interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
+The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
+placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
+accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
+that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
+_personnel_ of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
+Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
+consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
+that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
+is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
+law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
+peril ahead of us.
+
+A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an
+organic body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its
+own security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the
+law that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.
+
+Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said,
+it has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences
+must be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of
+1872. I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One
+is, that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it
+is also a judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as
+a legislative body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872
+interpreted law, and the General Conference may reverse itself with
+just as much propriety as a court can reverse itself. And if it be
+the judgment of this General Conference that that interpretation was
+incorrect, it is perfectly competent for this Conference to say so, and
+have its action correspond with its own decision.
+
+There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference
+of 1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that
+local preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the
+principle of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is
+decided in general terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision
+must be limited to the particular case itself. And if a court in its
+decision embraces more than was involved in the particular case, it has
+no force whatever. And as this was a particular case submitted to
+the General Conference, and the decision was in general terms, it
+comprehends simply the case that was before it, and cannot be advanced
+to comprehend more. And the reason of this is very obvious; for if it
+was not the case, then cases might be brought before the court for its
+decision that had never occurred.
+
+There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women
+to certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when
+it says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to
+sell in quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880
+decided that women should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as
+superintendents of Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by
+that very affirmative conclusion, the subject was passed upon about
+their taking any other position. That, I think, must be regarded as
+sound, and a just interpretation of the law.
+
+But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands,
+that the pronoun "he," wherever employed, shall not be considered
+as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school
+Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward.
+
+Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing
+the _personnel_ of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a
+suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as
+soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and
+so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and
+I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard
+with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The
+only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the
+relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference,
+and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect,
+honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same
+way that their husbands and brothers are here.
+
+There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of
+those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful?
+You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and
+pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect
+their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus
+lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this
+suggestion, but it is an _in posse_, and it may easily be made an _in
+esse_. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they
+have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make
+them more perfect.
+
+No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement
+or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the
+Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe
+course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious,
+and conservative--I mean every word--and conservative course we have
+heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what
+Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is
+because of her firm adherence to law.
+
+It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon
+race--everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we
+pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.
+
+
+Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene,
+this great debate now in the third day of its progress must be
+suggestive of some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have
+made the hearts of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place
+of meeting in the past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear
+as to the outcome of the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The
+visitors to this General Conference, seated in their boxes and in the
+family circle, Will say surely these honored men of God who have been
+called as Superintendents of the affairs of our great conquering Church,
+these chosen ministers of reconciliation and peace, these _male_
+laymen called by their brethren to their high places in this General
+Conference, whose names at home are the synonym of chivalrous
+goodness--surely all these of rank and talent and authority, whose able
+and eloquent words have been ringing through the arches and dome of this
+temple of music on the wrong side of the question, are but simply acting
+the parts assigned them. In the final scene they will join hands around
+the eligible women elect, who, in obedience to the call of the laity in
+their several Conferences, are in their seats with us, and say, "Whom
+God hath joined, let not _male_ put asunder." My brothers, let us
+briefly restate the case. Five noble women of the laymen of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as delegates to this General
+Conference under the Constitution and by the forms prescribed by the
+laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to enter, the portals of
+this great assemblage they hear a voice from the platform, in words not
+to be misunderstood, "Thou shalt not," and voices from all parts of the
+house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement the voices of the
+Bishops, "Thou shalt not." And one would think, from the vehement
+oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference, that the
+foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence of
+these "elect ladies" among us.
+
+Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and
+in all its battles fought until the day of victory.
+
+In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question
+of lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it
+carried, there would have been plausibility in the argument this
+day made against the eligibility of women to seats in this General
+Conference. The evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to
+a higher appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her
+rights and privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the
+bounds of the Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent
+man, that grand old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this
+question, said:
+
+"If it is _rights_ they talk of, every competent member of the Church of
+Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained."
+
+And in answer to the expected fling, "But you are a woman's rights man,"
+he replied:
+
+"We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the
+question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living
+God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When
+that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal
+righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the
+ground!"
+
+The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the
+Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as
+belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in
+the government of the Church, and having rights under that government.
+During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for
+submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman
+moved to strike out the word "male." While that motion was under
+consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, "If it were the last
+moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter,
+I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, _wherever church
+privileges are concerned_."
+
+Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the
+question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the
+Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask
+women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church
+should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then
+enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived
+of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few
+noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, "No, no," but
+they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the
+right thinking, orderly delegates.
+
+What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+out the word "male," now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:
+
+"Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed
+in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that
+women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The
+Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take
+these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried
+with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter
+interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences
+laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the
+moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it,
+but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go
+back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?"
+
+It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore
+the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could
+the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+General Conference when it said, "The General Conference holds that
+in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who
+are not members of the Annual Conferences"? This decision must include
+women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means
+the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears
+from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle
+in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the
+membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would
+have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted
+women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, "The
+General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election
+of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the
+members of the Annual Conferences, _and who are not women_." We would
+have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an
+utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its
+membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and
+the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and
+interchangeably. See Bingham's "Antiquities," Blackstone's
+"Commentaries," Schaffs "History," and kindred authorities. It is sheer
+trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between lay_men_
+and lay_women_.
+
+Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before
+the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so
+appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the
+pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the
+voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from
+the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this
+debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.
+
+It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+there be a _specific enactment discriminating against the elector_. Our
+law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five
+years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a
+delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.
+
+Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited.
+We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the
+just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from
+membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual
+Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to
+send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their
+action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will
+say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our
+Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot
+be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very
+front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the
+spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the
+banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and
+righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon
+tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's
+Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now
+waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not
+cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse
+of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church
+of the Redeemer.
+
+Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among
+the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous
+productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in
+that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries
+old. In it you may read as follows: "Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has
+a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a
+Saviour for which I gave a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could
+do so much." Three and a half centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her
+master-piece in the chief places of the galleries of the world, and
+Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many of the best marbles that adorn
+the parlors of Europe and America, and no one wonders that a woman can
+do so much. From that day when Martin Luther, the protesting monk, and
+Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at the altar and the
+twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her faith in her sex
+and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the organized
+selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or privilege
+to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery and
+barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do
+ought that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from
+our advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us
+rather strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and
+privilege of every member of our Church, without distinction of race,
+color, or sex. Amen and Amen.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.
+
+
+Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have
+now, a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work.
+No man on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them
+by all lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every
+privilege enjoyed by men.
+
+But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.
+
+That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of
+the Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in
+this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by
+Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their
+right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this
+body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.
+
+It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After
+the most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+body.
+
+Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when
+the General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the
+entire membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was
+not the intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a
+large number of men of business experience, who could render service
+by their knowledge and experience touching the temporal affairs of the
+Church. When the principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon
+by the laity, this idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual
+Conferences voted for the principle and the plan, this and this only was
+their intent.
+
+When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea,
+and none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit
+women, but to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+Constitution.
+
+Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by
+allowing sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.
+
+Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.
+
+In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+Board of Bishops, he says:
+
+
+"For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear
+that any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The
+Electoral Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action,
+being guided, as we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the
+General Conference of 1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen," in
+answer to a question touching the classification and rights of ordained
+local and located ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution
+is carried beyond its original design when applied to a subject not
+before the body when it was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the
+language itself. This also should be understood, that no definition of
+the word 'laymen' settles the question of eligibility as to any class
+of persons, for many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay
+representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, who are
+themselves not eligible as delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly
+ineligible, who are not old enough to be delegates, or have not been
+members long enough, may be stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local
+preachers and exhorters, and, as such, be members of the Quarterly
+Conference, and vote for delegates to the Electoral Conference without
+themselves being eligible.
+
+"The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by
+a resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here
+by constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the
+power of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the
+formal amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in
+their enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their
+power to work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval
+of the high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments
+of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved
+in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the
+assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they
+were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of
+law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible,
+by special enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+Sunday-school superintendent, and naturally the question arises as
+to whether the necessity for special legislation, in order to their
+eligibility to those specified offices, does not indicate similar
+necessity for special provision in order to their eligibility as
+delegates, and if so it is further to be considered that the offices of
+steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school superintendent may be created
+and filled by simple enactments of the General Conference itself; but to
+enter the General Conference, and form part of the law-making body
+of the Church, requires special provision in the Constitution, and,
+therefore, such provision as the General Conference alone cannot make."
+
+
+Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from
+whom I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on "Constitutional
+Limitations," says:
+
+
+"A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another
+at some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as
+perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal
+share of the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be
+lost, if the rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to
+circumstances, or be modified by public opinion.
+
+"The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+different at any subsequent time."
+
+
+This same great author says:
+
+"Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting
+it. In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is
+to be enforced.
+
+"But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in
+many particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great
+charters of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights
+of the subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people
+must be supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot
+understand these unless we understand their history.
+
+"It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the
+common law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.
+
+"It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+law shall be construed strictly."
+
+Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear
+as the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine
+that the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when
+it is adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject
+anything into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when
+adopted. And you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to
+give it the construction which was intended when adopted. No man of
+common honesty and common sense dares to assert on this floor that it
+was the intent when the Constitution was amended to admit women as lay
+delegates. It follows inevitably that they are not constitutionally
+eligible, and to admit them is to violate the Constitution of the
+Church, which, as a Court, we are in honor bound not to do.
+
+It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person
+for office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited
+by positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been.
+We have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended,
+the intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference
+can, by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules. Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action
+in 1880, had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as
+stewards and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay
+delegate in the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay
+delegates to this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules, according to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is
+fundamental law that where general disabilities exist, not simply by
+statute, but by common law, the removal of lesser disabilities does not
+carry with it the removal of the greater ones.
+
+Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I
+defy any lawyer to show the contrary.
+
+Sec.3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:
+
+"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty
+years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall
+not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be
+chosen."
+
+
+These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the
+Constitution of the United States touching the qualification of
+Senators. Is there a layman on this floor who will dare assert that
+under the Constitution of the United States women are eligible as
+Representatives or Senators? Words of common gender are exclusively
+used as applied to the qualification of Senators. The words persons and
+citizens include women the same as they include men. Nevertheless, in
+the light of the past, I am bold to assert, that any man who would dare
+stand in the Senate of the United States, and contend that women are
+eligible to the office of United States Senators, would be regarded by
+the civilized world as a person of gush and void of judgment.
+
+Article 14, United States Constitution, Sec.1:
+
+
+"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+_privileges_ or _immunities_ of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law, _nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws_."
+
+
+(Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor _vs_. Judges of Election.
+53 Mo. 68.)
+
+The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+rights includes corporations.
+
+The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.
+
+The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United
+States. Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did
+not entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri
+held the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able
+opinion written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively
+demonstrated that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon
+woman the right to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right
+had not obtained in favor of woman, and these words of common gender
+should not be so construed as to confer this right, since it was not
+intended when made to affect their status in this regard.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Samantha Among the Brethren, by Josiah Allen's Wife
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Samantha Among the Brethren, by Josiah Allen's Wife
+#1 in our series by Marietta Holley
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9450]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 1, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration] SAMANTHA
+
+AMONG THE BRETHREN.
+
+BY
+
+"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"
+
+(MARIETTA HOLLEY).
+
+
+_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_.
+
+
+
+
+1890
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+All Women
+
+WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES
+
+THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A
+
+BETTER COUNTRY,
+
+_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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:
+
+"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"
+
+And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal
+Justice, Josiah Allen."
+
+"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.)
+
+"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."
+
+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:
+
+"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he."
+
+And sez I, "How do you know?"
+
+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?"
+
+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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
+work and back combs."
+
+I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
+reasonable:
+
+"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.
+
+"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
+Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."
+
+"Wall, hain't _he_?" sez Josiah.
+
+"No, _she_ hain't," sez I.
+
+"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to
+rile you up?"
+
+Sez I, "_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
+Conference."
+
+"Wall, I say _he_ wuz right," sez Josiah. "_He_ knew, and I knew, that
+wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."
+
+"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."
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't
+be too severe with the Meetin' House."
+
+And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head
+in and sez:
+
+"Don't be too hard on _him_"
+
+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.
+
+  JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE,
+  Bonny View,
+  near Adams, New York,
+  Oct. 14th, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_Publishers' Appendix_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
+
+And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
+our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze
+because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
+
+Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
+from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
+our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
+particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.
+
+It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
+answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
+
+The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
+other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
+
+As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own
+particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all  on 'em to be divided
+up equal among the five deacons.
+
+[Illustration: "A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME."]
+
+They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
+that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
+the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
+not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
+and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+salvation.
+
+I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+deacons ought to cultivate.
+
+But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
+to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the
+deed."
+
+They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
+wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.]
+
+But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--"If bein' set
+apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to
+go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+enterprise?"
+
+And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man,
+the better the deed. We need buzz saws."
+
+And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+high-headed.
+
+And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
+
+But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
+prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
+of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
+
+And I sez to him in solemn axents:
+
+"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
+your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"
+
+And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
+he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
+I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+religious duties.
+
+And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+said, "he didn't dumb 'em."
+
+"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.
+
+"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he
+has a chance to."
+
+But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
+
+"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
+farms.
+
+"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
+of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
+interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
+prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
+works generally?"
+
+And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
+
+"Dumb good works!"
+
+[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"]
+
+But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"
+
+And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
+a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
+
+"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+will 'tend to it."
+
+And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+have put the question to him.
+
+For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
+go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
+there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
+and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
+bimeby).
+
+There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
+mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
+brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
+and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
+theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
+
+But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
+
+Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
+this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+Henzy.
+
+Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
+
+"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez,
+"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."
+
+Some sez he duz.
+
+Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
+And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
+begin to feel bad.
+
+She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
+me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
+the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
+she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
+Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
+had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
+dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
+his face till dinner time.
+
+And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
+because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
+
+She is a dretful admirin' woman.
+
+She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls
+her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
+when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as
+Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
+
+[Illustration: "THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'"]
+
+But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+dreams is a place where you can't slip on  your sun-bonnet and foller
+neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+from hour to hour.
+
+No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
+into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
+
+No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
+
+But, as I said, this had been spozen.
+
+But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day
+what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+Drusillia Sypher.
+
+And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+"Miss Deacon Sypher."
+
+Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
+hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
+the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
+good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
+
+Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+into the buzz saw-mill business.
+
+But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
+every time he came in sight.
+
+They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest
+smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
+step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."
+
+But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+low.
+
+But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
+and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
+books. And he sez:
+
+"Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_"
+
+I guess he did say as much as that.
+
+But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to
+stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
+
+[Illustration: "ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT
+HIM."]
+
+And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
+smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
+effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
+was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
+get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
+and he makes a good deal of her.
+
+I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
+this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
+
+Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
+the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
+
+Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
+foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
+that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin'
+article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
+fun of the projeck.
+
+We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
+fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
+store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
+He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
+worshipped him.
+
+They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
+
+The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to
+work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+in the shop.)
+
+He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
+doubt of that.
+
+Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
+educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
+born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
+in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
+Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
+any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
+syllables wuz common in it.
+
+His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
+to be disseminated abroad.
+
+The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
+ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
+up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
+sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
+guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
+from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
+howsumever."
+
+Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
+painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
+strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would
+weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
+herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
+tottlin' eminence.
+
+The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+letters over each one.
+
+The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
+
+_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER;
+
+_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
+
+The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares
+and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+wimmen to do--not a single thing.
+
+Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors
+and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
+_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
+farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
+sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
+_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
+even the lightest and slightest.
+
+Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could
+be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
+great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
+place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
+
+And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
+Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
+the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
+in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
+posture as settin' up on a Conference.
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."]
+
+"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would
+endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
+would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
+It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm."  Why, Josiah Allen
+handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
+as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we
+had some words about it.
+
+And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second
+Galatians.
+
+And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+bed rid.
+
+Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
+
+And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+very first.
+
+Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
+next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
+it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
+idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
+so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
+
+And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
+
+But of this, more anon and bimeby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for
+I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays
+bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
+and so forth.
+
+But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
+old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
+on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
+
+(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
+
+Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
+there for some time alone.
+
+Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
+first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I
+had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
+oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
+
+Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
+sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a
+difference, a difference in visitors?
+
+Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
+
+And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose."
+
+I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+brung me startlin' intelligence.
+
+It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
+
+And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote
+dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."
+
+But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
+see it wuz writ on duty.
+
+She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
+and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
+in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
+on't.
+
+She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
+any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
+was mistook.
+
+She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
+for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
+said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
+had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
+own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
+man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
+round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
+two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
+mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
+couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
+broke in on her serenity.
+
+Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
+
+[Illustration: "FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM."]
+
+Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
+affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths
+emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
+actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
+impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
+accustomed to 'em.
+
+The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
+they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work.
+And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
+The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
+
+_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz
+small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
+got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
+as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
+near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
+of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
+lambs callin' on their dams.
+
+It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."
+
+[Illustration: THE LECTURE.]
+
+The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
+of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
+snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
+I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
+events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
+yesterday.
+
+I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
+there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
+the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
+
+And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
+Josiah hitched the mair.
+
+We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+life.
+
+And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
+lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."
+
+A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
+all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
+rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
+first rate.
+
+I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
+the heads of it.
+
+It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+bare heads.
+
+She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
+the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"
+
+She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
+hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+privilege, to speak in its praise.
+
+I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
+no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
+whose name vuz once Smith.
+
+I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
+time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
+side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
+Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+every word she said.
+
+But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
+school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
+how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
+
+How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
+
+And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+souls bathed in blissful repose!
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]
+
+It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'.  There wasn't a dry
+eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
+vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
+slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
+(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
+And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
+vest.
+
+Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
+
+And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
+
+I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
+
+And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
+see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
+fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+me.
+
+[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]
+
+Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
+over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
+foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
+lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
+a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
+miserable.
+
+Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
+
+And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
+bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
+broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
+cloud.
+
+And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
+
+She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
+of 'em brought the school-house down.
+
+And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
+together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
+forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
+
+And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
+hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
+perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
+
+Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
+
+He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
+
+But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
+
+I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
+deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
+lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
+its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
+stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
+wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
+occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
+sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
+
+And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very
+sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
+
+Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
+me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
+
+Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
+over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.
+
+She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
+spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
+day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
+have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
+as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
+hold of my opinion.
+
+Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
+her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
+
+I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
+meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey.
+
+But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How
+I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up
+against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+with every word of it."
+
+Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.
+
+And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of
+beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."
+
+"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."
+
+She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
+she didn't go too far."
+
+And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she
+didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."
+
+Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
+it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+hain't _all_ happiness."
+
+"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."
+
+[Illustration: "YOU GO TOO FUR."]
+
+And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I  wuz mistaken, "she
+thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said:
+
+"He _knew_ it wuz, and he would take his oath to it."
+
+But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most
+peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+But," sez I, "marriage hain't _all_ peace."
+
+Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it."
+
+Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds
+the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+hain't all radiance."
+
+"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it."
+
+And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+right; I think it is."
+
+"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married
+you will change your opinion, you mark my word."
+
+And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't;
+she guessed she was in the right of it."
+
+Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all
+earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?"
+
+And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!"
+
+"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called
+a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.
+
+"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care
+of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid,
+a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.
+
+"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+haint if you are ever married."
+
+But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken--she
+thought it wuz."
+
+"You do?" sez I.
+
+"Yes, mem," sez she.
+
+I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'."
+I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.
+
+She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+and have me criticise it. Sez she:
+
+"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have."
+
+"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way."
+
+And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two
+rocks that couldn't be moved."
+
+And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my
+advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where
+there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she
+was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed
+that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on."
+
+And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could."
+
+It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to
+drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and
+come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.
+
+And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped
+and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees
+of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand
+the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face
+a Greenland winter in.
+
+And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back
+and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's
+call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:
+
+She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and
+stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the
+lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a
+place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and
+she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and
+forth and try to convince each other.
+
+And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+my frame, though dreadin' the job some.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture--crazy as a loon. He
+raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it
+to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in
+a serene calm--a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew
+that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they
+wuz till to-night"
+
+"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents--not so dry as I keep by
+me, but pretty dry--"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel
+labor."
+
+"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger
+in emanuel labor."
+
+"Manuel, Josiah."
+
+"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?"
+
+"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I,
+firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+along without some work and care."
+
+"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care,
+not a single care. Not as long as I live--if it wuzn't for me, you might
+have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live."
+
+I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly
+anon--
+
+[Illustration: "OH, WHAT A LECTURE THAT WUZ."]
+
+"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life--did you
+notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified
+to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands."
+
+"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap
+on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been
+a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have
+never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and
+tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs,
+jest like any other human states."
+
+Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and
+I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea
+by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold
+their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies
+blow--and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It
+is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into
+billows. But our sea--the sea of married life--is not like that, it is
+ofttimes billowy and rough."
+
+"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the
+lecture, and enthused. "We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen,
+for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly
+smooth?"
+
+"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."
+
+"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"
+
+"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."
+
+Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+if I was in your place."
+
+"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
+till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
+
+"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
+Allen."
+
+"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or
+ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+lecture."
+
+Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
+and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
+company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
+did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
+have come in a much worse time.
+
+It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.
+
+Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish
+to have showed off to the public.
+
+He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward
+with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.
+
+He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
+and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
+see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.
+
+There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
+and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
+frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
+be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
+language he hurled at me acrost that stove.
+
+"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
+this side."
+
+And then he hollered at me, and asked me:
+
+"How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in." And then he wanted to know
+"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or
+if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
+of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He
+hollered wildly.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
+you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It
+would go in all right if you had started it the other way."
+
+"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
+with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
+perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
+But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
+out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
+be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the
+breath of life in me."
+
+Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."
+
+"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at
+that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."
+
+[Illustration: "WON'T YOU BE STILL?"]
+
+Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'."  "Wall, I want 'em to
+ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
+every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do
+I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I
+said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."
+
+Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:
+
+"Won't you be still?"
+
+"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go
+through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."
+
+I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
+stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
+she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
+awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
+took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
+to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
+to Josiah.
+
+And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
+about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"
+
+But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
+he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much
+repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
+tore to pieces to get that stove started."
+
+Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
+door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."
+
+"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
+for two hours as I have, and then see."
+
+Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who
+is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."
+"Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself."
+
+I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
+
+[Illustration: "AND HE SAID I HAD RUBBED 'EM OUT."]
+
+Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't
+go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with
+chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out."
+I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I
+see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'.
+
+But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose
+to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out
+for years and years--why, then I _had_ to correct him on the subject,
+and we had a little dialogue.
+
+I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple
+sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+machine a-comin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half
+an hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected
+onto him as it did onto me.
+
+Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they
+had to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.
+
+They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to
+go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get
+to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they
+wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
+heard that was the cap sheaf.
+
+Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
+enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
+the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
+and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
+every minute.
+
+Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
+wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
+three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
+the author of "Peaceful Repose," and me, almost to death.
+
+The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.
+
+I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.
+
+[Illustration: "IT DIDN'T FALL OUT ONLY THREE TIMES."]
+
+Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+beginnin'. If you'll believe it,  I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
+by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
+pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all
+kinds.
+
+The author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" came out into the kitchen. I
+told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.
+
+She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked
+it, to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement,
+to hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.
+
+But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to
+lift my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my
+hands.
+
+And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild
+man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by
+havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he
+couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And
+then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.
+
+[Illustration: "TO FIND A PIECE OF OLD ROPE TO TIE UP THE HARNESS."]
+
+Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's
+legs, where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I
+took my hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up
+the harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on
+Josiah Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or
+else to do somethin' for him that he couldn't do.
+
+Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm
+holt of my principles, and didn't groan--not when anybody could hear me.
+I won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a
+groan or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after,
+I was calm again.
+
+Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed
+a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
+had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+dinner.
+
+I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
+the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
+and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
+little piece of brown paper, or full cloth--everything, he said, that
+wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.
+
+And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+right by the notch.
+
+And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)
+
+But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
+shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
+and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
+when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED CURIUS, CURIUSER THAN THE FLOOR LOOKED."]
+
+But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must--for
+I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the  author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
+curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
+curosity, and metafor.
+
+Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
+to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+stay to dinner.
+
+I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
+Zoar--it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
+only made fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along.
+And I had a good dinner and enough of it.
+
+I had to wait on the table, of course--that is, the tea and coffee. And
+I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that wore
+out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.
+
+And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my
+lips, the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em--good,
+strong Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't
+fairly got it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had
+drinked a drop, for the case demanded help at once.
+
+Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+the company wuz very genteel--a minister and a Justice of the Peace--so
+she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.
+
+She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to
+get 'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house
+and onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse
+barn, for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the
+very second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her
+husband to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to
+let the cat out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em
+and comparin' 'em with hern.
+
+I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the
+shelf, so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the
+most went onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that
+that wuz tricklin' down my backbone.
+
+[Illustration: "I SEE THE NECESSITY FOR URGENT HASTE."]
+
+Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread,
+and then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for
+I wuz wet as sop--as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz a-waitin' for me to
+the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by
+me, and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than
+ever, and more sad like.
+
+She said, "she was dretful sorry for me," and I believed her.
+
+She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, "if I had such trials every day?"
+
+And I told her "No, I didn't." I told her that things would run along
+smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody
+to once. Sez I, "You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of
+'em,' or words to that effect."
+
+Sez I, in reasonable axents, "Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good
+things happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful
+agreeable days, and easy."
+
+Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', "Did you ever have
+another day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin'
+through?"
+
+"Oh, yes," sez I, "lots of'em--some worse ones, and," sez I, "the day
+has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever
+stop."
+
+Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:
+
+"You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+changin' your dress."
+
+"Oh, wall," sez I, "I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and
+get the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have
+got to do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and
+cakes and such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men."
+
+So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg "that
+the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things
+to happen before night," for I had only jest got well to work on the
+ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over "to see if I
+could let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her--she wanted
+'em to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through
+the winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots
+and seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+perfectly convenient," so the boy said.
+
+Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+said, "either make or break me."
+
+So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before
+I could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the
+total deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the
+last bag of seeds that I overhauled.
+
+But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.
+
+But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of
+garden and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent
+Submit the sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I
+possibly could.
+
+But I sez to the author of "Peaceful Repose," I sez to her, sez I:
+
+"I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will
+try to," sez I.
+
+"Oh," sez she, "it hain't no matter about that; I--I--I somehow--I don't
+feel like rehearsin' it as it was." Sez she, "I guess I shall make some
+changes in it before I rehearse it agin."
+
+Sez I, "You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum."
+
+"Yes," sez she, in faint axents, "I am a-thinkin' of it."
+
+[Illustration: "AS I STARTED FOR THE BUTTERY."]
+
+"Wall," sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of
+cups in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+napkins under my arm, "I believe I shall like it as well again if you
+do, any way," sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my
+dress, and opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.
+
+"Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it."
+
+Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my
+work quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the
+effort.
+
+And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised
+New Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as
+mebby I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk
+more'n an hour and three quarters.
+
+He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk;
+he'll make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles
+such large, curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz
+a-answerin' his questions.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WUZ SOMETHIN' WRONG ABOUT 'EM."]
+
+Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board
+in  her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had
+got another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.
+
+I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said "there wuz
+somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what."
+
+She said "she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much
+round, but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of
+the barriers, and he must have his coat."
+
+Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time,
+and took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it
+I see what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows
+come right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition
+to the funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms
+right acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.
+
+And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot
+the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it--and
+she went home feelin' first rate.
+
+I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would
+miss me if any thing should happen.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE IS APT TO GET THINGS WRONG."]
+
+I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little
+boy's pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would
+have to set down from the front side, or else stand up.
+
+And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way
+to get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the
+legs. But I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and
+bastin', and settin' her right, and I did now.
+
+Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an
+old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and
+the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he
+wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the
+first thing that "he wanted some of Hall's salve." And I told him "there
+wuzn't a mite in the house."
+
+And he hollered up and says, "There would be some if there wuz any sense
+in the head of the house."
+
+[Illustration: "HE WANTED SOME OF HALL'S SALVE."]
+
+I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for
+I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, "Why hain't there any
+Hall's salve?"  Sez I, "Because old Hall has been dead for years and
+years, and hain't made any salve."
+
+"Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,"
+he yelled out.
+
+"Why," sez I, "he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely
+onexpected five years ago last summer."
+
+"Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will
+become of me!" he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
+
+Sez I, "Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah."
+
+"Pond's Extract!" he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
+
+And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of
+man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to
+take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me
+all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him
+a-purpose.
+
+He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" would hear him, and he hollered
+back "he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he
+shouldn't live to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up."
+
+His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had
+brung down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back--a hull
+lot of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.
+
+There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children,
+and the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+a-visitin', and the editor of the _Augur'ses_ wife (she wuz related to
+the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go
+to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the
+West's bosom friend, or used to be.
+
+Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The author of "Peaceful Repose" sez to me, and she looked pale and
+skairt; she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful
+skairt and shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin',
+as I said prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as
+good as the very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I
+would allow spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she
+proposed, Miss Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man.
+And though I urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard
+as I would otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of
+visitors had reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE PROPOSED THAT SHE SHOULD RIDE BACK WITH THE LIVERY
+MAN."]
+
+I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I
+have got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different
+occasions, every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and
+curiusest ones.
+
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose" insisted on
+goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, "That
+if she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much
+work round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her
+rehearse the lecture."
+
+But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as
+wan agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): "That she should make
+_changes_ in it before she ever rehearsed it agin--_deep changes_!"
+
+And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+till I got this letter.
+
+Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all
+on the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot
+down to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens
+make a practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if
+they did--and have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt
+well, and the supper tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I
+told him Lodema wuz approachin' and would be there that very night or
+the next day--still the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin'
+mellowness of the hot tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other
+good things.
+
+[Illustration: "MY PARDNER ENJOYS GOOD VITTLES."]
+
+My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz
+enjoy good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.
+
+And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+lawyers would almost entirely disappear.
+
+For truly it seems that _no_ human man _could be_ more worrysome, and
+curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at times; still,
+by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from day to day,
+and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him to me by
+ties that can't never be broken into.
+
+He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.
+
+He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it
+in his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are
+the ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a
+cheerful countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright
+room, on a snowy table-cloth!
+
+Great--great is the mystery of men's love.
+
+I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that
+underlies married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much
+cannot be said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of
+female and male humanity--and it _cannot_ be too closely followed up and
+practised by female pardners.
+
+But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.
+
+Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early--I mean
+the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema--oh no, fur from it; Lodema is never
+bright and cheerful--she is the opposite and reverse always.
+
+She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to
+call 'em so rather than "old maid" (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful
+sharp before I could get him into it).
+
+I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of
+old maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that
+would but couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the
+"would-but-couldn't's," though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said
+so, not for the world.
+
+Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:
+
+"She hain't to blame, Josiah."
+
+And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.
+
+Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we
+had our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of
+makin' awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down
+onto us sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along--jest
+like a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind
+to bring up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.
+
+And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I
+done well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved
+to put on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for
+either on 'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time
+a'most. And it come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand
+the brunt on it.
+
+But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them
+that can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide
+world to suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather,
+and if the weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT SHE IS A DISAGREEABLE CREETER."]
+
+If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+groans aloud and says "she can't see."
+
+And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she
+spends the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at
+'em.
+
+You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of
+game you set out to hunt in the mornin'.
+
+If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+perseverin'--if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
+such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
+cattle--why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
+will be a noble and happy hunter.
+
+[Illustration: "BUT FIT WITH THEIR TONGUES, FEARFUL."]
+
+At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
+night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
+right along and chase 'em down.  Wall, Lodema never got led away from
+her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
+and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.
+
+But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
+always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
+huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
+It wuz! It wuz!
+
+And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
+wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
+visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
+the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues--they didn't
+fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
+tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
+themselves--boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
+boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
+it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
+and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
+truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
+had got to thinkin' so.
+
+But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
+
+Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+pious.
+
+[Illustration: "HIS FACE WUZ A GOOD MORAL FACE."]
+
+But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
+
+But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
+that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
+carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
+actin'.
+
+And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+found that he had always been a pattern man--never had done a single
+mean act, so fur as wuz known.
+
+Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
+talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
+wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
+told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
+
+Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+comin' to a end.
+
+She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
+her--and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
+extremely sot.
+
+But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+quite good ones.
+
+That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+and above disagreeable to me.
+
+Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
+they would be better off.
+
+But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+fur, they hain't megum enough.
+
+Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
+
+It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
+mebby will be agin.
+
+But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
+
+You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+even whip 'em.
+
+No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
+truth in it.
+
+[Illustration: "EF I FELL ON A STUN."]
+
+Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
+Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
+on a stun--I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
+and there hain't no stun--and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
+achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
+no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.
+
+No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
+subject.
+
+But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way--so nigh to it that
+seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
+
+I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+frequently, "before and after takin'."
+
+Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+calmness, and joy--refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
+
+Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
+brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
+so much peace and happiness.
+
+Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
+question, or ort to be.
+
+And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+lookin' at it, and commandin' it to--or call some posys to fall down
+into my lap, right through, the plasterin'--
+
+Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
+me stayed to Jonesville.
+
+Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
+do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
+deal of the time.
+
+I most know I couldn't.
+
+But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
+Natur.
+
+And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+it.
+
+And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
+of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
+breath leaves their body.
+
+Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
+beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
+
+Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
+never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
+
+And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
+meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
+felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
+lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
+
+They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
+at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of thier
+childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
+
+I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
+or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
+imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
+imperfect world.
+
+But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+about 'em--you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
+
+Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
+last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
+end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
+didn't either. And I sez to her, "The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
+to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
+Father when that great day shall be." And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
+I, "How should _you_ be expected to know it?"
+
+Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, "My name
+wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that _wuzn't_ to know it!"
+
+And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side--you
+know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+side--you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
+did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
+use in disputin' back and forth.
+
+But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
+old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+naterally wanted to be round at the time.
+
+She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
+his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
+wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
+up as any way.
+
+Josiah didn't like it at all.
+
+Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance--not fierce, you know,
+or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
+ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
+fierce.
+
+[Illustration: "BURIED IN THE OLD RISLEY DEESIRICT."]
+
+Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
+
+And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
+jest _knew_ the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
+of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
+to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
+made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns--so she told me in
+confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
+
+She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
+for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
+
+But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
+old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
+
+His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length--Joe is
+tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
+for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
+likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
+what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
+she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
+human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
+joke, Jenette duz: "I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
+got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
+would be glad the world _wuz_ comin' to a end."
+
+But he _didn't_ look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
+see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
+have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
+everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
+
+He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
+reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
+'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
+house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
+handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
+barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
+order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
+more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
+
+He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+too.
+
+But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
+Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
+honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
+And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
+subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
+she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
+the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
+bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
+eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
+have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
+a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
+to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
+
+And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
+always said.
+
+She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
+girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
+said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
+gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
+said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
+said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
+goodness to 'em.
+
+That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
+pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
+to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
+and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
+life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
+enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
+night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
+little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
+comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
+and thought her eyes on him.
+
+And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
+home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
+weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
+
+That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+prior and beforehand.
+
+Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
+
+He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
+
+And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
+
+For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+think such a girl as Jenette had been--such a patient, good creeter, and
+such a good-tempered one, and everything--to think her pa should have
+forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+their money and make Jenette trouble.
+
+But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
+I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
+
+But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
+day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
+and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
+
+That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
+
+Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
+a bright face.
+
+If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
+dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
+locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
+laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
+to the rattle of a bone.
+
+And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
+
+The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
+by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
+the qualities kinder struck in and she _wuz_ happy, and she _wuz_
+contented--that is, I s'poze so.
+
+Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
+to home--not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+like a meteor.
+
+Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+movin' constantly through space--but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
+meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
+I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
+
+Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
+who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
+One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
+of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
+admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
+good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
+'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
+
+And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+got to goin'.
+
+[Illustration: "Dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz."]
+
+Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
+and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
+curls all over her head.
+
+Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
+a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
+on the other side, and got through with it.
+
+Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
+
+A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
+had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
+But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
+was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
+afternoon.
+
+Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
+case of the world's endin'.
+
+And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, "that
+she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
+the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes."
+
+And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
+
+She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
+time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
+Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
+in front.
+
+Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
+
+She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
+
+But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
+get better and she did.
+
+One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
+the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
+month.
+
+[Illustration: "Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur."]
+
+He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley school-
+house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the next
+mornin' Miss  Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that evenin'. It
+wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah had to be
+away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy loaded, and
+wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
+
+But she said "that she felt that the walk would do her good."
+
+I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said "stanchils and
+religion wuz two separate things." Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
+to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
+And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
+another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
+or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
+in onxiety--it hain't my way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
+Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
+carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
+his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
+Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
+with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
+her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
+size.
+
+Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
+enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
+been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach--a sort of
+a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
+her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
+old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
+thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
+wuz tightenin'.
+
+And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
+And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
+head and said, "she didn't approve of it--she thought a chicken ought to
+be brung up by a hen."
+
+But Miss Charnick said, "Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+perished right there in the nest."
+
+But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, "that it wuz
+a hen's business, and nobody else's."
+
+And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
+hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
+if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to--they ought to
+be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
+wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
+the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
+to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
+
+And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+and she said "that basks had gone out."
+
+And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
+Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
+
+"Basks _wuz out_, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+polenay."
+
+And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+"Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
+got so little time to wear 'em."
+
+And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+somethin' about "hired girls keepin' their place."
+
+And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
+
+They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
+their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
+others.
+
+It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
+
+And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
+her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
+fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
+in--I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
+knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
+
+Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
+do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
+sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
+his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
+her belief.
+
+But Josiah said, "he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
+if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
+guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand."
+
+Sez I, "Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself." And he owned up that
+he wuz.
+
+Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
+breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
+overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
+come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
+and press the seams.
+
+I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
+had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
+
+She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
+that day. She sez, "The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
+a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
+riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
+commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
+Hubbard."
+
+"It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she.
+
+"Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.
+
+And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+bitterly reproved him. But he sez, "If the world don't come to a end,
+the corn will be needed."
+
+"But it will," she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ HE, "IF IT DOES, I MAY AS WELL BE DOIN'
+THAT AS TO BE SETTIN' ROUND."]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+settin' round." And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+jawed me for upholdin' him.
+
+And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+previous to eatin' it, sez she, "I should think _respect_, respect for
+the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+of the idea of goin' on with your work."
+
+Sez I calmly, "Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?"
+
+"Wall, not exactly scare," sez she, "but lift up, lift up far above
+bread and other kitchen work."
+
+And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, "I don't s'poze
+I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
+of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
+that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
+would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
+ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+grandchildren." (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
+to dinner.)
+
+"Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
+have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
+soar up above riz biscuit."
+
+And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
+another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, "What did
+they do there?"
+
+"Do!" sez she, "why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile."
+
+I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
+I do say it), and sez calmly, "Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
+have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
+_some_ things, things He has _commanded_. Everybody to their own way.
+I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever," sez I,
+"I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz _my_ way to lay speechless
+or holler much--not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
+principle, but I never seemed to have a call to."
+
+"You would be far better if you did," sez Trueman's wife, "far better.
+But you hain't good enough."
+
+"Oh!" sez I, reasonably, "I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
+the _use_ in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
+all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
+you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
+_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
+"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
+'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
+temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
+regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
+our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
+life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"
+
+"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
+attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."
+
+That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
+with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
+one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
+biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."
+
+Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
+agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
+years.
+
+But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
+
+But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
+companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
+her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+be sent up.
+
+Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
+in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
+by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
+had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
+
+The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
+it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
+goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
+enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
+
+The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
+stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
+talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
+had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
+
+But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+on white book muslin robes. Good land!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+about 3 o'clock P.M.--afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
+
+We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
+wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
+kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
+top of the him book.
+
+Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
+a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
+and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known--Miss Charnick is a
+smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
+
+Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through--as mournful,
+skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
+out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
+way, and wierd--dretful wierd.
+
+And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
+days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
+men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
+and wept and cried.
+
+I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
+serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought--jest
+as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
+very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
+mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
+the certainties of the other.
+
+[Illustration: "A SORT OF A LURID, WILD-LOOKING CHAP."]
+
+For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
+big that the hull world must pass through it--and yet so small that the
+hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.
+
+My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+mysterious arches, alone--and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
+onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had _got_ to be
+parted.
+
+And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+the bendin' heavens--we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
+on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.
+
+Not that I really _wanted_ the world to come to a end that day. No,
+I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
+for the _sake_ of livin'. I enjoy it.
+
+But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+a-shinin' in his'n.
+
+Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+three to quarter to 4--and so on--they shouted, they sung, they prayed,
+they shook each other's hands--they wuz fairly crazed with excitement
+and fervor, which they called religion--for they wuz in earnest, nobody
+could dispute that.
+
+Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time--though I ketched
+him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say, "Oh, how
+I hate to leave you, Jenette!"
+
+But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.
+
+Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on
+the puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say
+this, that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's
+time. And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep
+calm and serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there--no sign, no
+change--and Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.
+
+But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe,
+more than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been
+in for a week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this
+day, he jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and
+stood there in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had
+been calm enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice--his
+voice always did have a good honest ring to it:
+
+  Farewell my friends,
+  Farewell my foes;
+  Up to Heaven
+  Joe Charnick goes.
+
+And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he
+waved his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and
+sprung upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller
+him--and go right up into the heavens.
+
+And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+too--jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a camp
+chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred her
+dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks,
+and lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her
+way of applyin' of 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "FAREWELL MY FRIENDS, FAREWELL MY FOES."]
+
+I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+only to put 'em on it.  But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.
+
+Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world--not a
+word--but a-naggin' about everything else.
+
+Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her
+healed, and started off.
+
+But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.
+
+He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+love--Joe never could be megum.
+
+Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell--but
+when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die,
+then she owned up to him that she worshipped him--and always had.
+
+And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death
+at the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl--she thinks her eyes on
+her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever
+wuz all around, if not agreeabler.
+
+Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of
+his bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin'
+her so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad
+on't, so they say.
+
+Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when
+Trueman's wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house
+still; that is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that
+Ma Charnick offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the
+ones she had brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please
+her, so's to get in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14
+of 'em, all fat and flourishing--they wuz well took care of. And Miss
+Charnick looked down on 'em fondly, and sez:
+
+"I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+married."
+
+[Illustration: "I LAY OUT TO HAVE A GOOD CHICKEN PIE THE DAY THAT JOE
+AND JENETTE ARE MARRIED."]
+
+"Married!" sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. "Yes,
+they are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough.
+Jenette is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'--with a
+bask," sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped
+down and gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much
+store she set by it for sickness.
+
+But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered
+and sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before
+the weddin'.
+
+They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here
+a-visitin'--and she asked me in confidence (and it _must_ be kep, it
+stands lo reason it must), "if I s'posed that book muslin robe would
+make two little dresses?"
+
+And I told her, "Good land! yes, three on 'em," and it did.
+
+She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would
+want the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the
+materials--
+
+It looks some like her and some like Joe--and they both think their eyes
+on it--but old Miss Charnick worships it--Wall, though es I said (and I
+have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and onheard on).
+
+Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a _plow_, that
+time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on--
+
+He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+(He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it,
+and don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)
+
+He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+from hour to hour.
+
+He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle
+the wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist
+wimmen wuz to work.
+
+After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+post-office for his daily _World_, and then he would stop on his way
+back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+give us his idees on't.
+
+[Illustration: "HE NEVER HAD TIME TO HELP."]
+
+And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the  very bone, with his
+dretful imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo
+herself, and ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to
+set!
+
+Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.
+
+He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do
+some little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.
+
+But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work.
+He wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about
+that buzz saw mill.
+
+And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz
+able to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and
+their buzz saws, and fheir inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc.,
+etc.
+
+And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+meetin' house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said
+they had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't
+do any more, any way.
+
+As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the
+male brethern.
+
+Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+come right out plain and said so.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said "he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right
+to his face that he hadn't done his share," and he said "he wuzn't the
+man either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things." I don't
+believe he wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like
+death to have him so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the
+tex' wuz; it wuz these words:
+
+"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."
+
+The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached
+about it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat
+to several of the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly
+pinched 'em.
+
+But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said "he
+wouldn't give a _darn_ cent."
+
+But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+that he had demeaned himself to that extent.
+
+Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain
+members of the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin'
+slightin' about buzz saws.
+
+I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws
+had a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I
+believe the subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these
+various hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the
+men kinder joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other,
+and they all baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the
+minister wuz, good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of
+life, and most half a year's salery due.
+
+I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her
+own sirname about how her Metilda had been used.
+
+The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.
+
+She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny
+it, and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said,
+and stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been
+to save her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when
+some of the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:
+
+"The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+unless it is when you can't help it."
+
+What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:
+
+There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+evenin' meetin's.
+
+She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it
+wuz s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.
+
+She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+a-cryin' before she got it all out.
+
+She always said "she wanted to be found always at the foot of the
+Cross."
+
+She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical,
+and then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out
+into tears somewhere through it from first to last.
+
+But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz
+present for the first time after his wive's death.
+
+But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly--she was most a
+head taller than any man there--and she sez out loud and strong:
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some
+time. And then she begun agin,
+
+"I want to be found--"
+
+And then she busted out agin.
+
+And so it went on for some time--she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+and firm, "that she wanted to be found--" and then bustin' into tears.
+
+Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+right out onto the him--
+
+  "Oh, that will be joyful!"
+
+And Sister Lum sot down.
+
+Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+bring forward that verse of scripter. That the Bible said "'there wuz a
+time to laugh,' and I didn't know when it wuz unless it wuz when you
+couldn't help it--"
+
+But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda--no, indeed. I only said it
+because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin'
+house down on her so heavy.
+
+But Josiah said, "What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+punish its unruly members?"
+
+And I sez to Josiah, "Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of,
+and the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it,
+Josiah Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And
+Miss Henn is a widder and poor."
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah, calmly, "she hain't been able to help the meetin'
+house much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely."
+
+Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, "I hearn he did at the time he wuz
+up--I hearn he contributed _lots_ to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+him--but," sez I, "do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay
+in the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that
+is sendin' men to ruin all round him--
+
+"Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way
+so it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every
+low saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and
+boy that wants it.
+
+"And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm--so he jest
+entices 'em down into the road to ruin--doin' as much agin harm as a
+whiskey seller.
+
+"And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are
+always appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by
+their peers, but wimmen never are.
+
+"I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked
+it to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+about Metilda's case--thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.
+
+[Illustration: "SUPPLYIN' EVERY LOW SALOON FUR AND NEAR."]
+
+"I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's
+mother set on him? She is a Sister  in the meetin' house and Charley is
+a ruined boy--and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin--
+jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if
+he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon."
+
+Sez I, "In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who
+have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of
+their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red
+with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and
+deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.
+
+"What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there
+and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other
+young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young
+hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that
+wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink.
+Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
+changed the smiles to curses?
+
+"Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+easy.
+
+"They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
+down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
+
+"Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
+But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
+no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
+downward?
+
+"How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+love, a divine purity?"
+
+Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
+
+And sez I, "Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
+Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
+the first cause of her goin' astray kep in--the handsome,
+smooth-faced hypocrite?--it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
+plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
+speeches and his money."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH LOOKED UP AND SEZ, 'HOW A STEEPLE WOULD LOOK
+A-PINTIN' DOWN'"]
+
+"Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
+pinted the other way."
+
+Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+sez he,
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
+most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
+anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
+storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
+
+Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+gently sarcestickle.
+
+"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."
+
+[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]
+
+Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
+that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
+that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."
+
+"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.
+
+Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
+man that led her astray."
+
+"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
+at the advertisement on the back side on't.
+
+"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
+against the mouths of the witnesses."
+
+"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+some composed.
+
+"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
+all to try her faith."
+
+I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+well what the story wuz he referred to.
+
+It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
+
+She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
+
+And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
+all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
+right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
+while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
+he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
+bitterly.
+
+She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
+
+And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
+it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
+'em.
+
+And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, "Bretheren and
+sisters, let us sing these lines:
+
+  "He did it all to try her faith."
+
+I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
+by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes--nor I didn't
+smile--oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+indignatin in my axents, and sez I, "Josiah Allen, can you look me in
+the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
+such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?" Sez
+I, "If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
+the influence of men that like hard drink?"
+
+"Wall, as it were," sez Josiah, "I--that is--wall, it is a-gettin'
+bed-time, Samantha."
+
+And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
+
+And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour--and I
+dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
+did.
+
+But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
+
+Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+we felt that she wuz a great loss.
+
+Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
+hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
+had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
+etc.
+
+And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
+a little help gin her when she needed it.
+
+And Miss Bobbet said "she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+bein' cast down." And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
+of 'em did. But I sez to 'em--
+
+"Good land!" sez I. "We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+and we can do it agin."
+
+Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
+jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
+the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
+spell.
+
+But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
+
+We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
+other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
+prayed--we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
+rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
+Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
+and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
+to nothin' or not.
+
+Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
+our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
+had a right to).
+
+After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+enough to raise some money.
+
+It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
+the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
+
+It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
+at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
+makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
+
+But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
+we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
+
+The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+fix up the old house a little.
+
+The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
+half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
+aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
+always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
+when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
+'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
+be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
+ways--nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
+meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
+resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
+which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
+meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
+approvals--and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint--we could
+_work_ all we wanted to.
+
+So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
+had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
+we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
+be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
+wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
+to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
+and the scrapin' had begun.
+
+[Illustration: "APPEARIN' IN PUBLIC."]
+
+The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+together, and raised enough money to get the paper--it wuz very nice,
+and fifty cents a roll (double roll).  These young females appearin' in
+public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
+and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
+I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
+sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
+our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
+
+I sez, "I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
+es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
+of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
+sights of quavers."
+
+But they all said that wuz a _very_ different thing.
+
+And sez I, "How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
+of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
+congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
+'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
+see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"--and
+sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
+had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and I
+wouldn't nuther.
+
+But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
+scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
+could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
+say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
+And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.
+
+Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
+have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
+and 'Piscopals.
+
+No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
+do the scrapin' with case knives.
+
+It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
+as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
+fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
+standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
+strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
+got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
+that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
+is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
+before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
+to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
+
+But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
+there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
+what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
+Methodist Meetin' House.
+
+Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
+all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
+to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
+strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
+we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.
+
+[Illustration: "EVERY NIGHT JOSIAH WOULD TACKLE ME ON IT."]
+
+And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+thought quelled us down a sight.
+
+Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
+and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
+up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.
+
+And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
+the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
+house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
+to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
+Conference.
+
+It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+Jonesville with a extra grip.
+
+So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
+
+Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
+from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
+
+I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
+brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
+
+He would talk _very_ skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
+of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
+by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
+
+I suffered.
+
+Josiah would set with the _World_ and other papers in his hand,
+a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
+left off, the nite mairs would begin.
+
+I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
+
+The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
+wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
+rostrums. And sez he, "That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
+stand."
+
+[Illustration: "IS ROSTRUMS MUCH HIGHER THAN THEM BARELLS TO STAND ON?"]
+
+And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
+not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
+work, I sez to him:
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+meetin' house?"
+
+And Josiah said, "it wuz suthin' altogether different." And he assured
+me agin,
+
+"That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
+to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
+why," sez he, "that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
+most all the hard work in the church--such as raisin' money for church
+work--earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
+of charity work connected with it--teachin' the children, nursin' the
+sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But," sez he, "this is
+fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
+Conference. Why," sez he, in a haughty tone, "I should think they'd know
+without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women."
+
+Sez I, "Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
+wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
+vote for them?"
+
+"That is the pint," sez Josiah, "that is the very pint I have been
+tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
+help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+explain it to you that the word laymen _always_ means woman when she can
+help men in any way, but _not_ when he can help her, or in any other
+sense."
+
+Sez I, "It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+meetin' house."
+
+"Oh, yes," sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, "the word laymen always means
+wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+men."
+
+Sez I, in a very dry axent, "Then the word man, when it is used in
+church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
+and drowdgin' round?"
+
+"Yes," sez Josiah haughtily, "And it always means men in the higher and
+more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
+on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so," sez he.
+
+"Who settled it?" sez I.
+
+"Why the men, of course," sez he. "The men have always made the rules
+of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+difficult," sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, "It
+seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+and when it means wimmen."
+
+"That is so," sez Josiah. "It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
+and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
+taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
+right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
+votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
+
+"I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
+where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
+
+"Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
+
+"Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+born.' That means men and wimmen both--men and wimmen are both born,
+nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
+Now that means men only--anybody with one eye can see that.
+
+"Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+both--consists--of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
+'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?" sez he.
+
+I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
+hand waitin' for it to bile--"I see a great deal, Josiah Allen."
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH WORK.]
+
+"Wall," sez he, "I am glad on't. Now to sum it up," sez he, with some
+the mean of a preacher--or, ruther, a exhauster--"to sum the matter all
+up, the  words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
+the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
+all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
+missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
+from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
+the meanin' of the word--sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
+both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
+their own idees, prcachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?" sez
+he, proudly and loftily.
+
+"Yes," sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
+biled. "Yes, I see."
+
+And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
+and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
+anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
+his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
+sect if I tried--clergymen, statesmen and all--so I didn't try, and I
+wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
+idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
+some good cream into it--I merely sez:
+
+"There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+men."
+
+"Yes," sez he, "that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,"
+and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
+and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
+
+And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+question I had put to him--for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
+recuperation, and so I sez agin them words--
+
+"Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?" And Josiah said
+agin, "it wuz suthin' entirely different;" he said barells and rostrums
+wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
+hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
+argument full of Bible quotations and everything.
+
+And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
+the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
+that meetin house.
+
+And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
+we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
+
+Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
+
+Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+and nerved up her body.
+
+Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+"Cleanliness _next_ to godliness."
+
+So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+with a willin' mind.
+
+Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
+say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
+and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
+workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked--and all of the wimmen who
+wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
+a-workin' hard on articles for the fair--when all of a suddin the
+outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
+bretheren.
+
+They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
+Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
+wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
+
+Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
+to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
+it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
+that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
+derectin'.
+
+And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
+and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
+house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
+me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
+
+And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
+
+And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
+near time for us to go home.
+
+Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
+they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
+then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
+
+I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
+the heat.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE.]
+
+Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
+partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
+manners, and didn't say much.
+
+But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
+way--
+
+"Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+jest like you?"
+
+"No," sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, "no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
+your days at church work under the direction of us men."
+
+"Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you," sez she admirin'ly,
+"I could work jest like you--pass round the bread and wine and the
+contribution box Sundays?"
+
+"Oh, no, Drusilly," sez he condesendinly, "these hard and arjuous dutys
+belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
+the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc."
+
+"But," sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+deacon), "wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers--work for
+the good of the church together--go about doin' good?"
+
+"No, Drusilly," sez he, "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
+for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
+
+"We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+generally."
+
+Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
+of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
+the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
+side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
+usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
+transparent manner of speakin'.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+"he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+Conference, because it would _weaken_ the Conference."
+
+"Yes," sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+floor.
+
+"You see," sez he, "we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
+weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
+her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
+would admit would keep out a man. And that," sez he (a-leanin' back in
+a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), "that, you see, would
+tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church."
+
+[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ I, "MOVE ROUND A LITTLE, WON'T YOU, FOR WE
+WANT TO SET THE BENCH."]
+
+"Wall," sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, "move round a
+little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
+under it. And," sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
+and sweat offen my face, "Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
+holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
+'em? Some of 'em are very hefty," sez I, "and all of us Sisters almost
+are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
+and bile down; we would dearly love a little help," sez I.
+
+"I would help," sez Josiah in a willin' tone, "I would help in a minute,
+if I hadn't got so much work to do at home."
+
+And all the other male bretheren said the same thing--they had got to
+git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
+and I knew it.)
+
+But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
+his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
+of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
+the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
+the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
+she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
+
+She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
+of his folks that day, over to Loontown.
+
+And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
+and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
+one work--deacon work--and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
+hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
+plain deacon work.
+
+It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
+and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
+piece had convinced her--
+
+She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
+be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
+would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SEE THIS WILD AND SKAIRFUL MACHINE APPROACHIN'."]
+
+When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
+up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
+tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
+bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his.  There was a bet upon these
+two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
+where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
+hollerin'.
+
+And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
+
+His mean wuz wild.
+
+And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
+she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
+old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
+after 'em.
+
+And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
+a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
+
+Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+nuther.
+
+And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
+
+It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+long, long time, and it wuz what he called "A Travellin' Rat Trap." It
+wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
+
+[Illustration: DEACON HENZY'S RAT TRAP (LIKE A CIRCUS FOR THE RATS).]
+
+It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em--rats
+or mice, or anything--and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
+
+Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
+
+It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
+
+But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
+machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
+
+Deacon Sypher had took the agency for "The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+Boy of the Plain," and wuz doin' well by it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
+and arneky.
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD TO LAY BOUND UP IN LINEMENTS A GOOD DEAL OF THE
+TIME."]
+
+So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
+
+And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
+his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
+
+He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
+away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
+his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
+about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
+as he could, to try it.
+
+And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
+break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
+hardly dast to go nigh 'em.
+
+And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
+to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
+him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the
+"Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
+home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
+wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping Cow Boy."
+
+And then they said--the hull three of the deacons did--that any minute
+them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
+saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
+
+And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+demanded the hull of their time--every minute of it.
+
+So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
+
+We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
+would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
+
+Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
+
+But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
+to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
+
+"Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?"
+
+"It is on account of their minds," sez Josiah. "Men have got stronger
+minds than wimmen, that is the reason."
+
+And Sister Meechim sez agin--
+
+"Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
+deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
+if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?"
+
+"Wall," sez Josiah, "that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+brains hain't so hefty es men's."
+
+But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+loud, clear tone,
+
+"Oh, shaw!"
+
+And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
+
+"If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
+you are a-standin'."
+
+"Certainly," sez Josiah, in a polite axent, "certainly."
+
+And so the rest of the men said.
+
+And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,
+
+"You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+puddin', and so forth."
+
+And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, "Have I ever failed, Josiah
+Allen, to have good dinners for you, and on time too?"
+
+"No," sez he, "but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it,
+and also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+deaconesses."
+
+And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work
+in the meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister
+Arvilly Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue
+(some think that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had
+chances).
+
+But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,
+
+"I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses."
+
+[Illustration: "JOSIAH ADDED TO HIS REMARKS."]
+
+"Wall," sez Sister Gowdy--she loves to put on Arvilly--"wall, you have
+got one qualificatin', Arvilly!"
+
+"Yes, thank the Lord," sez she.
+
+And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, _I_ think.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say
+it.
+
+Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me
+to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long,
+so I didn't care.
+
+Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay
+to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+wuz company, or lay out to.
+
+Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
+
+He had jest got home from the city.
+
+It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had
+to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody
+else couldn't sign.
+
+[Illustration: CASPER KEELER.]
+
+His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
+
+Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
+
+He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+cetery, et cetery.
+
+He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in
+the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very
+highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
+
+And I sez, "Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?"
+
+And he acted real scorfin'.
+
+"Wimmen's work!" sez he. "No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and
+too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such
+little trifles as wimmen's work."
+
+Sez I, "Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if
+it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you
+are a-usin'?" sez I, "who educated you and made your life easy before
+you?"
+
+And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother
+wuz a good woman.
+
+But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin'
+it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
+
+But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over
+with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz
+a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of
+my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc.,
+etc.
+
+[Illustration: "HE SEEMED TO HAVE A HORROW OF WOMAN A-RAISIN' OUT OF HER
+SPEAR."]
+
+Sez Casper, "It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life," sez he,
+"when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen
+keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in
+that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+reasons why poor weak wimmen should _not_ be admitted into that sacred
+enclosure--
+
+"When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I
+have ever experienced. Why, he said," sez Casper, "that if wimmen wuz
+allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The
+next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly
+argument," sez Casper.
+
+"It must have been," sez my Josiah.
+
+"He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear."
+
+"Well he might," sez Josiah, "well he might."
+
+Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This
+wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real
+solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only
+more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig
+some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its
+feet--no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of
+truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and
+curius I felt hearin' their talk.
+
+"And," sez I, "nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I
+have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf," sez I, "deep
+and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his
+burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his
+unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the
+very depths of my soul at his freedom.
+
+"But," sez I, "when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
+
+"Yes," sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
+
+"When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen
+are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach,
+I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and
+where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand
+and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all
+over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody
+says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the
+old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted
+and bring forth freedom.
+
+"If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster
+would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him
+up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought
+and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many
+animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
+him so."
+
+"Oh, no," sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', "no, you wouldn't."
+
+"Yes, I would," sez I. "And I'd 've enjoyed it _richly_" sez I, es I
+turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
+
+[Illustration: SAMANTHA EXPRESSES HER VIEWS.]
+
+Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+machin' for about the same length of time.
+
+But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+dinner.
+
+After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
+
+But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
+Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
+and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
+several days.
+
+And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
+
+But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
+of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
+own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
+his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
+failure, and such.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER BOBBET, OUR DEPENDENCE, FELL DOWN ON A APPLE
+PARIN'".]
+
+And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she--
+
+"Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
+I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
+to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake." Rosy wuz
+Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+now a father's strong hand.
+
+Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always
+been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the
+savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property
+with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took
+his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
+
+Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
+
+Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz
+lost--a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits,
+and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
+
+[Illustration: RALPH SMITH ROBINSON.]
+
+He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time--he felt
+weak and mauger.
+
+And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got
+in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she
+_needed_ a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else
+she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with
+her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father
+wuz--so wouldn't Ralph come home.
+
+Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked
+and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love
+and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith
+Robinson.
+
+Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that
+the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost
+crazed him.
+
+He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with
+him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The
+world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so
+near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, "he
+walked with God." Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they
+wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for
+Yankees.
+
+And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+Presidential election.
+
+Ralph suffered.
+
+But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
+
+Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+the droppin's of the sanctuary.
+
+She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered
+up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under
+the steeple.
+
+Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by
+the voice of his soul and his good silver watch--this volume of clamor,
+this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz
+perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin'
+dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he
+come down with nervous fever.
+
+He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he
+wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he
+bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no
+idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got
+it.
+
+I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work
+of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't
+languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the
+female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in
+Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled
+me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel
+divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what
+day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend
+when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear
+a hankerchif pin or not--or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc.,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
+
+Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case
+before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful
+that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence.
+One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder
+deprestin' about it.
+
+But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
+
+We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go
+into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has
+always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice
+to Josiah Allen.
+
+Howsumever, I don't _know_ that. But I do know that they started off
+a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back
+home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
+
+[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS.]
+
+And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+said they bought 'em.
+
+And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either
+one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the
+truth of this. I know what they _said_, they _said_ the huntin' wuz
+excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
+
+And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
+
+But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+bigger ones, and shot more deers.
+
+Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a
+good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and,
+suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our
+journey to Loontown.
+
+[Illustration: "MISS TIMSON AND ROSY SEEMED DRETFUL GLAD TO SEE ME."]
+
+Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale
+and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been
+there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well
+as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts
+and their souls and their idealized fancies.
+
+Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good
+a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
+
+And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24
+hours I begun to feel some as they did.
+
+But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
+
+But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
+
+His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all,
+had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and
+struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine
+sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
+
+He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost
+as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But
+under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his
+good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire
+that wuz a-consumin' of him.
+
+Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms
+and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+Timson to understand that I wuz there to _help_ 'em if I could.
+
+"For," sez I softly, "the hull future time is left for us to weep in,
+but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson."
+
+Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves
+or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all
+through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
+
+Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to
+give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+refused.
+
+Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+sleep, "buzz saw mill."
+
+[Illustration: "DIDN'T SEE HOW FOLKS NEEDED SO MUCH SLEEP."]
+
+But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly--
+
+"Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful." And I wouldn't
+waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+in haste--
+
+"That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+real treat to keep awake all night, now and then."
+
+No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case
+might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without
+disputin' with my Josiah.
+
+Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
+language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
+feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
+strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
+said:
+
+"And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
+the peace! the peace!"
+
+His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
+wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
+and inside, that he invoked.
+
+Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
+down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
+wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
+
+Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
+he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
+would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
+then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
+
+Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
+excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
+bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
+it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
+tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
+perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
+goes.
+
+Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
+to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
+of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+tenderness and sweetness of nater.
+
+A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
+hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
+Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
+would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
+
+Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
+if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+"business!"
+
+So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
+spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
+then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
+one of 'em good ones).
+
+He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
+or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
+make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
+and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
+to be.
+
+[Illustration: "THE DEACON DID MAKE ME THINK OF A STEEL TRAP."]
+
+Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
+in the mornin' would roust him up,  and I had come to see if he would
+omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
+
+"Not ring the bells!" sez he, in wild amaze. "Not ring the church bells
+on the Sabbath day?"
+
+His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez--
+
+"Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+bells in the mornin'."
+
+"A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a _Christian_ to not ring the
+Sabbath bells!"
+
+I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
+the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
+the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
+a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
+a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
+his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
+depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.
+
+But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+anybody ever could, as he sez: "The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
+for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
+broke down and weak?" sez he.
+
+"No," sez I, honestly. "No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
+trap."
+
+"Wall," sez he, "what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else."
+
+"But," sez I, "folks are made up different." Sez I, "The Bible sez so,
+and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you
+ever nervous?" sez I.
+
+"Never," sez he. And he added firmly, "I don't believe in nerves. I
+never did. There hain't no use in 'm."
+
+"It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then," sez I. "As a generel thing the
+Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever," sez I,
+"there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any
+way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one
+state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the
+sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to
+him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not
+have 'em rung in the mornin'."
+
+"Are you a professor?" sez he.
+
+"Yes," sez I.
+
+"What perswaision?" sez he.
+
+"Methodist Episcopal," sez I.
+
+"And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set
+aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the
+Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause
+of religion languish--I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread
+desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
+
+  "'The sound of the church-going bells,
+  These valleys and hills never heard.'"
+
+"No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances."
+
+"Why," sez I, "that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks
+seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and
+better time than they do to meetin'," sez I. "In your opinin' it hain't
+necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz,
+to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear."
+
+"Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+agrivatin' to saint and sinner."
+
+"But," sez I, "they say they do it for the sake of religion."
+
+"Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks," sez he bitterly.
+
+"No," sez I, "nor in a bell clapper."
+
+"Oh," sez he, "that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+worshippers together, that is necessary."
+
+Sez I, "One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion."
+
+Sez he, "Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded
+out."
+
+"Yes," sez I candidly, "and in the sweet past they wuz necessary," sez
+I. "In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz
+fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what
+is runnin' over with clocks--everybody knows the time; they know it so
+much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals,
+their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their
+visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They
+time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
+through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
+time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
+hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
+no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
+supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
+bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
+started.
+
+"Take a man with the Sunday _World_ jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
+with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
+hain't a-goin' to start him.
+
+"And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
+and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
+won't start 'em.
+
+[Illustration: "BELLS HAIN'T A-GOIN' TO START HIM."]
+
+"And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
+church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
+trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
+bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
+bell on earth."
+
+"Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject," sez he (I had convinced
+him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
+wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). "But," sez he
+wavin' off that side of the subject, "the observance is so time honored,
+so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past."
+
+"Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven," sez I, "that I know every single
+emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony."
+
+"Agony!" sez he, "talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a
+more heavenly sound on earth."
+
+[Illustration: "A-LEANIN' OVER THE FRONT GATE ON A STILL SPRING
+MORNIN'."]
+
+"So it has been to me," sez I candidly. "To me they have always sounded
+beautiful, heavenly. Why," sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond
+Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and
+insperation come to me borne out of  the past into my very soul, by the
+tender memories of the bells--thoughts of the great host of believers
+who had gathered together at the sound of the bells--the great army of
+the Redeemed--
+
+  'Some of the host have crossed the flood, and some
+  are crossin' now,'
+
+thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+used to him,
+
+"Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a
+still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier
+roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine
+a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the
+hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over
+all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur
+off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells,
+a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin'
+memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears
+listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer
+beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet
+emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts,
+inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together
+at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the
+children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts
+of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their
+ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to
+their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave
+hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz
+ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed
+out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how
+the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
+(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
+
+"As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+have rung into my very soul.
+
+"But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+lead me round a good deal of the time.
+
+"Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
+step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
+sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
+the year, better than they can without sleep.
+
+"You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
+a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
+it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
+hain't so fortunate as I am.
+
+"I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
+also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
+get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
+I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
+gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
+than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
+in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
+on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
+subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
+of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.
+
+"What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
+from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep--the bells to them seem
+murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: "TOSSIN' ON BEDS OF NERVOUS SUFFERIN'."]
+
+"To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
+last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
+than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
+instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
+screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
+Religion.
+
+"I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
+sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
+we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
+have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
+So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
+the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
+can sleep in peace.
+
+"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
+benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
+can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
+can.
+
+"Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
+world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
+the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
+a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
+wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.
+
+"The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
+could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
+to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
+for 'em--the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
+It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.
+
+"Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+coarser, more sensual vision."
+
+Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
+spread the Gospel."
+
+"And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+could, "Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without
+the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he
+ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with
+his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em."
+
+"Wall," he said, "it wuz different times now."
+
+Sez I, "The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+the sick, and tender hearted always."
+
+"Wall, _I_ will help him," sez Deacon Garven, "I will watch, and I will
+pray, and I will work for him."
+
+Sez I, "Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if
+he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?"
+
+"Wall," sez he kinder meltin' down a little, "I will talk with the
+bretheren."
+
+Sez I, "Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em."
+
+Sez he, "I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of
+the church."
+
+Sez I, "Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+and I believe it is safe to foller 'em."
+
+But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren,
+and I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out
+afterwuds, I wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon
+Garven in his own smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a
+guard over him, armed nearly to the teeth with clubs.
+
+But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.
+
+Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for
+a few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up
+in bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift
+up his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long
+sermons in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon
+right through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know
+it by the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little
+in that same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless,
+in our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--
+
+[Illustration: "THE LORD BE PRAISED, WE SHALL PULL HIM THROUGH."]
+
+"Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through."
+
+She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried
+and wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.
+
+Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks
+to the Lord for his mercy.
+
+As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a
+teaspoon ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if
+he needed it, or medicine.
+
+When all of a sudden--slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the
+bells.
+
+Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+died.
+
+And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it.
+He who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.
+
+[Illustration: "AND I THOUGHT HE WUZ PRONOUNCIN' A BENEDICTION ON THE
+SAVAGES."]
+
+His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them
+strange words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I
+thought then, and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction
+on the savages. And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from
+on High at that last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all
+benighted savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
+met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
+very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.
+
+For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
+scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
+and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift _both_
+arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.
+
+I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+homes on the run.
+
+But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
+our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
+in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.
+
+[Illustration: "WE HAD TO WAIT FOR THE PASTE TO BILE."]
+
+Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
+paper--we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
+conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
+bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
+poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.
+
+But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some--very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep--or it wuz a troubled sleep at first--but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.
+
+[Illustration: "WE ALL SET AND LAID ON OUR PLANS, AND CUT THE EDGES
+OFFEN THE PAPER."]
+
+We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
+our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
+offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
+very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
+weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
+arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
+next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
+and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
+depend on, and what she had to do with.
+
+And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
+one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
+fair.
+
+And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+melancholy groan all to herself.
+
+[Illustration: "THE HANDLE COME OUT."]
+
+I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
+I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
+wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
+always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.
+
+But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
+us, and the hull of mine wuz.
+
+Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
+sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.
+
+It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
+at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
+foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
+the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
+own livin'.
+
+Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
+very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.
+
+[Illustration: "I WOULD MEANDER OUT THERE IN A ICY NIGHT TO FEED IT."]
+
+We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+there in a icy night to feed it.  But jest as it is always the way with
+wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
+on me, the better I liked it.
+
+Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.
+
+So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.
+
+That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.
+
+And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
+about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.
+
+He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
+other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it "horse corset" in a kind of
+a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
+with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.
+
+[Illustration: "BEEN OUT TO TEND TO YOUR 'HORSE CORSET,' HAVE YOU?"]
+
+He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+feather piller and say to me:  "Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+have you?"
+
+"_Horse corset_! 'Wall, what if it wuz?"
+
+Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
+a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.
+
+And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms--and
+he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took--etc., etc., etc.
+
+(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
+get up and get my feet so cold).
+
+But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.
+
+And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
+got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
+stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
+increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.
+
+And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.
+
+Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
+least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+tackled him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the
+wants and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female
+sisters wuz a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our
+ingregiencies with for the fair.
+
+He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There
+wuz four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the
+very least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and
+mebby both on 'em.
+
+But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.
+
+[Illustration: "HANDED ME A TEN CENT PIECE."]
+
+I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+least I said some words  to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of
+how I felt on the subject.
+
+Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't
+want a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+wuz.
+
+Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the
+subject--and spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my
+back to him, a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece
+of mind. And thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be
+repentent, and hand me out a ten dollar bill.
+
+But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:
+
+"Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit."
+
+I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+hand, and sez I:
+
+"What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?"
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, JOSIAH ALLEN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?"]
+
+"Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I
+dare persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions
+that there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked
+over, and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have
+been worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that."
+
+"How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?" sez I.
+
+"Why m-i-t-e, mit."
+
+"I should think," sez I, "that that spells mite."
+
+"Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite."
+
+And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute
+remark, bringin' the "mite" in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no,
+there wuzn't a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement,
+but solemn and bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the
+stove, solemn, and took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his
+shirt collar agin with solemnety and deep earnest. "No," Josiah Allen
+continued, "there hain't no sense in that--but mit! there you have
+sense. All wimmen wear mits; they love 'em. She most probable had a good
+pair, and lost one on 'em, and then give the other to the church. I tell
+you it takes men to translate the Bible, they have such a realizin'
+sense of the weaknesses of wimmen, and how necessary it is to translate
+it in such a way as to show up them weaknesses, and quell her down, and
+make her know her place, make her know that man is her superior in every
+way, and it is her duty as well as privilege to look up to him."
+
+And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty
+and over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up
+haughtily at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,
+
+"But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is
+jest my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be."
+
+"Yes," sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+wuz fairly hissin' hot. "She most probable had some man to advise her,
+and to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
+house." Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
+one I keep by me--and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
+necessity.
+
+"Most probable," sez Josiah, "most probable she did." He thought I wuz
+praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.
+
+"Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to
+mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
+up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me."
+
+But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:
+
+"If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
+livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you." And I would, if it wuz the
+last move I ever made.
+
+But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
+every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
+and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
+I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
+carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
+'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.
+
+And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their
+money, told jest how they come by it.
+
+Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
+mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
+cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
+exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
+has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.
+
+Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
+(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
+rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
+had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
+ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
+but she concluded to make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.
+
+And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who
+married a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents
+apiece, and Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the
+feathers offen her own back.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE HAD PICKED TEN GEESE AT TWO CENTS APIECE."]
+
+And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and
+warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift
+'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she
+picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.
+
+But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over
+to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice
+ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.
+
+Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four
+dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took
+it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and
+sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and
+besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'),
+she gin the hull to the meetin' house.
+
+There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in
+the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.
+
+And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+got in that way.
+
+But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.
+
+But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of
+it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her--she wuz the widder
+Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn
+what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to
+Sister Grimshaw, by right.
+
+Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:
+
+"Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+use, and for church work, and charity?"
+
+"Because he is so hard with her," sez Sister Lanfear, "and tears round
+so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should
+dress well--wants her to--and live well. But he don't want her to spend
+a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she
+should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin."
+
+"Wall," sez I, "what business is it to him what she does with her own
+money and her own property?"
+
+I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more
+openly.
+
+And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled
+three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day
+for contogglin'.
+
+She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a
+old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+would be willin', so it is spozed.
+
+Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz
+kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more
+of'em.
+
+But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.
+
+[Illustration: "SUBMIT TEWKSBURY DID BRING THAT PLATE."]
+
+And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+part with it, but she did bring _that plate_. That pink edged, chiny
+plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel
+Danker for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in
+front of it.
+
+Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full
+part towerds helpin' the meetin' house along--so she tore up her
+memorial, a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a
+burnt chiny offerin' to the Lord.
+
+Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+begun to affect us like that.
+
+To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand
+in that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she
+didn't, but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we
+all knew the feelin' she felt for the plate.
+
+It affected all on us fearfully.
+
+But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+merely sez, when she wuz thanked: "Oh, you are entirely welcome to it,
+and I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along."
+
+And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+more pitiful than tears would have been.
+
+Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.
+
+Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em,
+too. Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot
+down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever
+happened in Jonesville, or the world--although it is eppisodin' to tell
+on it now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you
+may say, my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I
+don't know but I may as well tell it now as any time.
+
+Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+the livin' truth.
+
+That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she
+heard a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears
+and opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the
+warm cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin
+Submit a look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look
+that had in it the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of
+faithfulness and heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.
+
+Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white,
+and she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,
+
+"Who be you?"
+
+And he sez,
+
+"I am Samuel Danker."
+
+And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin'
+chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.
+
+And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair
+cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and
+the feather oozed out.
+
+I don't tell this for truth, I only say that _they say_ thus and so.
+
+[Illustration: "I AM SAMUEL DANKER."]
+
+But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+that they wuz married that  very night of his return, that too can be
+swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit--superanuated,
+but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the
+ceremony.
+
+It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.
+
+But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I
+don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years
+younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy
+he looks, and how he has renewed his age.
+
+The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+wuz spozed to be envius.
+
+And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+over both religous and seckuler grounds.
+
+One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for
+him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the
+plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself.
+How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of
+extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets
+down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY DON'T COME!"] _They don't come!_
+
+But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and
+go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the
+frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to
+her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of
+company at that time of day.
+
+_They come!_
+
+Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin'
+tears on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all
+hope and happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is
+a-standin' right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with
+'em.
+
+Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her--Samuel
+Danker by name.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY COME."]
+
+Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that  I dropped in the
+Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.
+
+Wall, Submit brought the plate.
+
+Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.
+
+And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse
+takin' 'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala
+Crane, Joe Cranes'es widder.
+
+She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.
+
+She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us
+extremely worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it
+with such a cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz
+so thin and wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin',
+and all darned in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the
+money to get her a new dress.
+
+[Illustration: "SISTER ARVILLY LANFRAR, CANVASSIN' FOR A BOOK."]
+
+But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I  wouldn't have been the one to
+tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.
+
+Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages--she is a
+millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+day's work wuz done.
+
+And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight
+cents by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: "The Wild,
+Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man."
+
+And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she
+had to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the
+time, a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She
+said she loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page
+to the back bindin'.
+
+As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had
+some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I
+wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to--sez I,
+"Arvilly, men are _jest_ as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+better."
+
+And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I
+gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+but'nuts.
+
+[Illustration: "OLD MISS BALCH."]
+
+Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+the worth on it.
+
+And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't
+no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a
+halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she
+calculated to make the old ones do.
+
+And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years
+old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all
+swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three
+pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have
+laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said
+a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she
+felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very
+strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
+
+She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she _had_ to have to get
+Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
+
+Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now
+he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't
+have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
+
+Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+emergincies or bunnets.
+
+She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out
+of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+Deacon's feet.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
+
+And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and
+gin it to the fair to sell.
+
+We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+needed it.
+
+But she would make us take it; she said "if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+she would say to her,
+
+"Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress
+and mourn fer me in a black calico."
+
+_That_ Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say
+to her if she wuz alive.
+
+And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything.
+She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps,
+and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
+
+  [Illustration: "I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD."]
+
+  "I love thy kingdom, Lord,
+  The house of thine abode,
+  The church our dear Redeemer bought
+  With His most precious blood."
+
+The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes,
+and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse--
+
+  "For her my tears shall fall,
+  For her my prayers ascend,
+  For her my toil and life be given,
+  Till life and toil shall end."
+
+The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how
+she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought
+of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
+
+Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars;
+the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten
+to the fair.
+
+It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived
+with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+meetin' house.
+
+Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do
+it.
+
+Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+paperin'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best
+qualified to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.
+
+And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet
+es it hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it
+hadn't been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly
+have shirked out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy
+constituent.
+
+Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on
+the ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up
+fur, fur beyond the strength of their sockets.
+
+[Illustration: "WE FELT NERVED UP TO DO OUR BEST."]
+
+But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen  also, and it wuzn't for
+me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out
+of hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin'
+House wuz at the Bay.
+
+No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped
+holt of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly
+Lanfear and Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur
+a-holdin' up Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our
+two barells, Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy
+for us to mount up on.
+
+Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the
+time but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more
+wearin' and awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it
+day and night for weeks and weeks, every one on us.
+
+The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair
+to loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility
+that laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.
+
+It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+hull life.
+
+Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+eyes--Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).
+
+Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled--smiles broke out on every
+face, about thirty smiles--a half a minute more and it would be done,
+and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate of
+our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.
+
+But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin'
+house that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had
+been standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned.
+But as I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in
+the land wuz there and present.
+
+They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.
+
+They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.
+
+They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen
+that had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't
+set, that they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.
+
+And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+Josiah to read it out to us.
+
+So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us.
+But he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great
+and triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.
+
+[Illustration: "THE METHODIST CONFERENCE HAD DECIDED THAT WIMMEN WUZ
+TOO WEAK TO SET."]
+
+And so he read it out to us, and as we see that  that
+breadth wuz spilte, we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.
+
+And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend
+with such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men
+in a bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair
+sex had been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they
+sez, some on 'em, "Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for,
+if it hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?"
+
+And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, "cooin' doves" and "sweet
+tender flowerets," as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in
+too big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction.
+They had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in
+Jonesville and up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.
+
+But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door
+as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the
+nation on the decesion, for, sez they,
+
+"Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the
+time."
+
+And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits--
+
+"If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on
+anything--a Conference or anything else."
+
+And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,
+
+"For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so."
+
+And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+house agin.
+
+[Illustration: The End]
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.
+
+
+In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in
+and preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
+of 1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers
+have deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered
+on the floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.
+
+The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+Conference are held quadrennially.
+
+Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women
+delegates were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral
+Conferences--namely, The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference,
+The Pittsburgh Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was
+made against the admission of these delegates on the ground that the
+admission of women delegates was not in accord with the constitutional
+provisions of the Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive
+Rules. A special Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in
+the General Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members,
+to whom the protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported
+adversely to the admission of the four women delegates, the report
+alleging "that under the Constitution and laws of the Church as they now
+are, women are not eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference."
+From the discussion following this report, and lasting several days, the
+following six addresses, three in favor of and three against the
+admission of the women delegates, are selected and presented, with a few
+verbal corrections, as published in the official journal of the
+Conference.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.
+
+I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body,
+ought to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the
+Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules
+is that these women elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this
+General Conference.
+
+Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet
+it was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they
+would be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and
+afterward demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not
+enrolled with the others were called, and the protests were read. Their
+names have been called as members of this body, and they are simply here
+as "challenged" members. From that standpoint this question must be
+discussed, and any disposition of this case under the circumstances must
+be in this direction. These women delegates must be put out of this
+General Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges
+of members here. It is not a question of "admitting" them. Before this
+report, before the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to
+vote and act, and millions of people will hold us responsible, and I
+dare say that our votes will be recorded as to whether they shall be
+"put out" or "stay in."
+
+Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists
+for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the
+membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was
+made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea
+in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the
+fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers
+and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical
+government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question
+to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of
+petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General
+Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question
+not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble
+man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England
+Conference, moved himself to strike out the word "male" from the report
+of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was
+stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the
+Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay
+delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of
+suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed
+the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be
+questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts
+abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the
+right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law.
+Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government--and it has
+often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United
+States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in
+the government of the Church--you will find that the right of suffrage
+in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the
+most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right
+to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and
+for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American
+citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and
+trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this
+way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member
+of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little
+later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and
+under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the
+right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the "plan"
+of lay delegation, but on the "principle" of lay delegation. That was
+decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop
+Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences. On the principle
+of lay delegation, the women of the Church were granted the right of
+suffrage; presently they appeared in the Quarterly Conference, to vote
+as class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents; and it
+created a little excitement, a feverish state of feeling in the Church,
+and the General Conference simply passed a resolution or a rule
+interpreting that action on the part of women claiming this privilege
+in the Quarterly Conference as being a "right," and it was continued.
+Presently, as the right of suffrage of women passed on and grew, they
+voted in the Electoral Conferences, and there was no outcry made against
+it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in the Church, or any presiding
+elder, or any minister challenging the right of women to vote in
+Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and yet for sixteen
+years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to send laymen here
+to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to elect Bishops
+and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to where votes
+count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen years, and
+only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that the
+General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+"constitution of the men," who challenge these women.
+
+Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should
+be protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was
+placed in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the
+National Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor
+of it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to
+the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
+South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.
+
+Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
+to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
+find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
+their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
+"stop!" "we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality"? No. They
+were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
+been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
+United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
+protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
+States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
+the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
+constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
+the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
+office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
+the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
+to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
+interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
+for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
+interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
+books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
+goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
+find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a
+woman practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back
+through the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and
+you will find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in
+the Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted
+in order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the
+judges of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the
+Constitution of the United States, said, "Women may be officers of the
+Supreme Court, and may practise law there." The same kind of a spirit,
+in interpreting the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the
+Discipline of the Church, will place these women delegates in this body
+where they have been sent. The same thing is true of the Supreme Court
+of Pennsylvania and in the Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out,
+as my judgment sees, and as my conscience tells me, since before the
+government of God man and woman are equally responsible. There is no way
+out of this dilemma for this General Conference, but to say that these
+women delegates shall sit in this body, where they have been sent, and
+where their names have been called.
+
+Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+this body.
+
+We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor
+of Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+ranks of her membership--(Time called.)
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.
+
+
+Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification
+of a passage of Scripture occurred to me, "The enemy cometh in like
+a flood, but I will lift up a standard against him." It is somewhat
+peculiar that he should begin by making a statement about one of the
+most honored names in American Methodism, a statement that has been
+published in the papers, and that nine tenths of this body knew as well
+as he did. It must have been intended as a part of his argument, and I
+regard it as of as much force as anything he said after it. But in
+point of fact the question does not turn upon the person, but upon the
+principle. I have received an anonymous letter containing the following
+among other things, "Beware how you attack the holy cause of woman. Do
+you not know that obstacles to progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the
+way?" The signature of that letter is ingenious. I cannot tell whether
+it was a man or a woman, for it reads as follows, "A Lover of your Soul
+and of Woman." Now, Mr. President, the only candlestick that ought to be
+removed out of its place is the candlestick that contains a candle that
+does not burn the pure oil of truth. And I believe, sir, that with the
+best of intentions the three speakers who have appeared have given us
+three chapters in different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my
+duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says,
+"An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding
+discerneth where he slippeth." I have no claim to eloquence; never
+pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist
+history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any
+fear of the results, either present or prospective.
+
+Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot
+command the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are
+in, and defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take
+in the full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has
+a certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here,
+they have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a
+contested case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who
+ought to vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing
+up documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read
+it _verbatim_. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read
+_verbatim_ from his letter:
+
+"No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question,
+and, therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact,
+a vote of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when
+the credentials appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no
+notorious and undisputed fact or circumstance against the qualifications
+and election of a senator, to admit him at once and settle the question
+of his right afterward. But there have been cases in which the Senate
+declined to admit a claimant holding a regular certificate upon the
+ground that enough was known to the Senate to justify its declining to
+receive him until an inquiry should be had. Very truly yours,
+
+"GEORGE F. EDMUNDS."
+
+Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows
+that they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard
+to them at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional
+challenge. I champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion
+their cause against their being introduced into this body without their
+own sex having had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon
+the subject. I stand here to protect them against being connected with
+movements without law or contrary to law, and those who wish to bring
+them in and those who say it is the constitution of the man and
+prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said prejudice), they are persons,
+indeed, to stand up here as, _par excellence_ the champions of women!
+Is it the constitution of the men? Have you read the letter of
+Mrs. Caroline Wright in the _Christian Advocate_, one of our most
+distinguished American Methodist women? She does not wish to see them
+here. It is the constitution of the woman in that case, and I am opposed
+to their being admitted until the general sentiment of the women and the
+men of our Church have an opportunity of being heard upon it.
+
+Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but
+my opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the
+Methodist Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is
+to-day, not on account of the admission of these women, two of whom I
+believe to be as competent to sit in judgment on this question as any
+man on this floor. That is not the question, as I propose to show. I
+assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
+Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
+Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
+upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
+has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
+thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
+delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
+intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
+we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
+cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
+not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
+capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
+goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "layman." There
+is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
+the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
+Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
+history of the Church. Who is the "General Superintendent" by Webster or
+Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
+the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
+Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
+seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
+not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
+the word "layman" ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
+clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
+world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
+for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
+from the _clergy_men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
+laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A
+woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
+the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit
+he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham
+Lincoln said, "All these things are done and suffered, that government
+of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish
+from the earth." Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women, and
+children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this.
+When he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, "The
+intent of the lawmaker is the law."
+
+I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived
+to think of awhile--John Selden: "The only honest meaning of any word is
+the intent of the man that wrote it." At the time that the plan of lay
+delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church
+on this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and
+the laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body.
+Some one will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the
+Church, the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between
+the ministry and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever
+one Church in the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make
+its laws. There is not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name
+one that has allowed women in its law-making body; and yet such is the
+blinding power of gush that men will say that our fathers all understood
+it and proposed to put women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to
+allow them to put us in. As soon as the General Conference adjourned the
+women made an appeal in a public statement. They were asked to vote for
+lay delegation, and were told that then they could set the Church right.
+The opponents appealed to them to vote against it on the ground that it
+would not make any difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr.
+Hodgson (Professor Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote
+a series of articles in the _Advocate_, and it never occurred to them
+that the women could come into the General Conference. Lay delegation
+was only admitted by 33 votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they
+would not have come in. Every member of the New York East Conference
+knows that Dr. Curry's influence was so powerful that he could almost
+get a majority against it. And they know if any one had set up an
+opposition to it on this ground, the whole Conference would have voted
+against the movement, and that if it had not been for Bishop Ames and
+Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming Conference where the majority was
+opposed to lay delegation, and by their influence there converted my
+friend Olin and others, he knows that if this matter of the women had
+been in or understood, the whole Conference would have been against it.
+It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that it is prejudice.
+Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000 Methodist ministers
+that are ciphers all the time except when they vote for delegates? Are
+you going to presume that when the Church has a multitude of members,
+that it is going to sit here and change, by an interpretation, a
+Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never understood to
+be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial delegates. Every
+time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject has never come
+up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive Rules mean
+anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the fathers did
+not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can read those
+Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the Restrictive
+Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if you do
+it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do
+is to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then
+put any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this
+you call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress,
+and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
+a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
+believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
+said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
+that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction--they must be
+interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
+despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
+the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
+house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
+Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.
+
+If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, "I think it
+best to send the question around." True progress is not gained in any
+other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, "He that cometh
+in by the door," the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.
+
+
+Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous
+letters. And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with
+which to introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under
+any fear of being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future
+prospects blasted. It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this
+morning upon this subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive
+to either suppress or exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr.
+Buckley, threatening to remove him as an obstruction, must be highly
+gratified to know that that obstruction has already been removed.
+Brother Hughey removed the obstruction, extinguished the candle, and
+destroyed the candlestick.
+
+We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will
+be heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It
+remains for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here
+and there, or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a
+new point of view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be
+helpful to some that has already been presented in part touching the
+administration of our law and the interpretation of terms that is
+worthy, I think, of still further consideration.
+
+Dr. Buckley said in the New York _Christian Advocate_ of March 15th,
+1888:
+
+"The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of
+the Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five
+years of age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If
+women are found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the
+same plane with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five
+years, etc."
+
+Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law
+by a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+would say) the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopal Address, which
+declares that no definition of "layman" settles the question of
+eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as
+laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it
+officially as laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well,
+in this case, we have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both
+are right and both are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a
+woman, if she be a lay member her right is clear as that of any duly
+elected man. But he is wrong when he denies to her a right to a seat in
+this body as a layman. The Episcopal Address is wrong when it says
+that "no definition of the word 'layman' settles the question of
+eligibility." But it is right when it says, "Many are classed as laymen
+for purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+lay members who are not themselves eligible as delegates."
+
+In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and
+if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
+over the "Million dollars for Missions." They pray and testify in our
+class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
+us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
+amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
+are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
+they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
+laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
+two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
+one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
+General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
+marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
+this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
+step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
+question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
+over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
+if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
+this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
+and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
+misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
+out the word "male" was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
+"rider" on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
+known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
+it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
+amendment would let women into the General Conference.
+
+Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the "women coming
+in" being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
+lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment
+and the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow
+women to come in also.
+
+L. C. Queal said:
+
+I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.
+
+Bishop Foss:
+
+Are you misrepresented?
+
+L. C. Queal:
+
+I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman
+put that on as a "rider," with a view to defeating the bill, that
+immediately after thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of
+securing the approval of the principle in the laity of the Church. That
+is all I stated. All the rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own
+inference--a misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:
+
+I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to
+the speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the
+privilege of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in
+reference to this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the
+idea of the possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds
+that were both in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.
+
+Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of
+1868, laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this
+body. That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by
+the laity of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity
+here, why allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And,
+having allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the
+very foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow
+them a place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened
+the way for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not
+remember that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that
+the lay delegation scheme was defeated, and the _Methodist_, that was
+published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+that "votes ought to be weighed, not counted"? And then the question was
+sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of
+construing pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences
+previously to that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard
+to their legality there. The General Conference by its action did not
+propose to admit women to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed
+to clear away the mist and recognize their legal right to sit in the
+Quarterly Conference. Being in the Quarterly Conference, and in the
+District Conference, they have the right to vote on every question that
+comes before such bodies. They vote to license ministers, to recommend
+ministers to Annual Conferences, to recommend local preachers for
+deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on sending delegates to our Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates to Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates from Lay
+Electoral Conferences to this General Conference. And there are men
+on this floor to-day that would not be in this at all if they had
+not received the support of women in Lay Electoral Conferences. Now,
+brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the women to send
+delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never challenged until
+they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to elect laymen
+to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen in this
+body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes of the
+women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some of
+the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to
+vote there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would
+be consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+"foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection."
+And I am not in favor of going back.
+
+If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed
+for altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General
+Conference has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary.
+Every paragraph of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning
+with �63, and closing with �69, was put into that Constitution without
+any voice from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single
+one of them was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; �20, �183, stood
+for many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred
+bodily from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position
+it now occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was
+not submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely
+stated when he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote
+ordered in 1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the
+laity into the General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the
+laity and by the Annual Conferences, but the "plan" was not submitted
+to either to be voted upon, and the "plan" for lay delegation by which
+these lay brethren occupy their seats here this morning was made in
+every jot and tittle by the General Conference without any reference to
+the Annual Conferences at all.
+
+I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once
+a legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law;
+in the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.
+
+It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme
+court to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General
+Conference, we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing
+the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions
+on the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision
+of the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so
+we construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we
+touch the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the
+Annual Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.
+
+What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to
+limit the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for
+illustration, we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our
+Legislature to license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a
+license under the guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license
+law in form. The Constitution prevents it. There are States that have
+Constitutions that have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all,
+while they may either tax, license, or prohibit.
+
+This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a
+limitation of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation
+there is no restriction.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.
+
+
+Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question
+of law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as
+those who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I
+understand it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by
+those who are advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not
+a matter of sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place
+for knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.
+
+There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of
+the Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+circumstances, oppose their coming in.
+
+It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.
+
+Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I
+do not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the
+history of lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the
+most remote intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the
+General Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the
+field now toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last
+ten or fifteen years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism
+that would be fatal to all just interpretation of law.
+
+I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in
+1868. And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I
+know, the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in
+to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
+that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
+have embraced this design--the design of bringing women into the General
+Conference. I leave that.
+
+Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
+of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
+the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
+General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
+argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
+Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
+introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
+according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
+General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
+endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
+prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
+been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
+interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
+The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
+placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
+accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
+that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
+_personnel_ of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
+Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
+consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
+that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
+is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
+law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
+peril ahead of us.
+
+A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an
+organic body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its
+own security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the
+law that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.
+
+Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said,
+it has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences
+must be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of
+1872. I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One
+is, that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it
+is also a judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as
+a legislative body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872
+interpreted law, and the General Conference may reverse itself with
+just as much propriety as a court can reverse itself. And if it be
+the judgment of this General Conference that that interpretation was
+incorrect, it is perfectly competent for this Conference to say so, and
+have its action correspond with its own decision.
+
+There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference
+of 1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that
+local preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the
+principle of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is
+decided in general terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision
+must be limited to the particular case itself. And if a court in its
+decision embraces more than was involved in the particular case, it has
+no force whatever. And as this was a particular case submitted to
+the General Conference, and the decision was in general terms, it
+comprehends simply the case that was before it, and cannot be advanced
+to comprehend more. And the reason of this is very obvious; for if it
+was not the case, then cases might be brought before the court for its
+decision that had never occurred.
+
+There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women
+to certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when
+it says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to
+sell in quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880
+decided that women should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as
+superintendents of Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by
+that very affirmative conclusion, the subject was passed upon about
+their taking any other position. That, I think, must be regarded as
+sound, and a just interpretation of the law.
+
+But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands,
+that the pronoun "he," wherever employed, shall not be considered
+as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school
+Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward.
+
+Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing
+the _personnel_ of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a
+suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as
+soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and
+so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and
+I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard
+with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The
+only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the
+relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference,
+and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect,
+honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same
+way that their husbands and brothers are here.
+
+There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of
+those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful?
+You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and
+pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect
+their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus
+lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this
+suggestion, but it is an _in posse_, and it may easily be made an _in
+esse_. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they
+have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make
+them more perfect.
+
+No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement
+or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the
+Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe
+course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious,
+and conservative--I mean every word--and conservative course we have
+heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what
+Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is
+because of her firm adherence to law.
+
+It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon
+race--everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we
+pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.
+
+
+Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene,
+this great debate now in the third day of its progress must be
+suggestive of some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have
+made the hearts of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place
+of meeting in the past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear
+as to the outcome of the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The
+visitors to this General Conference, seated in their boxes and in the
+family circle, Will say surely these honored men of God who have been
+called as Superintendents of the affairs of our great conquering Church,
+these chosen ministers of reconciliation and peace, these _male_
+laymen called by their brethren to their high places in this General
+Conference, whose names at home are the synonym of chivalrous
+goodness--surely all these of rank and talent and authority, whose able
+and eloquent words have been ringing through the arches and dome of this
+temple of music on the wrong side of the question, are but simply acting
+the parts assigned them. In the final scene they will join hands around
+the eligible women elect, who, in obedience to the call of the laity in
+their several Conferences, are in their seats with us, and say, "Whom
+God hath joined, let not _male_ put asunder." My brothers, let us
+briefly restate the case. Five noble women of the laymen of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as delegates to this General
+Conference under the Constitution and by the forms prescribed by the
+laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to enter, the portals of
+this great assemblage they hear a voice from the platform, in words not
+to be misunderstood, "Thou shalt not," and voices from all parts of the
+house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement the voices of the
+Bishops, "Thou shalt not." And one would think, from the vehement
+oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference, that the
+foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence of
+these "elect ladies" among us.
+
+Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and
+in all its battles fought until the day of victory.
+
+In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question
+of lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it
+carried, there would have been plausibility in the argument this
+day made against the eligibility of women to seats in this General
+Conference. The evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to
+a higher appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her
+rights and privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the
+bounds of the Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent
+man, that grand old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this
+question, said:
+
+"If it is _rights_ they talk of, every competent member of the Church of
+Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained."
+
+And in answer to the expected fling, "But you are a woman's rights man,"
+he replied:
+
+"We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the
+question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living
+God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When
+that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal
+righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the
+ground!"
+
+The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the
+Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as
+belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in
+the government of the Church, and having rights under that government.
+During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for
+submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman
+moved to strike out the word "male." While that motion was under
+consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, "If it were the last
+moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter,
+I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, _wherever church
+privileges are concerned_."
+
+Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the
+question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the
+Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask
+women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church
+should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then
+enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived
+of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few
+noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, "No, no," but
+they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the
+right thinking, orderly delegates.
+
+What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+out the word "male," now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:
+
+"Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed
+in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that
+women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The
+Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take
+these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried
+with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter
+interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences
+laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the
+moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it,
+but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go
+back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?"
+
+It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore
+the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could
+the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+General Conference when it said, "The General Conference holds that
+in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who
+are not members of the Annual Conferences"? This decision must include
+women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means
+the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears
+from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle
+in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the
+membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would
+have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted
+women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, "The
+General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election
+of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the
+members of the Annual Conferences, _and who are not women_." We would
+have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an
+utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its
+membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and
+the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and
+interchangeably. See Bingham's "Antiquities," Blackstone's
+"Commentaries," Schaffs "History," and kindred authorities. It is sheer
+trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between lay_men_
+and lay_women_.
+
+Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before
+the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so
+appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the
+pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the
+voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from
+the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this
+debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.
+
+It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+there be a _specific enactment discriminating against the elector_. Our
+law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five
+years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a
+delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.
+
+Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited.
+We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the
+just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from
+membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual
+Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to
+send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their
+action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will
+say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our
+Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot
+be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very
+front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the
+spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the
+banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and
+righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon
+tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's
+Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now
+waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not
+cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse
+of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church
+of the Redeemer.
+
+Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among
+the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous
+productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in
+that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries
+old. In it you may read as follows: "Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has
+a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a
+Saviour for which I gave a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could
+do so much." Three and a half centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her
+master-piece in the chief places of the galleries of the world, and
+Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many of the best marbles that adorn
+the parlors of Europe and America, and no one wonders that a woman can
+do so much. From that day when Martin Luther, the protesting monk, and
+Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at the altar and the
+twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her faith in her sex
+and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the organized
+selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or privilege
+to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery and
+barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do
+ought that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from
+our advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us
+rather strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and
+privilege of every member of our Church, without distinction of race,
+color, or sex. Amen and Amen.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.
+
+
+Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have
+now, a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work.
+No man on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them
+by all lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every
+privilege enjoyed by men.
+
+But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.
+
+That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of
+the Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in
+this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by
+Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their
+right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this
+body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.
+
+It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After
+the most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+body.
+
+Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when
+the General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the
+entire membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was
+not the intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a
+large number of men of business experience, who could render service
+by their knowledge and experience touching the temporal affairs of the
+Church. When the principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon
+by the laity, this idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual
+Conferences voted for the principle and the plan, this and this only was
+their intent.
+
+When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea,
+and none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit
+women, but to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+Constitution.
+
+Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by
+allowing sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.
+
+Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.
+
+In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+Board of Bishops, he says:
+
+
+"For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear
+that any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The
+Electoral Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action,
+being guided, as we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the
+General Conference of 1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen," in
+answer to a question touching the classification and rights of ordained
+local and located ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution
+is carried beyond its original design when applied to a subject not
+before the body when it was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the
+language itself. This also should be understood, that no definition of
+the word 'laymen' settles the question of eligibility as to any class
+of persons, for many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay
+representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, who are
+themselves not eligible as delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly
+ineligible, who are not old enough to be delegates, or have not been
+members long enough, may be stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local
+preachers and exhorters, and, as such, be members of the Quarterly
+Conference, and vote for delegates to the Electoral Conference without
+themselves being eligible.
+
+"The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by
+a resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here
+by constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the
+power of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the
+formal amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in
+their enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their
+power to work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval
+of the high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments
+of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved
+in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the
+assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they
+were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of
+law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible,
+by special enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+Sunday-school superintendent, and naturally the question arises as
+to whether the necessity for special legislation, in order to their
+eligibility to those specified offices, does not indicate similar
+necessity for special provision in order to their eligibility as
+delegates, and if so it is further to be considered that the offices of
+steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school superintendent may be created
+and filled by simple enactments of the General Conference itself; but to
+enter the General Conference, and form part of the law-making body
+of the Church, requires special provision in the Constitution, and,
+therefore, such provision as the General Conference alone cannot make."
+
+
+Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from
+whom I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on "Constitutional
+Limitations," says:
+
+
+"A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another
+at some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as
+perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal
+share of the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be
+lost, if the rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to
+circumstances, or be modified by public opinion.
+
+"The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+different at any subsequent time."
+
+
+This same great author says:
+
+"Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting
+it. In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is
+to be enforced.
+
+"But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in
+many particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great
+charters of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights
+of the subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people
+must be supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot
+understand these unless we understand their history.
+
+"It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the
+common law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.
+
+"It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+law shall be construed strictly."
+
+Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear
+as the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine
+that the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when
+it is adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject
+anything into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when
+adopted. And you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to
+give it the construction which was intended when adopted. No man of
+common honesty and common sense dares to assert on this floor that it
+was the intent when the Constitution was amended to admit women as lay
+delegates. It follows inevitably that they are not constitutionally
+eligible, and to admit them is to violate the Constitution of the
+Church, which, as a Court, we are in honor bound not to do.
+
+It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person
+for office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited
+by positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been.
+We have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended,
+the intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference
+can, by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules. Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action
+in 1880, had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as
+stewards and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay
+delegate in the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay
+delegates to this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules, according to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is
+fundamental law that where general disabilities exist, not simply by
+statute, but by common law, the removal of lesser disabilities does not
+carry with it the removal of the greater ones.
+
+Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I
+defy any lawyer to show the contrary.
+
+�3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:
+
+"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty
+years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall
+not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be
+chosen."
+
+
+These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the
+Constitution of the United States touching the qualification of
+Senators. Is there a layman on this floor who will dare assert that
+under the Constitution of the United States women are eligible as
+Representatives or Senators? Words of common gender are exclusively
+used as applied to the qualification of Senators. The words persons and
+citizens include women the same as they include men. Nevertheless, in
+the light of the past, I am bold to assert, that any man who would dare
+stand in the Senate of the United States, and contend that women are
+eligible to the office of United States Senators, would be regarded by
+the civilized world as a person of gush and void of judgment.
+
+Article 14, United States Constitution, �1:
+
+
+"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+_privileges_ or _immunities_ of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law, _nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws_."
+
+
+(Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor _vs_. Judges of Election.
+53 Mo. 68.)
+
+The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+rights includes corporations.
+
+The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.
+
+The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United
+States. Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did
+not entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri
+held the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able
+opinion written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively
+demonstrated that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon
+woman the right to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right
+had not obtained in favor of woman, and these words of common gender
+should not be so construed as to confer this right, since it was not
+intended when made to affect their status in this regard.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Samantha Among the Brethren, by Josiah Allen's Wife
+
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, Complete</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg">
+
+<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;}
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+    .toc       { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;}
+    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
+		PRE    { font-family: Times; font-size: 97%; margin-left: 15%;}
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+<body>
+
+<h1><a href="#contents">Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete</a></h1>
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+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.net
+
+
+Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9450]
+[Last updated February 9, 2007]
+
+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>
+
+
+
+<a name="contents"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+
+<tr><td><a href="p1.htm"><b>Part 1.</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td> Chapter&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>    I. </td><td>    to&nbsp;&nbsp; </td><td>   III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p2.htm"><b>Part 2.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   IV.</td><td>   to </td><td>   VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p3.htm"><b>Part 3.</b></a></td><td> Chapter</td><td>    VII.</td><td>to </td><td>   XII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p4.htm"><b>Part 4.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XIII. </td><td>   to </td><td>   XVII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p5.htm"><b>Part 5.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XVIII.</td><td>   to </td><td>   XXII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p6.htm"><b>Part 6.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXIII.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p7.htm"><b>Part 7.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXVI.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXVIII.</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><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>
+
+
+
+
+
+<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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+<center>
+<h2>
+CONTENTS.</h2></center>
+<br>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="contents">
+<tr><td>
+<p><a href="p1.htm#c1">CHAPTER I.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p1.htm#c2">CHAPTER II.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p1.htm#c3">CHAPTER III.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p2.htm#c4">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p2.htm#c5">CHAPTER V.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p2.htm#c6">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c7">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c8">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c9">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c10">CHAPTER X.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c11">CHAPTER XI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c12">CHAPTER XII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c13">CHAPTER XIII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p>
+<br>
+</td><td>
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c15">CHAPTER XV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c20">CHAPTER XX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p6.htm#c23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p6.htm#c24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p6.htm#c25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p7.htm#c26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p7.htm#c27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p7.htm#c28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><i><a href="p7.htm#appendix">Publishers' Appendix</a></i></p>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+
+<tr><td><a href="p1.htm"><b>Part 1.</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td> Chapter&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>    I. </td><td>    to&nbsp;&nbsp; </td><td>   III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p2.htm"><b>Part 2.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   IV.</td><td>   to </td><td>   VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p3.htm"><b>Part 3.</b></a></td><td> Chapter</td><td>    VII.</td><td>to </td><td>   XII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p4.htm"><b>Part 4.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XIII. </td><td>   to </td><td>   XVII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p5.htm"><b>Part 5.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XVIII.</td><td>   to </td><td>   XXII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p6.htm"><b>Part 6.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXIII.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p7.htm"><b>Part 7.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXVI.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXVIII.</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, ***
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,709 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, Complete</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg">
+
+<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><a href="#contents">Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete</a></h1>
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+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.net
+
+
+Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+
+Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9450]
+[Last updated February 9, 2007]
+
+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>
+
+
+
+<a name="contents"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+
+<tr><td><a href="p1.htm"><b>Part 1.</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td> Chapter&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>    I. </td><td>    to&nbsp;&nbsp; </td><td>   III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p2.htm"><b>Part 2.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   IV.</td><td>   to </td><td>   VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p3.htm"><b>Part 3.</b></a></td><td> Chapter</td><td>    VII.</td><td>to </td><td>   XII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p4.htm"><b>Part 4.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XIII. </td><td>   to </td><td>   XVII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p5.htm"><b>Part 5.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XVIII.</td><td>   to </td><td>   XXII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p6.htm"><b>Part 6.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXIII.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p7.htm"><b>Part 7.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXVI.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXVIII.</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><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>
+
+
+
+
+
+<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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+<center>
+<h2>
+CONTENTS.</h2></center>
+<br>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="contents">
+<tr><td>
+<p><a href="p1.htm#c1">CHAPTER I.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p1.htm#c2">CHAPTER II.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p1.htm#c3">CHAPTER III.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p2.htm#c4">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p2.htm#c5">CHAPTER V.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p2.htm#c6">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c7">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c8">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c9">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c10">CHAPTER X.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c11">CHAPTER XI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p3.htm#c12">CHAPTER XII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c13">CHAPTER XIII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p>
+<br>
+</td><td>
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c15">CHAPTER XV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p4.htm#c17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c20">CHAPTER XX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p5.htm#c22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p6.htm#c23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p6.htm#c24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p6.htm#c25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p7.htm#c26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p7.htm#c27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="p7.htm#c28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><i><a href="p7.htm#appendix">Publishers' Appendix</a></i></p>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+
+<tr><td><a href="p1.htm"><b>Part 1.</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td> Chapter&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>    I. </td><td>    to&nbsp;&nbsp; </td><td>   III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p2.htm"><b>Part 2.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   IV.</td><td>   to </td><td>   VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p3.htm"><b>Part 3.</b></a></td><td> Chapter</td><td>    VII.</td><td>to </td><td>   XII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p4.htm"><b>Part 4.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XIII. </td><td>   to </td><td>   XVII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p5.htm"><b>Part 5.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XVIII.</td><td>   to </td><td>   XXII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p6.htm"><b>Part 6.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXIII.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="p7.htm"><b>Part 7.</b></a></td><td> Chapter </td><td>   XXVI.</td><td>  to </td><td>   XXVIII.</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete
+by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+<head>
+<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 1.</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+
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+<body>
+
+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1</h1>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p2.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+<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 1.</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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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="#c1">CHAPTER I.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c2">CHAPTER II.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c3">CHAPTER III.</a></p>
+
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c1"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="003c1.jpg (74K)" src="images/003c1.jpg" height="710" width="609">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+<p>
+CHAPTER I.</p>
+
+<p>
+When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
+Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
+Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
+hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.</p>
+
+<p>And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
+every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
+our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em&mdash;we spoze
+because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.</p>
+
+<p>Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
+from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
+our own three Jonesvillians&mdash;Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
+particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
+a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
+answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).</p>
+
+<p>The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
+Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
+other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).</p>
+
+<p>As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
+apiece for the five deacons&mdash;each one of 'em to overlook their own
+particular buzz saw&mdash;but the money comin' from all  on 'em to be divided
+up equal among the five deacons.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="004.jpg (122K)" src="images/004.jpg" height="764" width="747">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
+against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
+a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
+make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
+that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
+the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
+not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
+and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
+salvation.</p>
+
+<p>I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
+apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
+deacons ought to cultivate.</p>
+
+<p>But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
+to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the
+deed."</p>
+
+<p>They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
+likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
+wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="005.jpg (68K)" src="images/005.jpg" height="572" width="375">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it&mdash;"If bein' set
+apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
+that they ought to be expected to do&mdash;and if it wuz right for 'em to
+go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
+enterprise?"</p>
+
+<p>And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man,
+the better the deed. We need buzz saws."</p>
+
+<p>And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
+high-headed.</p>
+
+<p>And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
+Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
+havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
+brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.</p>
+
+<p>But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
+prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
+of his own soul, and my piece of mind.</p>
+
+<p>And I sez to him in solemn axents:</p>
+
+<p>"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
+your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
+he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
+I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
+religious duties.</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
+said, "he didn't dumb 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he
+has a chance to."</p>
+
+<p>But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
+a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
+meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
+all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
+farms.</p>
+
+<p>"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
+of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
+interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
+prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
+works generally?"</p>
+
+<p>And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
+most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,</p>
+
+<p>"Dumb good works!"</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="006.jpg (97K)" src="images/006.jpg" height="540" width="631">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
+ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
+axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
+can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
+so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
+collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
+a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
+will 'tend to it."</p>
+
+<p>And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
+question&mdash;and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
+have put the question to him.</p>
+
+<p>For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
+go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
+there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
+and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
+bimeby).</p>
+
+<p>There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
+mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
+brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
+and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
+theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.</p>
+
+<p>But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
+wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
+this enterprise of theirs up&mdash;and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
+Henzy.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
+buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.</p>
+
+<p>"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez,
+"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."</p>
+
+<p>Some sez he duz.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
+efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
+And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
+begin to feel bad.</p>
+
+<p>She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
+me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
+the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
+she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
+Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
+had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
+dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
+his face till dinner time.</p>
+
+<p>And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
+left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
+four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
+because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.</p>
+
+<p>She is a dretful admirin' woman.</p>
+
+<p>She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men&mdash;always calls
+her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
+perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
+when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as
+Samuel (his given name is Samuel).</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="007.jpg (120K)" src="images/007.jpg" height="861" width="691">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
+dreams is a place where you can't slip on  your sun-bonnet and foller
+neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
+from hour to hour.</p>
+
+<p>No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
+into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.</p>
+
+<p>No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.</p>
+
+<p>But, as I said, this had been spozen.</p>
+
+<p>But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
+napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day
+what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
+Drusillia Sypher.</p>
+
+<p>And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
+"Miss Deacon Sypher."</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
+pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
+hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
+the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
+good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
+into the buzz saw-mill business.</p>
+
+<p>But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
+every time he came in sight.</p>
+
+<p>They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
+every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
+her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb&mdash;he had jest
+smashed it in the barn door&mdash;and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
+step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."</p>
+
+<p>But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
+low.</p>
+
+<p>But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
+and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
+books. And he sez:</p>
+
+<p>"Stand there like a&mdash;&mdash;fool, will you! Get me a <i>rag!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>I guess he did say as much as that.</p>
+
+<p>But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time&mdash;couldn't seem to
+stop, she had got so hardened into that way.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="008.jpg (61K)" src="images/008.jpg" height="507" width="556">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
+smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
+effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
+was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
+get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
+and he makes a good deal of her.</p>
+
+<p>I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
+difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
+this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
+Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
+together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
+the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
+Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
+foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
+that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler&mdash;a witherin'
+article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
+fun of the projeck.</p>
+
+<p>We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
+capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
+His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
+fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
+store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
+workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
+bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
+He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
+worshipped him.</p>
+
+<p>They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
+father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.</p>
+
+<p>The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together&mdash;she loved to
+work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
+very congenial&mdash;and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
+that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
+in the shop.)</p>
+
+<p>He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
+doubt of that.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
+educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
+born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
+in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
+Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
+any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
+syllables wuz common in it.</p>
+
+<p>His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
+thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
+he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
+to be disseminated abroad.</p>
+
+<p>The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
+She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
+ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
+up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
+sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
+guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
+from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
+howsumever."</p>
+
+<p>Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
+painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
+strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work&mdash;or would
+weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
+herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
+tottlin' eminence.</p>
+
+<p>The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
+letters over each one.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>first</i> wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;</p>
+
+<p><i>Secondly</i>, NONE WHERESOEVER;</p>
+
+<p><i>Thirdly</i>, NONE HOWSUMEVER.</p>
+
+<p>The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, <i>what</i> cares
+and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
+proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
+wimmen to do&mdash;not a single thing.</p>
+
+<p>Then he proceeded to tell <i>where</i> men wuz willin' to keep their labors
+and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
+<i>where</i>. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
+farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
+sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
+<i>where</i> men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
+even the lightest and slightest.</p>
+
+<p>Then lastly came the <i>howsumever</i>. He proceeded to show <i>how</i> this could
+be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
+great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
+place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
+eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.</p>
+
+<p>And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
+Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
+the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
+in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
+posture as settin' up on a Conference.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="009.jpg (113K)" src="images/009.jpg" height="611" width="596">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would
+endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
+would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
+It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm."  Why, Josiah Allen
+handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
+as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we
+had some words about it.</p>
+
+<p>And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
+Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see&mdash;Second
+Galatians.</p>
+
+<p>And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
+Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
+price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
+bed rid.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
+idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.</p>
+
+<p>And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
+very first.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
+next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
+it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
+idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
+so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.</p>
+
+<p>And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
+and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?</p>
+
+<p>But of this, more anon and bimeby.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+
+<a name="c2"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="010c2.jpg (98K)" src="images/010c2.jpg" height="740" width="589">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER II.</p>
+
+<p>
+Wall, it wuz on the very next day&mdash;on a Thursday as I remember well, for
+I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day&mdash;Fridays
+bein' considered onlucky&mdash;and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
+and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
+Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
+old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
+granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
+on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.</p>
+
+<p>(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
+But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
+there for some time alone.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
+first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven&mdash;they wuz all ready, I
+had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
+oven&mdash;and then I set down and read my letters.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
+his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
+that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
+delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
+sithed deep. I love company dearly, but&mdash;oh my soul, is there not a
+difference, a difference in visitors?</p>
+
+<p>Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
+thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.</p>
+
+<p>And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
+wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose."</p>
+
+<p>I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
+brung me startlin' intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
+been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.</p>
+
+<p>And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote
+dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
+repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."</p>
+
+<p>But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
+see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
+see it wuz writ on duty.</p>
+
+<p>She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
+She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
+and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
+in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
+on't.</p>
+
+<p>She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
+that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
+buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
+any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
+was mistook.</p>
+
+<p>She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
+for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
+said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
+had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
+own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
+man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
+round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
+two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
+mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
+couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
+broke in on her serenity.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
+bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.</p>
+
+
+<p>Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
+affection and confidence, yet doors <i>had</i> been slammed and oaths
+emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
+actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
+impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
+accustomed to 'em.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="011.jpg (114K)" src="images/011.jpg" height="584" width="580">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
+cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
+they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work&mdash;lots of work.
+And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
+The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i> snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
+it, but she found out too late&mdash;too late, that he snored. The house wuz
+small; she could <i>not</i> escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
+got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
+as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
+near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
+of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
+lambs callin' on their dams.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
+saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
+been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
+hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."</p>
+
+<p>The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
+of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
+snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
+I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
+events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
+yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
+Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
+there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
+the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.</p>
+
+<p>And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
+moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
+Josiah hitched the mair.</p>
+
+<p>We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
+rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
+life.</p>
+
+<p>And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
+lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="012.jpg (45K)" src="images/012.jpg" height="538" width="335">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
+extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
+all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
+rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
+first rate.</p>
+
+<p>I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
+time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
+the heads of it.</p>
+
+<p>It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
+eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
+bare heads.</p>
+
+<p>She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
+speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
+the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>She had even read these dreadful words&mdash;"Marriage is a Failure." She
+hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
+against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
+privilege, to speak in its praise.</p>
+
+<p>I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
+no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
+whose name vuz once Smith.</p>
+
+<p>I <i>love</i> Josiah Allen, I am <i>glad</i> that I married him. But at the same
+time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
+side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
+Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
+every word she said.</p>
+
+<p>But she went on perfectly beautiful&mdash;I didn't wonder it brought the
+school-house down&mdash;about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
+how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.</p>
+
+<p>How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
+rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
+like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
+onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
+Repose&mdash;melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.</p>
+
+<p>And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
+peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
+how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
+souls bathed in blissful repose!</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="013.jpg (125K)" src="images/013.jpg" height="624" width="600">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'.  There wasn't a dry
+eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
+vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
+slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
+(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
+And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
+vest.</p>
+
+<p>Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
+remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.</p>
+
+<p>And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
+by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.</p>
+
+<p>I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
+me calmer wuz, I <i>knew</i>, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
+went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.</p>
+
+<p>And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
+comparin' married life and single&mdash;jest as likely metafors as I ever
+see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
+of 'em had this fault&mdash;when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
+fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
+me.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="014.jpg (47K)" src="images/014.jpg" height="483" width="352">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
+the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
+over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
+forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
+foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
+lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
+a possible mate, for the comin' gander&mdash;restless, wobblin', oneasy,
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
+up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
+aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).</p>
+
+<p>And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
+wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
+bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
+broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
+cloud.</p>
+
+<p>And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
+states to&mdash;flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
+melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
+of 'em brought the school-house down.</p>
+
+<p>And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
+together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
+forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.</p>
+
+<p>And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
+hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
+perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
+wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
+searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.</p>
+
+<p>He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
+so&mdash;why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.</p>
+
+<p>But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
+beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
+mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.</p>
+
+<p>I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
+deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
+lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
+its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
+stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
+wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
+occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
+sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.</p>
+
+<p>And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
+that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it&mdash;the very
+sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
+discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
+major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
+shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
+me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
+over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.</p>
+
+<p>She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
+told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
+spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
+day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
+have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
+as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
+hold of my opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
+her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.</p>
+
+<p>I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
+confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
+meant it. When I like a person, I <i>do</i> like 'em, and visy-versey.</p>
+
+<p>But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
+overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How
+I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up
+against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
+with every word of it."</p>
+
+<p>Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
+if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.</p>
+
+<p>And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of
+beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
+June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
+say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
+see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
+that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
+megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="015.jpg (113K)" src="images/015.jpg" height="659" width="598">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<p>She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
+she didn't go too far."</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she
+didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
+it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
+hain't <i>all</i> happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."</p>
+
+
+<p>And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I  wuz mistaken, "she
+thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said:</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>knew</i> it wuz, and he would take his oath to it."</p>
+
+<p>But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most
+peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes
+'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'.
+But," sez I, "marriage hain't <i>all</i> peace."</p>
+
+<p>Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds
+the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it
+hain't all radiance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it."</p>
+
+<p>And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is
+right; I think it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married
+you will change your opinion, you mark my word."</p>
+
+<p>And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't;
+she guessed she was in the right of it."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all
+earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?"</p>
+
+<p>And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years,
+and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called
+a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many
+changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round
+and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet
+nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care
+of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid,
+a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a
+dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a
+doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.</p>
+
+<p>"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time;
+but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it
+haint if you are ever married."</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken&mdash;she
+thought it wuz."</p>
+
+<p>"You do?" sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mem," sez she.</p>
+
+<p>I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'."
+I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah
+started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.</p>
+
+<p>She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She
+seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would
+give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me,
+and have me criticise it. Sez she:</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way."</p>
+
+<p>And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to
+each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two
+rocks that couldn't be moved."</p>
+
+<p>And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my
+advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where
+there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she
+was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed
+that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on."</p>
+
+<p>And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the
+midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to
+drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and
+come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.</p>
+
+<p>And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped
+and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three
+sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of
+manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees
+of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand
+the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face
+a Greenland winter in.</p>
+
+<p>And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back
+and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's
+call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:</p>
+
+<p>She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and
+stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the
+lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a
+place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and
+she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and
+forth and try to convince each other.</p>
+
+<p>And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in
+my frame, though dreadin' the job some.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c3"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="016c3.jpg (99K)" src="images/016c3.jpg" height="724" width="582">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER III.</p>
+
+<p>
+But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture&mdash;crazy as a loon. He
+raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it
+to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's
+happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in
+a serene calm&mdash;a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect,
+how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew
+that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they
+wuz till to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents&mdash;not so dry as I keep by
+me, but pretty dry&mdash;"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel
+labor."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger
+in emanuel labor."</p>
+
+<p>"Manuel, Josiah."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I,
+firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little
+better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that
+has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get
+along without some work and care."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care,
+not a single care. Not as long as I live&mdash;if it wuzn't for me, you might
+have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and
+won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly
+anon&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="017.jpg (111K)" src="images/017.jpg" height="606" width="610">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on
+perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life&mdash;did you
+notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified
+to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap
+on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been
+a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have
+never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and
+tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs,
+jest like any other human states."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and
+I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm
+forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea
+by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold
+their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies
+blow&mdash;and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It
+is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into
+billows. But our sea&mdash;the sea of married life&mdash;is not like that, it is
+ofttimes billowy and rough."</p>
+
+<p>"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the
+lecture, and enthused.</p>
+
+<p>"We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen,
+for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly
+smooth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."</p>
+
+<p>"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
+cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
+if I was in your place."</p>
+
+<p>"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
+till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:</p>
+
+<p>"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
+that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
+Allen."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or
+ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
+lecture."</p>
+
+<p>Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
+and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
+company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
+did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
+have come in a much worse time.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
+There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
+a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,
+but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are
+always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish
+to have showed off to the public.</p>
+
+<p>He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the
+entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward
+with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.</p>
+
+<p>He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
+himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
+thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
+have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
+he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
+cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
+and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
+settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
+see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.</p>
+
+<p>There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
+There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
+wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
+and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
+frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
+be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
+language he hurled at me acrost that stove.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
+this side."</p>
+
+<p>And then he hollered at me, and asked me:</p>
+
+<p>"How in thunder he was a goin' to <i>get</i> in." And then he wanted to know
+"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it&mdash;or
+if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
+of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He
+hollered wildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
+you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It
+would go in all right if you had started it the other way."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
+with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
+perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
+But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
+out of this door&mdash;if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
+be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth&mdash;not while I have got the
+breath of life in me."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
+and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me&mdash;and let 'em look at
+that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="018.jpg (116K)" src="images/018.jpg" height="640" width="585">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
+them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'."  "Wall, I want 'em to
+ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
+every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
+perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job&mdash;seven times a year do
+I have to move this stove back and forth&mdash;and I say it is high time I
+said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you be still?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go
+through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
+got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
+under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
+a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."</p>
+
+<p>I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
+stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful
+Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
+she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
+awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
+took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
+to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
+to Josiah.</p>
+
+<p>And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
+every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
+about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"</p>
+
+<p>But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
+he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much
+repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
+tore to pieces to get that stove started."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
+door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
+for two hours as I have, and then see."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
+there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who
+is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>you</i> did it! I moved it myself."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="019.jpg (53K)" src="images/019.jpg" height="489" width="325">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't
+go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with
+chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out."
+I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I
+see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'.</p>
+
+<p>But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose
+to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out
+for years and years&mdash;why, then I <i>had</i> to correct him on the subject,
+and we had a little dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so
+much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple
+sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin'
+machine a-comin'.</p>
+
+
+<br><br><hr><br><br>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p2.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
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+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 2</h1>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p1.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p3.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<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 2.</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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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="#c4">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c5">CHAPTER V.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c6">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>
+
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<a name="c4"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="020c4.jpg (96K)" src="images/020c4.jpg" height="711" width="577">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER IV.</p>
+
+<p>
+Never knew a word about the threshin' machine a-comin' till about half
+an hour before. Josiah Allen wuzn't to blame. It come just as onexpected
+onto him as it did onto me.</p>
+
+<p>Solomon Gowdey wuz a-goin' to have 'em first, which would have left me
+ample time to cook up for 'em. But he wuz took down bed sick, so they
+had to come right onto us with no warnin' previous and beforehand.</p>
+
+<p>They wuz a drivin' up just as Josiah got the stove-pipe up. They had to
+go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get
+to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they
+wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
+heard that was the cap sheaf.</p>
+
+<p>Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
+enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
+the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
+and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
+every minute.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
+wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
+three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
+the author of "Peaceful Repose," and me, almost to death.</p>
+
+<p>The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
+horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
+over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
+said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
+it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
+wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.</p>
+
+<p>I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="021.jpg (161K)" src="images/021.jpg" height="669" width="567">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
+beginnin'. If you'll believe it,  I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
+any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
+by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
+pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all
+kinds.</p>
+
+<p>The author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" came out into the kitchen. I
+told her she might, if she wanted to, for I see I wuzn't goin' to have a
+minute's time to go into the parlor and visit with her.</p>
+
+<p>She looked pretty sober and thoughtful, and I didn't know as she liked
+it, to think I couldn't do as I promised to do, accordin' to agreement,
+to hear her lecture, and lift my hand up when I differed from her.</p>
+
+<p>But, good land! I couldn't help it. I couldn't get a minute's time to
+lift my hand up. I could have heard the lecture, but I couldn't spare my
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>And then Josiah would come a-rushin' in after one thing and another,
+actin' as was natural, accordin' to the nater of man, more like a wild
+man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by
+havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he
+couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And
+then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, any way.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="022.jpg (59K)" src="images/022.jpg" height="517" width="478">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Twice I had to drop everything and find cloths to do up the horse's
+legs, where it had grazed 'em a-fallin' out of the machine. And once I
+took my hands out of the pie-crust to find a piece of old rope to tie up
+the harness. It seemed as if I left off every five minutes to wait on
+Josiah Allen, to find somethin' that he wanted and couldn't find, or
+else to do somethin' for him that he couldn't do.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, it was a wild and harrowin' time, and tegus. But I kept a firm
+holt of my principles, and didn't groan&mdash;not when anybody could hear me.
+I won't deny that I did, out in the buttery by myself, give vent to a
+groan or two, and a few sithes. But immegiately, or a very little after,
+I was calm again.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, worse things wuz a-comin' onto me, though I didn't know it. I owed
+a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
+pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
+over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
+days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
+had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
+trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
+down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
+the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
+and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
+little piece of brown paper, or full cloth&mdash;everything, he said, that
+wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.</p>
+
+<p>And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
+five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
+right by the notch.</p>
+
+<p>And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
+every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)</p>
+
+<p>But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
+exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
+shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
+and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
+when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
+lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="023.jpg (121K)" src="images/023.jpg" height="593" width="590">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
+it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must&mdash;for
+I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the  author of
+"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
+curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
+curosity, and metafor.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
+to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
+sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
+amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
+stay to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
+Zoar&mdash;it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
+only made fourteen; there wuz only thirteen besides him, so I got along.
+And I had a good dinner and enough of it.</p>
+
+<p>I had to wait on the table, of course&mdash;that is, the tea and coffee. And
+I felt that a cup of good, strong tea would be a paneky. I wuz that wore
+out and flustrated that I felt that I needed a paneky to soothe.</p>
+
+<p>And I got the rest all waited on and wuz jest a liftin' my cup to my
+lips, the cup that cheers everybody but don't inebriate 'em&mdash;good,
+strong Japan tea with cream in it. Oh, how good it smelt. But I hadn't
+fairly got it to my mouth when I wuz called off sudden, before I had
+drinked a drop, for the case demanded help at once.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Peedick had unexpected company come in, jest as they wuz a-settin'
+down to the dinner-table, and she hadn't hardly anything for dinner, and
+the company wuz very genteel&mdash;a minister and a Justice of the Peace&mdash;so
+she wanted to borrow a loaf of bread and a pie.</p>
+
+<p>She is a good neighbor and is one that will put herself out for a
+neighborin' female, and I went into the buttery, almost on the run, to
+get 'em for her, for her girl said she wanted to get 'em into the house
+and onto the table before Mr. Peedick come in with 'em from the horse
+barn, for they knew that Mr. Peedick would lead 'em out to dinner the
+very second they got into the house, and Miss Peedick didn't want her
+husband to know that she had borrowed vittles, for he would be sure to
+let the cat out of the bag, right at the table, by speakin' about 'em
+and comparin' 'em with hern.</p>
+
+<p>I see the necessity for urgent haste, and the trouble wuz that I hurried
+too much. In takin' down a pie in my awful hurry, I tipped over a pan of
+milk right onto my dress. It wuz up high and I wuz right under the
+shelf, so that about three tea-cupsful went down into my neck. But the
+most went onto my dress, about five quarts, I should judge besides that
+that wuz tricklin' down my backbone.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="024.jpg (71K)" src="images/024.jpg" height="572" width="361">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Wall, I started Serintha Ann Peedick off with her ma's pie and bread,
+and then wiped up the floor as well as I could, and then I had to go and
+change my clothes. I had to change 'em clear through to my wrapper, for
+I wuz wet as sop&mdash;as wet as if I had been takin' a milk swim.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+<a name="c5"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="024c5.jpg (94K)" src="images/024c5.jpg" height="719" width="588">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER V.</p>
+
+<p>
+Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz a-waitin' for me to
+the table; the men had all got through and gone out. She sot right by
+me, and she had missed me, I could see. Her eyes looked bigger than
+ever, and more sad like.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "she was dretful sorry for me," and I believed her.</p>
+
+<p>She asked me in a awe-stricken tone, "if I had such trials every day?"</p>
+
+<p>And I told her "No, I didn't." I told her that things would run along
+smooth and agreeable for days and days, but that when things got to
+happenin', they would happen right along for weeks at a time, sometimes,
+dretful curius. A hull batch of difficulties would rain down on anybody
+to once. Sez I, "You know Mr. Shakespeare says that' Sorrows never come
+a-spyin' along as single fighters, but they come in hull battles of
+'em,' or words to that effect."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, in reasonable axents, "Mebby I shall have a hull lot of good
+things happen to me right along, one after another, some dretful
+agreeable days, and easy."</p>
+
+<p>Sez she in the same sad axents, and wonderin', "Did you ever have
+another day in your hull life as hard as this you are a-passin'
+through?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," sez I, "lots of'em&mdash;some worse ones, and," sez I, "the day
+has only jest begun yet, I presume I shall have lots and lots of new
+things happen to me before night. Because it is jest as I tell you, when
+things get to happenin' there hain't no tellin' when they will ever
+stop."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fogg groaned, a low, deep groan, and that is every word she said,
+only after a little while she spoke up, and sez:</p>
+
+<p>"You hain't eaten a bit of dinner; it all got cold while you wuz a
+changin' your dress."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, wall," sez I, "I can get along some way. And I must hurry up and
+get the table cleared off any way, and get to my work agin', for I have
+got to do a lot of cookin' this afternoon. It takes a sight of pies and
+cakes and such to satisfy twelve or a dozen men."</p>
+
+<p>So I went to work vigorously agin. But well might I tell Miss Fogg "that
+the day had only jest begun, and there wuz time for lots of things
+to happen before night," for I had only jest got well to work on the
+ingregiences of my pies when Submit Tewksbury sent over "to see if I
+could let her have them sturchien seeds I had promised her&mdash;she wanted
+'em to run up the inside of her bedroom winder, and shade her through
+the winter. She wuz jest a-settin' out her winter stock of flower roots
+and seeds, and wanted 'em immegiatly, and to once, that is, if it was
+perfectly convenient," so the boy said.</p>
+
+<p>Submit is a good creeter, and she wouldn't have put that burden on me on
+such a time for nothin', not if she had known my tribulations; but she
+didn't, and I felt that one trial more wouldn't, as the poet hath well
+said, "either make or break me."</p>
+
+<p>So I went to huntin' for the seeds. Wall, it wuz a good half-hour before
+I could find 'em, for of course it wuz natural nater, accordin' to the
+total deprivity of things, that I should find 'em in the bottom of the
+last bag of seeds that I overhauled.</p>
+
+<p>But Submit had been disappointed, and I didn't want to make her burdens
+any heavier, so I sent her the sturchien seeds.</p>
+
+<p>But it wuz a trial I do admit to look over more than forty bags of
+garden and flower seeds in such a time as that. But I sent 'em. I sent
+Submit the sturchien seeds, and then I laid to work again fast as I
+possibly could.</p>
+
+<p>But I sez to the author of "Peaceful Repose," I sez to her, sez I:</p>
+
+<p>"I feel bad to think I hain't gettin' no time to hear you rehearse your
+lecture, but you can see jest how it is; you see I hain't had a minute's
+time today. Mebby I will get a few minutes' time before night; I will
+try to," sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," sez she, "it hain't no matter about that; I&mdash;I&mdash;I somehow&mdash;I don't
+feel like rehearsin' it as it was." Sez she, "I guess I shall make some
+changes in it before I rehearse it agin."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "You lay out to make a more mean thing of it, more megum."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez she, in faint axents, "I am a-thinkin' of it."</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="026.jpg (54K)" src="images/026.jpg" height="529" width="326">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I cheerfully, as I started for the buttery with a pile of
+cups in one hand, the castor and pickle dish in the other, and a pile of
+napkins under my arm, "I believe I shall like it as well again if you
+do, any way," sez I, as I kicked away the cat that wuz a-clawin' my
+dress, and opened the door with my foot, both hands bein' full.</p>
+
+<p>"Any way, there will be as much agin truth in it."</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I went to work voyalently, and in two hours' time I had got my
+work quelled down some. But I had to strain nearly every nerve in the
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>And I am afraid I didn't use the colporter just exactly right, who come
+when I wuz right in the midst of puttin' the ingregiences into my tea
+cakes. I didn't enter so deep into the argument about the Revised
+New Testament as I should in easier and calmer times. I conversed
+considerable, I argued some with him, but I didn't get so engaged as
+mebby I had ort to. He acted disappointed, and he didn't stay and talk
+more'n an hour and three quarters.</p>
+
+<p>He generally spends half a day with us. He is a master hand to talk;
+he'll make your brain fairly spin round he talks so fast and handles
+such large, curius words. He talked every minute, only when I wuz
+a-answerin' his questions.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="027.jpg (124K)" src="images/027.jpg" height="609" width="587">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Wall, he had jest gone, the front gate had just clicked onto him, when
+Miss Philander Dagget came in at the back door. She had her press-board
+in  her hand, and a coat over her arm, and I see in a minute that I had
+got another trial onto me. I see I had got to set her right.</p>
+
+<p>I set her a chair, and she took off her sun-bonnet and hung it over the
+back of her chair, and set down, and then she asked me if I could spend
+time to put in the sleeves of her husband's coat. She said "there wuz
+somethin' wrong about em', but she didn't know what."</p>
+
+<p>She said "she wouldn't have bothered me that day when I had so much
+round, but Philander had got to go to a funeral the next day, as one of
+the barriers, and he must have his coat."</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I wrung my hands out of the dish-water they was in at the time,
+and took the coat and looked at it, and the minute I set my eyes on it
+I see what ailed it I see she had got the sleeves sot in so the elbows
+come right in front of his arms, and if he had wore it in that condition
+to the funeral or anywhere else he would have had to fold up his arms
+right acrost his back; there wuzn't no other possible way.</p>
+
+<p>And then I turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot
+the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a
+ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it&mdash;and
+she went home feelin' first rate.</p>
+
+<p>I am very neighborly, and helpful, and am called so. Jonesville would
+miss me if any thing should happen.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="028.jpg (30K)" src="images/028.jpg" height="470" width="328">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>I have often helped that woman a sight. She is a good, willin' creeter,
+but she is apt to get things wrong, dretful apt. She made her little
+boy's pantaloons once wrong side before, so it would seem that he would
+have to set down from the front side, or else stand up.</p>
+
+<p>And twice she got her husband's pantaloons sewed up so there wuz no way
+to get into em' only to crawl up into 'em through the bottom of the
+legs. But I have always made a practice of rippin' and tearin' and
+bastin', and settin' her right, and I did now.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came
+in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an
+old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and
+the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he
+wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the
+first thing that "he wanted some of Hall's salve." And I told him "there
+wuzn't a mite in the house."</p>
+
+<p>And he hollered up and says, "There would be some if there wuz any sense
+in the head of the house."</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="029.jpg (120K)" src="images/029.jpg" height="609" width="618">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for
+I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, "Why hain't there any
+Hall's salve?"  Sez I, "Because old Hall has been dead for years and
+years, and hain't made any salve."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him,"
+he yelled out.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," sez I, "he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely
+onexpected five years ago last summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will
+become of me!" he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah."</p>
+
+<p>"Pond's Extract!" he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I
+wuz ashamed to hear him utter.</p>
+
+<p>And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of
+man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to
+take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me
+all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him
+a-purpose.</p>
+
+<p>He talked voyalent and mad. I tried to hush him down; I told him the
+author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" would hear him, and he hollered
+back "he didn't care a cent who heard him. He wuz killed, and he
+shouldn't live to trouble anybody long if that pain kept up."</p>
+
+<p>His acts and words wuz exceedingly skairful to anybody who didn't
+understand the nater of a man. But I wuzn't moved by 'em so much as the
+width of a horse hair. Good land! I knew that jest as soon as the pain
+subsided he would be good as gold, so I kep' on, cool and collected, and
+got the thorn out, and did up the suffering toe in Pond's Extract, and I
+hadn't only jest got it done, when, for all the world! if I didn't see a
+double team stop in front of the house, and I peeked through the winder
+and see as it wuz the livery stable man from Jonesville, and he had
+brung down the last straws to be lifted onto the camel's back&mdash;a hull
+lot of onexpected company. A hull load of 'em.</p>
+
+<p>There wuz the Baptist minister and his wife and their three children,
+and the minister's wife's sister-in-law from the West, who wuz there
+a-visitin', and the editor of the <i>Augur'ses</i> wife (she wuz related to
+the visitor from the West by marriage) and three of the twins. And old
+Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go
+to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the
+West's bosom friend, or used to be.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each
+other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+<a name="c6"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="030c6.jpg (107K)" src="images/030c6.jpg" height="706" width="590">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER VI.</p>
+
+<p>
+The author of "Peaceful Repose" sez to me, and she looked pale and
+skairt; she had heard every word Josiah had said, and she wuz dretful
+skairt and shocked (not knowin' the ways of men, and not understandin',
+as I said prior and before, that in two hours' time he would be jest as
+good as the very best kind of pie, affectionate, and even spoony, if I
+would allow spoons, which I will not the most of the time). Wall, she
+proposed, Miss Fogg did, that she should ride back with the livery man.
+And though I urged her to stay till night, I couldn't urge her as hard
+as I would otherwise, for by that time the head of the procession of
+visitors had reached the door-step, and I had to meet 'em with smiles.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="031.jpg (145K)" src="images/031.jpg" height="683" width="618">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>I smiled some, I thought I must. But they wuz curius smiles, very,
+strange-lookin' smiles, sort o' gloomy ones, and mournful lookin'. I
+have got lots of different smiles that I keep by me for different
+occasions, every woman has, and this wuz one of my most mournfulest and
+curiusest ones.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose" insisted on
+goin', and she went. And I sez to her as she went down the steps, "That
+if she would come up some other day when I didn't have quite so much
+work round, I would be as good as my word to her about hearin' her
+rehearse the lecture."</p>
+
+<p>But she said, as she hurried out to the gate, lookin' pale an' wan (as
+wan agin as she did when she came, if not wanner): "That she should make
+<i>changes</i> in it before she ever rehearsed it agin&mdash;<i>deep changes</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>And I should dare to persume to say that she did. Though, as I say, she
+went off most awful sudden, and I hadn't seen nor heard from her sence
+till I got this letter.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, jest as I got through with the authoresses letter, and Lodema
+Trumble's, Josiah Allen came. And I hurried up the supper. I got it all
+on the table while I wuz a steepin' my tea (it wuz good tea). And we sot
+down to the table happy as a king and his queen. I don't s'pose queens
+make a practice of steepin' tea, but mebby they would be better off if
+they did&mdash;and have better appetites and better tea. Any way we felt
+well, and the supper tasted good. And though Josiah squirmed some when I
+told him Lodema wuz approachin' and would be there that very night or
+the next day&mdash;still the cloud wore away and melted off in the glowin'
+mellowness of the hot tea and cream, the delicious oysters and other
+good things.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="032.jpg (49K)" src="images/032.jpg" height="479" width="345">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>My pardner, though, as he often says, is not a epicack, still he duz
+enjoy good vittles dretful well and appreciates 'em. And I make a stiddy
+practice of doin' the best I can by him in this direction.</p>
+
+<p>And if more females would foller on and cipher out this simple rule, and
+get the correct answer to it, the cramp in the right hands of divorce
+lawyers would almost entirely disappear.</p>
+
+<p>For truly it seems that <i>no</i> human man <i>could be</i> more worrysome, and
+curius, and hard to get along with than Josiah Allen is at times; still,
+by stiddy keepin' of my table set out with good vittles from day to day,
+and year to year, the golden cord of affection has bound him to me by
+ties that can't never be broken into.</p>
+
+<p>He worships me! And the better vittles I get, the more he thinks on me.
+For love, however true and deep it is, is still a tumultous sea; it has
+its high tides, and its low ones, its whirlpools, and its calms.</p>
+
+<p>He loves me a good deal better some days than he does others; I see it
+in his mean. And mark you! mark it well, female reader, these days are
+the ones that I cook up sights and sights of good food, and with a
+cheerful countenance and clean apron, set it before him in a bright
+room, on a snowy table-cloth!</p>
+
+<p>Great&mdash;great is the mystery of men's love.</p>
+
+<p>I have often and often repeated this simple fact and truth that
+underlies married life, and believe me, dear married sisters, too much
+cannot be said about it, by those whose hearts beat for the good of
+female and male humanity&mdash;and it <i>cannot</i> be too closely followed up and
+practised by female pardners.</p>
+
+<p>But I am a-eppisodin'; and to resoom.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Lodema Trumble arrove the next mornin' bright and early&mdash;I mean
+the mornin' wuz bright, not Lodema&mdash;oh no, fur from it; Lodema is never
+bright and cheerful&mdash;she is the opposite and reverse always.</p>
+
+<p>She is a old maiden. I do think it sounds so much more respectful to
+call 'em so rather than "old maid" (but I had to tutor Josiah dretful
+sharp before I could get him into it).</p>
+
+<p>I guess Lodema is one of the regular sort. There is different kinds of
+old maidens, some that could marry if they would, and some that
+would but couldn't. And I ruther mistrust she is one of the
+"would-but-couldn't's," though I wouldn't dast to let her know I said
+so, not for the world.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah never could bear the sight of her, and he sort o' blamed her for
+bein' a old maiden. But I put a stop to that sudden, for sez I:</p>
+
+<p>"She hain't to blame, Josiah."</p>
+
+<p>And she wuzn't. I hain't a doubt of it.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, how long she calculated to stay this time we didn't know. But we
+had our fears and forebodin's about it; for she wuz in the habit of
+makin' awful long visits. Why, sometimes she would descend right down
+onto us sudden and onexpected, and stay fourteen weeks right along&mdash;jest
+like a famine or a pestilence, or any other simely that you are a mind
+to bring up that is tuckerin' and stiddy.</p>
+
+<p>And she wuz disagreeable, I'll confess, and she wuz tuckerin', but I
+done well by her, and stood between her and Josiah all I could. He loved
+to put on her, and she loved to impose on him. I don't stand up for
+either on 'em, but they wuz at regular swords' pints all the time
+a'most. And it come fearful tuff on me, fearful tuff, for I had to stand
+the brunt on it.</p>
+
+<p>But she is a disagreeable creeter, and no mistake. She is one of them
+that can't find one solitary thing or one solitary person in this wide
+world to suit 'em. If the weather is cold she is pinin' for hot weather,
+and if the weather is hot she is pantin' for zero.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="033.jpg (44K)" src="images/033.jpg" height="482" width="366">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>If it is a pleasant day the sun hurts her eyes, and if it is cloudy she
+groans aloud and says "she can't see."</p>
+
+<p>And no human bein' wuz ever known to suit her. She gets up early in the
+mornin' and puts on her specs, and goes out (as it were) a-huntin' up
+faults in folks. And she finds 'em, finds lots of 'em. And then she
+spends the rest of the day a-drivin' 'em ahead of her, and groanin' at
+'em.</p>
+
+<p>You know this world bein' such a big place and so many different sort o'
+things in it that you can generally find in it the perticuler sort of
+game you set out to hunt in the mornin'.</p>
+
+<p>If you set out to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are
+perseverin'&mdash;if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
+till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
+such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
+cattle&mdash;why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
+will be a noble and happy hunter.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="034.jpg (112K)" src="images/034.jpg" height="596" width="596">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
+night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
+right along and chase 'em down.  Wall, Lodema never got led away from
+her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
+and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.</p>
+
+<p>But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
+always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
+huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
+It wuz! It wuz!</p>
+
+<p>And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
+wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
+visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
+the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues&mdash;they didn't
+fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr><br><br>
+
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
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+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p1.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
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+</td><td>
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+<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 3.</title>
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+
+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 3</h1>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p2.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p4.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+<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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;yes, indeed I
+did&mdash;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&mdash;"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&mdash;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&mdash;and your heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"In here, where everybody's is," sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his
+right hand&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it madded
+him so to be on the same side of the fence she wuz&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and three
+weeks, and four weeks&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a hull
+string of 'em as long as a procession.</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, and I spoke it right out before I thought&mdash;sez I&mdash;</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&mdash;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&mdash;sez he in a proud axent&mdash;</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&mdash;tin, and
+silver and wooden, and basswood, and glass, and etc.&mdash;and I thought it
+wuz a perfect shame that Lodema shouldn't have none of no kind&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;</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&mdash;</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&mdash;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&mdash;"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&mdash;"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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;and Cephas thought it
+would look better and more popular to have 'em all occupied&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;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'&mdash;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&mdash;to
+tell the end of the funeral here&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the very one he eat on last&mdash;-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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+
+
+
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+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p2.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
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+</td><td>
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+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 4</h1>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p3.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p5.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+<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 4.</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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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="#c13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c15">CHAPTER XV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></p>
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<a name="c13"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="054c13.jpg (97K)" src="images/054c13.jpg" height="720" width="597">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XIII.</p>
+
+<p>
+Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
+tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
+themselves&mdash;boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
+boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
+it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
+and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
+truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
+had got to thinkin' so.</p>
+
+<p>But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
+didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.</p>
+
+<p>Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
+had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
+himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
+pious.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="055.jpg (49K)" src="images/055.jpg" height="516" width="335">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
+high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.</p>
+
+<p>But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
+that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
+carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
+actin'.</p>
+
+<p>And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
+very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
+found that he had always been a pattern man&mdash;never had done a single
+mean act, so fur as wuz known.</p>
+
+<p>Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
+talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
+wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
+told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.</p>
+
+<p>Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
+would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
+comin' to a end.</p>
+
+<p>She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
+her&mdash;and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
+extremely sot.</p>
+
+<p>But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
+petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
+religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
+quite good ones.</p>
+
+<p>That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
+and above disagreeable to me.</p>
+
+<p>Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
+beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
+onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
+they would be better off.</p>
+
+<p>But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
+fur, they hain't megum enough.</p>
+
+<p>Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
+burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.</p>
+
+<p>It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
+mebby will be agin.</p>
+
+<p>But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
+anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?</p>
+
+<p>You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
+somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
+even whip 'em.</p>
+
+<p>No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
+beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
+truth in it.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="056.jpg (54K)" src="images/056.jpg" height="492" width="320">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
+Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
+on a stun&mdash;I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
+and there hain't no stun&mdash;and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
+achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
+no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.</p>
+
+<p>No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
+right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way&mdash;so nigh to it that
+seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
+its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.</p>
+
+<p>I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
+frequently, "before and after takin'."</p>
+
+<p>Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
+belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
+calmness, and joy&mdash;refreshin' indeed to contemplate.</p>
+
+<p>Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
+brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
+so much peace and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
+brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
+question, or ort to be.</p>
+
+<p>And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
+lookin' at it, and commandin' it to&mdash;or call some posys to fall down
+into my lap, right through, the plasterin'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
+me stayed to Jonesville.</p>
+
+<p>Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
+do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
+deal of the time.</p>
+
+<p>I most know I couldn't.</p>
+
+<p>But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
+and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
+Natur.</p>
+
+<p>And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
+it.</p>
+
+<p>And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
+of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
+breath leaves their body.</p>
+
+<p>Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
+beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
+never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.</p>
+
+<p>And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
+meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
+felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
+lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.</p>
+
+<p>They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
+at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of their
+childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.</p>
+
+<p>I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
+or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
+imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
+imperfect world.</p>
+
+<p>But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
+about 'em&mdash;you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
+and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
+away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
+too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c14"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="057c14.jpg (97K)" src="images/057c14.jpg" height="692" width="603">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XIV.</p>
+
+<p>
+He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
+last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
+end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
+didn't either. And I sez to her, "The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
+to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
+Father when that great day shall be." And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
+I, "How should <i>you</i> be expected to know it?"</p>
+
+<p>Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, "My name
+wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that <i>wuzn't</i> to know it!"</p>
+
+<p>And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
+believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
+with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side&mdash;you
+know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
+side&mdash;you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
+end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
+did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
+use in disputin' back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
+our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
+old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
+naterally wanted to be round at the time.</p>
+
+<p>She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
+her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
+Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
+his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
+wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
+up as any way.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah didn't like it at all.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
+right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
+thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
+lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance&mdash;not fierce, you know,
+or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
+ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
+fierce.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="058.jpg (60K)" src="images/058.jpg" height="501" width="358">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
+amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.</p>
+
+<p>And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
+jest <i>knew</i> the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
+of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
+to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
+made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns&mdash;so she told me in
+confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.</p>
+
+<p>She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
+for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.</p>
+
+<p>But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
+anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
+old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.</p>
+
+<p>His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
+steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length&mdash;Joe is
+tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
+request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
+allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
+for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
+likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
+what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
+she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
+human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
+joke, Jenette duz: "I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
+got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
+would be glad the world <i>wuz</i> comin' to a end."</p>
+
+<p>But he <i>didn't</i> look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
+see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
+he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
+with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
+have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
+everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.</p>
+
+<p>He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
+reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
+'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
+house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
+handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
+barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
+order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son&mdash;yes, Joe couldn't be a
+more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.</p>
+
+<p>He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
+there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
+too.</p>
+
+<p>But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
+always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
+religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
+some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
+Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
+honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
+And Jenette liked Joe <i>I</i> knew, though she fooled a good many on the
+subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
+she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
+the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
+bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
+eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
+have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her&mdash;she wuz sick
+a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
+to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.</p>
+
+<p>And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
+always said.</p>
+
+<p>She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
+to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
+girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
+said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
+gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
+said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
+said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
+goodness to 'em.</p>
+
+<p>That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
+pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
+to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
+and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
+life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
+enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
+night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
+little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
+comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
+and thought her eyes on him.</p>
+
+<p>And he wuz a smart chap&mdash;awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
+married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
+home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
+weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.</p>
+
+<p>That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
+prior and beforehand.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
+man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.</p>
+
+<p>He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
+over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
+property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
+dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.</p>
+
+<p>For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
+think such a girl as Jenette had been&mdash;such a patient, good creeter, and
+such a good-tempered one, and everything&mdash;to think her pa should have
+forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
+the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
+their money and make Jenette trouble.</p>
+
+<p>But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
+I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.</p>
+
+<p>But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
+day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
+and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.</p>
+
+<p>That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
+sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
+highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.</p>
+
+<p>Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
+but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
+a bright face.</p>
+
+<p>If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
+did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
+good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
+dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
+locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
+laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
+to the rattle of a bone.</p>
+
+<p>And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
+it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.</p>
+
+<p>The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
+by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
+the qualities kinder struck in and she <i>wuz</i> happy, and she <i>wuz</i>
+contented&mdash;that is, I s'poze so.</p>
+
+<p>Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
+tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
+to home&mdash;not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
+lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
+would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
+there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
+like a meteor.</p>
+
+<p>Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
+movin' constantly through space&mdash;but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
+meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
+I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
+face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
+weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
+spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
+couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
+who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
+One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
+of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
+admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
+good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
+'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.</p>
+
+<p>And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
+the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
+got to goin'.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="059.jpg (53K)" src="images/059.jpg" height="506" width="453">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
+pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
+and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
+curls all over her head.</p>
+
+<p>Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
+a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
+speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
+Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
+on the other side, and got through with it.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
+dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.</p>
+
+<p>A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
+make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
+when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
+she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
+couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
+must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
+had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
+But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
+was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
+Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
+need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
+case of the world's endin'.</p>
+
+<p>And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, "that
+she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
+the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes."</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
+Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
+mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.</p>
+
+<p>She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
+time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
+Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
+in front.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
+drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
+dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
+like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
+but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
+whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
+hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.</p>
+
+<p>But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
+Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
+get better and she did.</p>
+
+<p>One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
+the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
+congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
+would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
+month.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="060.jpg (152K)" src="images/060.jpg" height="689" width="635">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley
+school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the next
+mornin' Miss  Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that evenin'. It
+wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah had to be
+away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy loaded, and
+wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.</p>
+
+<p>But she said "that she felt that the walk would do her good."</p>
+
+<p>I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said "stanchils and
+religion wuz two separate things." Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
+to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
+And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
+another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
+or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
+in onxiety&mdash;it hain't my way.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c15"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="061c15.jpg (104K)" src="images/061c15.jpg" height="732" width="580">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XV.</p>
+
+<p>
+Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
+Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
+Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
+carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
+his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
+Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
+with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
+her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
+size.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
+enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
+been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach&mdash;a sort of
+a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
+her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
+old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
+thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
+wuz tightenin'.</p>
+
+<p>And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
+old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
+And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
+head and said, "she didn't approve of it&mdash;she thought a chicken ought to
+be brung up by a hen."</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Charnick said, "Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
+perished right there in the nest."</p>
+
+<p>But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, "that it wuz
+a hen's business, and nobody else's."</p>
+
+<p>And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
+hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
+if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to&mdash;they ought to
+be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
+wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
+the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
+to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.</p>
+
+<p>And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
+and she said "that basks had gone out."</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
+thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
+Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.</p>
+
+<p>"Basks <i>wuz out</i>, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
+polenay."</p>
+
+<p>And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
+Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
+"Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
+got so little time to wear 'em."</p>
+
+<p>And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
+somethin' about "hired girls keepin' their place."</p>
+
+<p>And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
+Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
+makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
+fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
+Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
+their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
+others.</p>
+
+<p>It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
+Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
+said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.</p>
+
+<p>And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
+kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
+her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
+fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
+in&mdash;I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
+knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
+disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
+do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
+sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
+his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
+her belief.</p>
+
+<p>But Josiah said, "he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
+if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
+guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself." And he owned up that
+he wuz.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
+breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
+overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
+come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
+and press the seams.</p>
+
+<p>I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
+for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
+meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
+had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.</p>
+
+<p>She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
+but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
+that day. She sez, "The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
+a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!" sez she.</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
+riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
+commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
+Hubbard."</p>
+
+<p>"It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she.</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
+them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
+mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
+bitterly reproved him. But he sez, "If the world don't come to a end,
+the corn will be needed."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will," she sez in a cold, haughty tone.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="062.jpg (158K)" src="images/062.jpg" height="693" width="638">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"Wall," sez he, "if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
+settin' round." And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
+jawed me for upholdin' him.</p>
+
+<p>And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
+previous to eatin' it, sez she, "I should think <i>respect</i>, respect for
+the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
+of the idea of goin' on with your work."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I calmly, "Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, not exactly scare," sez she, "but lift up, lift up far above
+bread and other kitchen work."</p>
+
+<p>And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, "I don't s'poze
+I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
+of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
+that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
+would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
+ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
+grandchildren." (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
+to dinner.)</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
+school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
+females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
+have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
+soar up above riz biscuit."</p>
+
+<p>And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
+another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, "What did
+they do there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do!" sez she, "why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
+wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
+em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile."</p>
+
+<p>I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
+I do say it), and sez calmly, "Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
+have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
+<i>some</i> things, things He has <i>commanded</i>. Everybody to their own way.
+I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
+solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
+believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
+power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever," sez I,
+"I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
+only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz <i>my</i> way to lay speechless
+or holler much&mdash;not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
+principle, but I never seemed to have a call to."</p>
+
+<p>"You would be far better if you did," sez Trueman's wife, "far better.
+But you hain't good enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" sez I, reasonably, "I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
+hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
+the <i>use</i> in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
+Him in public so many things as some do. Why He <i>knows</i> it. He <i>knows</i>
+all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
+you wuz His gardeen&mdash;as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
+<i>knows</i> what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
+"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
+'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
+temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
+regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
+our glorys. But when He <i>is</i> right there, in the midst of our soul, our
+life, why, <i>why</i> should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
+attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."</p>
+
+<p>That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
+with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
+one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
+biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."</p>
+
+<p>Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
+agin&mdash;thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
+years.</p>
+
+<p>But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
+and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
+disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.</p>
+
+<p>But before I could speak up and take his part, for I <i>will</i> not hear my
+companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
+her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
+be sent up.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
+that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
+Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
+meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
+in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
+by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
+had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.</p>
+
+<p>The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
+it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
+goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
+enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
+stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
+talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
+had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.</p>
+
+<p>But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
+on white book muslin robes. Good land!</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c16"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="063c16.jpg (105K)" src="images/063c16.jpg" height="721" width="602">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XVI.</p>
+
+<p>
+Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
+about 3 o'clock P.M.&mdash;afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
+a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
+warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.</p>
+
+<p>We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
+walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
+wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
+kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
+top of the him book.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
+a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
+and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known&mdash;Miss Charnick is a
+smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through&mdash;as mournful,
+skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
+out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
+way, and wierd&mdash;dretful wierd.</p>
+
+<p>And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
+preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
+days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
+men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
+and wept and cried.</p>
+
+<p>I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
+leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
+serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought&mdash;jest
+as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
+willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
+very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
+mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
+the certainties of the other.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="064.jpg (43K)" src="images/064.jpg" height="483" width="367">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
+soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
+go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
+shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
+alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
+each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
+big that the hull world must pass through it&mdash;and yet so small that the
+hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.</p>
+
+<p>My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
+mysterious arches, alone&mdash;and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
+alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
+no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
+onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had <i>got</i> to be
+parted.</p>
+
+<p>And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
+the bendin' heavens&mdash;we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
+on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
+through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
+celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
+side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
+June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.</p>
+
+<p>Not that I really <i>wanted</i> the world to come to a end that day. No,
+I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
+pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
+for the <i>sake</i> of livin'. I enjoy it.</p>
+
+<p>But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
+scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
+approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
+a-shinin' in his'n.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, as the pinter approached the hour, the excitement grew nearly, if
+not quite rampant. The believers threw their white robes on over their
+dresses and coats, and as the pinter slowly moved round from half-past
+three to quarter to 4&mdash;and so on&mdash;they shouted, they sung, they prayed,
+they shook each other's hands&mdash;they wuz fairly crazed with excitement
+and fervor, which they called religion&mdash;for they wuz in earnest, nobody
+could dispute that.</p>
+
+<p>Joe and Miss Pool kinder hung together all this time&mdash;though I ketched
+him givin' several wistful looks at Jenette, as much as to say, "Oh, how
+I hate to leave you, Jenette!"</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Pool would roust him up agin, and he would shout and sing with
+the frienziedest and most zealousest of 'em.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Charnick stood with her bag in her hand, and the other hand on
+the puckerin' string. I don't say what she had in the bag, but I do say
+this, that she had it fixed so's she could have ondone it in a secont's
+time. And her eyes wuz intent on the heavens overhead. But they kep
+calm and serene and cloudless, nothin' to be seen there&mdash;no sign, no
+change&mdash;and Ma Charnick kep still and didn't draw the puckerin' string.</p>
+
+<p>But oh, how excitement reined and grew rampant around that school-house!
+Miss Pool and Joe seemin' to outdo all the rest (she always did try to),
+till at last, jest as the pinter swung round to the very minute, Joe,
+more than half by the side of himself, with the excitement he had been
+in for a week, and bein' urged onto it by Miss Pool, as he sez to this
+day, he jumped up onto the tall stump he had been a standin' by, and
+stood there in his long white robe, lookin' like a spook, if anybody had
+been calm enough to notice it, and he sung out in a clear voice&mdash;his
+voice always did have a good honest ring to it:</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="poem">
+<tr><td>
+<p>  Farewell my friends,<br>
+  Farewell my foes;<br>
+  Up to Heaven<br>
+  Joe Charnick goes.</p>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+	</center>
+<p>And jest as the clock struck, and they all shouted and screamed, he
+waved his arms, with their two great white wings a-flutterin', and
+sprung upwards, expectin' the hull world, livin' and dead, would foller
+him&mdash;and go right up into the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>And Trueman's wife bein' right by the stump, waved her wings and jumped
+too&mdash;jest the same direction es he jumped. But she only stood on a camp
+chair, and when she fell, she didn't crack no bones, it only jarred her
+dretfully, and hurt her across the small of her back, to that extent
+that I kep bread and milk poultices on day and night for three weeks,
+and lobelia and catnip, half and half; she a-arguin' at me every single
+poultice I put on that it wuzn't her way of makin' poultices, nor her
+way of applyin' of 'em.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="065.jpg (141K)" src="images/065.jpg" height="629" width="628">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>I told her I didn't know of any other way of applyin' 'em to her back,
+only to put 'em on it.  But she insisted to the last that I didn't apply
+'em right, and I didn't crumble the bread into the milk right, and the
+lobelia wuzn't picked right, nor the catnip.</p>
+
+<p>Not one word did she ever speak about the end of the world&mdash;not a
+word&mdash;but a-naggin' about everything else.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I healed her after a time, and glad enough wuz I to see her
+healed, and started off.</p>
+
+<p>But Joe Charnick suffered worse and longer. He broke his limb in two
+places and cracked his rib. The bones of his arm wuz a good while
+a-healin', and before they wuz healed he was wounded in a new place.</p>
+
+<p>He jest fell over head and ears in love with Jenette Finster. For bein'
+shet up to home with his mother and her (his mother wouldn't hear to
+Jenette leavin' her for a minute) he jest seemed to come to a full
+realizin' sense of her sweet natur' and bright, obleegin' ways; and his
+old affection for her bloomed out into the deepest and most idolatrous
+love&mdash;Joe never could be megum.</p>
+
+<p>Jenette, and good enough for him, held him off for quite a spell&mdash;but
+when he got cold and relapsted, and they thought he wuz goin' to die,
+then she owned up to him that she worshipped him&mdash;and always had.</p>
+
+<p>And from that day he gained. Mother Charnick wuz tickled most to death
+at the idea of havin' Jenette for her own girl&mdash;she thinks her eyes on
+her, and so does Jenette of her. So it wuz agreeable as anything ever
+wuz all around, if not agreeabler.</p>
+
+<p>Jest as quick as she got well enough to walk, and before he got out of
+his bed, Trueman's wife walked over to see Joe. And Joe's mother hatin'
+her so, wouldn't let her step her foot into the house. And Joe wuz glad
+on't, so they say.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Charnick wuz out on the stoop in front of the house, when
+Trueman's wife got there, and told her that they had to keep the house
+still; that is, they say so, I don't know for certain, but they say that
+Ma Charnick offered to take Trueman's wife out to see her chickens, the
+ones she had brought up by hand, and Trueman's wife wantin' to please
+her, so's to get in, consented. And Miss Charnick showed her the hull 14
+of 'em, all fat and flourishing&mdash;they wuz well took care of. And Miss
+Charnick looked down on 'em fondly, and sez:</p>
+
+<p>"I lay out to have a good chicken pie the day that Joe and Jenette are
+married."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="066.jpg (67K)" src="images/066.jpg" height="569" width="546">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"Married!" sez Trueman's wife, in faint and horrified axcents. "Yes,
+they are goin' to be married jest as soon as my son gets well enough.
+Jenette is fixin' a new dress for me to wear to the weddin'&mdash;with a
+bask," sez she with emphasis. And es she said it, they say she stooped
+down and gathered some sprigs of thoroughwert, a-mentionin' how much
+store she set by it for sickness.</p>
+
+<p>But if she did, Trueman's wife didn't sense it, she wuz dumbfoundered
+and sot back by the news. And she left my home and board the week before
+the weddin'.</p>
+
+<p>They had been married about a year, when Jenette wuz here
+a-visitin'&mdash;and she asked me in confidence (and it <i>must</i> be kep, it
+stands lo reason it must), "if I s'posed that book muslin robe would
+make two little dresses?"</p>
+
+<p>And I told her, "Good land! yes, three on 'em," and it did.</p>
+
+<p>She dresses the child beautiful, and I don't know whether she would
+want the neighbors to know jest what and when and where she gets the
+materials&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It looks some like her and some like Joe&mdash;and they both think their eyes
+on it&mdash;but old Miss Charnick worships it&mdash;Wall, though es I said (and I
+have eppisoded to a extent that is almost onprecidented and onheard on).</p>
+
+<p>Though Josiah Allen made a excuse of borrowin' a plow (a <i>plow</i>, that
+time of night) to get away from my arguments on the Conference, and
+Submit's kinder skairt face, and so forth, and so on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He resumed the conversation the next mornin' with more energy than ever.
+(He never said nuthin' about the plow, and I never see no sign on it,
+and don't believe he got it, or wanted it.)</p>
+
+<p>He resumed the subject, and kep on a-resumin' of it from day to day and
+from hour to hour.</p>
+
+<p>He would nearly exhaust the subject at home, and then he would tackle
+the wimmen on it at the Methodist Meetin' House, while we Methodist
+wimmen wuz to work.</p>
+
+<p>After leavin' me to the meetin' house, Josiah would go on to the
+post-office for his daily <i>World</i>, and then he would stop on his way
+back to give us female wimmen the latest news from the Conference, and
+give us his idees on't.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="067.jpg (144K)" src="images/067.jpg" height="728" width="616">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>And sometimes he would fairly harrow us to the  very bone, with his
+dretful imaginins and fears that wimmen would be allowed to overdo
+herself, and ruin her health, and strain her mind, by bein' permitted to
+set!</p>
+
+<p>Why Submit Tewksbury, and some of the other weaker sisters, would look
+fairly wild-eyed for some time after he would go.</p>
+
+<p>He never could stay long. Sometimes we would beset him to stay and do
+some little job for us, to help us along with our work, such as liftin'
+somethin' or movin' some bench, or the pulpit, or somethin'.</p>
+
+<p>But he never had the time; he always had to hasten home to get to work.
+He wuz in a great hurry with his spring's work, and full of care about
+that buzz saw mill.</p>
+
+<p>And that wuz how it wuz with every man in the meetin' house that wuz
+able to work any. They wuz all in a hurry with their spring's work, and
+their buzz saws, and their inventions, and their agencys, etc., etc.,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>And that wuz the reason why we wimmen wuz havin' such a hard job on the
+meetin' house.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c17"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="068c17.jpg (99K)" src="images/068c17.jpg" height="732" width="576">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XVII.</p>
+
+<p>
+You see the way on't wuz: we had to do sumthin' to raise the minister's
+salary, which wuz most half a year behindhand, to say nothin' of the
+ensuin' year a-comin'. And as I have hinted at before but hain't gi'n
+petickulers, the men in the meetin' house had all gi'n out, and said
+they had gi'n every cent they could, and they couldn't and they wouldn't
+do any more, any way.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said more formally, there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the
+male brethern.</p>
+
+<p>Deacon Peedick thought he had gi'n more than his part in proportion, and
+come right out plain and said so.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Bobbet said "he wuzn't the man to stand it to be told right
+to his face that he hadn't done his share," and he said "he wuzn't the
+man either, to be hinted at from the pulpit about things." I don't
+believe he wuz hinted at, and Sister Bobbet don't And she felt like
+death to have him so riz up in his mind, and act so. I know what the
+tex' wuz; it wuz these words:</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."</p>
+
+<p>The minister didn't mean nothin' only pure gospel, when he preached
+about it. But it proved to be a tight-breasted, close-fittin' coat
+to several of the male brothers, and it fitted 'em so well it fairly
+pinched 'em.</p>
+
+<p>But there it wuz, Deacon Bobbet wouldn't gi'n a cent towards raisin' the
+money. And there wuz them that said, and stuck to it, that he said "he
+wouldn't give a <i>darn</i> cent."</p>
+
+<p>But I don't know as that is so. I wouldn't want to be the one that said
+that he had demeaned himself to that extent.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, he wouldn't give a cent, and Peedick wouldn't give, and Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Sypher wouldn't. They said that there wuz certain
+members of the meetin' house that had said to certain people suthin'
+slightin' about buzz saws.</p>
+
+<p>I myself thought then, and think still, that the subject of buzz saws
+had a great deal to do in makin' 'em act so riz up and excited. I
+believe the subject rasped 'em, and made 'em nervous. But when these
+various hardnesses aroze amongst some of the brethern, the rest of the
+men kinder joined in with 'em, some on one side, and some on the other,
+and they all baulked right out of the harness. (Allegory.) And there the
+minister wuz, good old creeter, jest a-sufferin' for the necessities of
+life, and most half a year's salery due.</p>
+
+<p>I tell you it looked dark. The men all said they couldn't see no way out
+of the trouble, and some of the wimmen felt about so. And old Miss Henn,
+one of our most able sisters, she had gi'n out, she wuz as mad as her
+own sirname about how her Metilda had been used.</p>
+
+<p>The meetin' house had just hauled her up for levity. And I thought then,
+and think now, that the meetin' house wuz too hard on Metilda Henn.</p>
+
+<p>She did titter right out in protracted meetin', Sister Henn don't deny
+it, and she felt dretful bad about it, and so did I. But Metilda said,
+and stuck to it, that she couldn't have helped laughin' if it had been
+to save her life. And though I realized the awfulness of it, still, when
+some of the brethern wuz goin' on dretful about it, I sez to 'em:</p>
+
+<p>"The Bible sez there is a time to laugh, and I don't know when that is,
+unless it is when you can't help it."</p>
+
+<p>What she wuz a-laughin' at wuz this:</p>
+
+<p>There wuz a widder woman by the name of Nancy Lum that always come to
+evenin' meetin's.</p>
+
+<p>She wuz very tall and humbly, and she had been on the look out (so it
+wuz s'pozed) for a 3d husband for some time.</p>
+
+<p>She had always made a practice of saying one thing over and over to all
+the protracted and Conference meetin's, and she would always bust out
+a-cryin' before she got it all out.</p>
+
+<p>She always said "she wanted to be found always at the foot of the
+Cross."</p>
+
+<p>She would always begin this remark dretful kinder loud and hysterical,
+and then would dwindle down kinder low at the end on't, and bustin' out
+into tears somewhere through it from first to last.</p>
+
+<p>But this evenin' suthin' had occurred to make her more hysterical and
+melted down than usial. Some say it wuz because Deacon Henshaw wuz
+present for the first time after his wive's death.</p>
+
+<p>But any way, she riz up lookin' awful tall and humbly&mdash;she was most a
+head taller than any man there&mdash;and she sez out loud and strong:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to be found&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And then she busted right out a-cryin' hard. And she sobbed for some
+time. And then she begun agin,</p>
+
+<p>"I want to be found&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And then she busted out agin.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="069.jpg (157K)" src="images/069.jpg" height="680" width="613">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>And so it went on for some time&mdash;she a-tellin' out ever and anon loud
+and firm, "that she wanted to be found&mdash;" and then bustin' into tears.</p>
+
+<p>Till finally Deacon Henshaw (some mistrust that he is on the point of
+gettin' after her, and he always leads the singin' any way) he struck
+right out onto the him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>  "Oh, that will be joyful!"</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Lum sot down.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, that wuz what made Metilda Henn titter. And that was what made me
+bring forward that verse of scripter.
+That the Bible said "'there wuz a time to laugh,' and I didn't know when
+it wuz unless it wuz when you couldn't help it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But I didn't say it to uphold Metilda&mdash;no, indeed. I only said it
+because they wuz so bitter on her, and laid the rules of the meetin'
+house down on her so heavy.</p>
+
+<p>But Josiah said, "What would become of the meetin' house if it didn't
+punish its unruly members?"</p>
+
+<p>And I sez to Josiah, "Do you remember the case of Deacon Widrig over in
+Loontown. He wuz rich and influential, and when he wuz complained of,
+and the meetin' house sot on him, they sot light, and you know it,
+Josiah Allen. And he was kep in the church, the meen old creeter. And
+Miss Henn is a widder and poor."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez Josiah, calmly, "she hain't been able to help the meetin'
+house much, and Brother Widrig contributes largely."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, in a fearful meanin' axent, "I hearn he did at the time he wuz
+up&mdash;I hearn he contributed <i>lots</i> to the male brethren who was a-judgin'
+him&mdash;but," sez I, "do you spoze, Josiah Allen, that if wimmen wuz
+allowed their way in the matter, that that man would be allowed to stay
+in the meetin' house, and keep on a-makin' and a-sellin' the poisen that
+is sendin' men to ruin all round him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Makin' his hard cider by the barell and hogset and fixin' it some way
+so it will make a far worse drunk than whiskey, and then supplyin' every
+low saloon fur and near with it, and peddlin' it out to every man and
+boy that wants it.</p>
+
+<p>"And boys think they can drink cider without doin' any harm&mdash;so he jest
+entices 'em down into the road to ruin&mdash;doin' as much agin harm as a
+whiskey seller.</p>
+
+<p>"And mothers have to set still and see it go on. It is men that are
+always appinted to deal with sinners, male or female. Men are judged by
+their peers, but wimmen never are.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if that is just? I wonder how Deacon Widrig would have liked
+it to have had Miss Henn set on him? He wuz dretful excited, so I hearn,
+about Metilda's case&mdash;thought it wuz highly incumbient on the meetin'
+house to have her made a example of, so's to try to abolish such wicked
+doin's as snickerin' out in meetin'.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="070.jpg (119K)" src="images/070.jpg" height="636" width="623">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's
+mother set on him? She is a Sister  in the meetin' house and Charley is
+a ruined boy&mdash;and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin&mdash;
+jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if
+he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who
+have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of
+their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red
+with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and
+deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.</p>
+
+<p>"What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there
+and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other
+young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young
+hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that
+wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink.
+Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
+changed the smiles to curses?</p>
+
+<p>"Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
+paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
+jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
+easy.</p>
+
+<p>"They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
+down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
+down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.</p>
+
+<p>"Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
+But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
+no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
+downward?</p>
+
+<p>"How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
+and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
+love, a divine purity?"</p>
+
+<p>Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
+roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.</p>
+
+<p>And sez I, "Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
+Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
+the first cause of her goin' astray kep in&mdash;the handsome,
+smooth-faced hypocrite?&mdash;it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
+plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
+speeches and his money."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="071.jpg (133K)" src="images/071.jpg" height="649" width="616">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"Fixed over the meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
+towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
+pinted the other way."</p>
+
+<p>Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
+sez he,</p>
+
+<p>"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!"</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr><br><br>
+
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p3.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p5.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
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+</table>
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+<br><br>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 5.</title>
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+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 5</h1>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p4.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p6.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+<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 5.</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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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="#c18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c20">CHAPTER XX.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></p>
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+<a name="c18"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="072c18.jpg (100K)" src="images/072c18.jpg" height="751" width="606">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XVIII.</p>
+
+<p>
+Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
+what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
+most it is only <i>talk</i>, wimmen hain't got it in their power to <i>do</i>
+anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way&mdash;a little wind
+storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
+almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
+gently sarcestickle.</p>
+
+<p>"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
+that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
+that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
+man that led her astray."</p>
+
+<p>"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the
+almanac over and lookin' at the advertisement on the back side on't.</p>
+
+<p>"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
+against the mouths of the witnesses."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
+some composed.</p>
+
+<p>"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
+all to try her faith."</p>
+
+<p>I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
+well what the story wuz he referred to.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
+to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.</p>
+
+<p>She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
+their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
+eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.</p>
+
+<p>And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
+all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
+right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
+while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
+he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
+bitterly.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="073.jpg (56K)" src="images/073.jpg" height="529" width="369">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.</p>
+
+<p>And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
+it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
+'em.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, "Bretheren and
+sisters, let us sing these lines:</p>
+
+<p>  "He did it all to try her faith."</p>
+
+<p>I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
+by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes&mdash;nor I didn't
+smile&mdash;oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
+indignatin in my axents, and sez I, "Josiah Allen, can you look me in
+the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
+such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?" Sez
+I, "If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
+the influence of men that like hard drink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, as it were," sez Josiah, "I&mdash;that is&mdash;wall, it is a-gettin'
+bed-time, Samantha."</p>
+
+<p>And he wound up the clock and went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour&mdash;and I
+dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
+did.</p>
+
+<p>But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
+we felt that she wuz a great loss.</p>
+
+<p>Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
+hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
+had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
+time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
+help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
+a little help gin her when she needed it.</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Bobbet said "she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
+bein' cast down." And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
+wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
+of 'em did. But I sez to 'em&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Good land!" sez I. "We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
+meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
+and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
+help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
+and we can do it agin."</p>
+
+<p>Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
+jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
+the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
+spell.</p>
+
+<p>But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
+jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
+knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).</p>
+
+<p>We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
+other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
+prayed&mdash;we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
+rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
+Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
+and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
+to nothin' or not.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
+our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
+had a right to).</p>
+
+<p>After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
+best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
+enough to raise some money.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
+make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
+course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
+the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
+cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
+out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
+otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
+rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
+our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
+at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
+makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.</p>
+
+<p>But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
+we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.</p>
+
+<p>The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
+hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
+fix up the old house a little.</p>
+
+<p>The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
+right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
+half, or more than half, or even <i>all</i> the work. They said it wuzn't
+aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
+always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
+when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
+'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
+be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
+ways&mdash;nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
+meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
+resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
+which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
+meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
+approvals&mdash;and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint&mdash;we could
+<i>work</i> all we wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
+with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
+had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
+painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
+we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
+be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
+wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
+to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
+and the scrapin' had begun.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="074.jpg (95K)" src="images/074.jpg" height="606" width="581">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>The young male and female church members had give a public concert
+together, and raised enough money to get the paper&mdash;it wuz very nice,
+and fifty cents a roll (double roll).  These young females appearin' in
+public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
+and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
+I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
+sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
+our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.</p>
+
+<p>I sez, "I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
+es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
+of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
+sights of quavers."</p>
+
+<p>But they all said that wuz a <i>very</i> different thing.</p>
+
+<p>And sez I, "How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
+of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
+congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
+'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
+see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"&mdash;and
+sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
+had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and I
+wouldn't nuther.</p>
+
+<p>But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
+scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
+could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
+say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
+And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
+have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
+and 'Piscopals.</p>
+
+<p>No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
+do the scrapin' with case knives.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
+as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
+fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
+standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
+strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
+got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+<a name="c19"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="075c19.jpg (95K)" src="images/075c19.jpg" height="682" width="595">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XIX.</p>
+
+<p>
+Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
+that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
+is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
+before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
+to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.</p>
+
+<p>But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
+there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
+what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
+Methodist Meetin' House.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
+all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
+to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
+strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
+we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.</p>
+
+
+<p>And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
+any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
+thought quelled us down a sight.</p>
+
+<p>Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
+and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
+up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
+the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
+house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
+to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
+Conference.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="076.jpg (59K)" src="images/076.jpg" height="545" width="433">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
+Jonesville with a extra grip.</p>
+
+<p>So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
+workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
+bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
+from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.</p>
+
+<p>I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
+brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.</p>
+
+<p>He would talk <i>very</i> skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
+of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
+by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.</p>
+
+<p>I suffered.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah would set with the <i>World</i> and other papers in his hand,
+a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
+minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
+me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
+supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
+up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
+left off, the nite mairs would begin.</p>
+
+<p>I suffered beyond tellin' almost.</p>
+
+<p>The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
+wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
+rostrums. And sez he, "That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
+stand."</p>
+
+
+<p>And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
+not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
+work, I sez to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
+meetin' house?"</p>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="077.jpg (166K)" src="images/077.jpg" height="649" width="615">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<p>And Josiah said, "it wuz suthin' altogether different." And he assured
+me agin,</p>
+
+<p>"That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
+to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
+why," sez he, "that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
+most all the hard work in the church&mdash;such as raisin' money for church
+work&mdash;earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
+of charity work connected with it&mdash;teachin' the children, nursin' the
+sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But," sez he, "this is
+fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
+Conference. Why," sez he, in a haughty tone, "I should think they'd know
+without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
+Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
+wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
+vote for them?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the pint," sez Josiah, "that is the very pint I have been
+tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
+help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
+explain it to you that the word laymen <i>always</i> means woman when she can
+help men in any way, but <i>not</i> when he can help her, or in any other
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
+meetin' house."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, "the word laymen always means
+wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
+case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
+places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
+men."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, in a very dry axent, "Then the word man, when it is used in
+church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
+and drowdgin' round?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez Josiah haughtily, "And it always means men in the higher and
+more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
+on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so," sez he.</p>
+
+<p>"Who settled it?" sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"Why the men, of course," sez he. "The men have always made the rules
+of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
+difficult," sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, "It
+seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
+and when it means wimmen."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," sez Josiah. "It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
+wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
+word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word 'men', in
+that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
+and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
+taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
+right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
+votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
+where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.</p>
+
+<p>"Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
+understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
+born.' That means men and wimmen both&mdash;men and wimmen are both born,
+nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
+Now that means men only&mdash;anybody with one eye can see that.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
+both&mdash;consists&mdash;of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
+'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
+governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?" sez he.</p>
+
+<p>I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
+hand waitin' for it to bile&mdash;"I see a great deal, Josiah Allen."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="078.jpg (126K)" src="images/078.jpg" height="697" width="607">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"Wall," sez he, "I am glad on't. Now to sum it up," sez he, with some
+the mean of a preacher&mdash;or, ruther, a exhauster&mdash;"to sum the matter all
+up, the  words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
+as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
+the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
+all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
+missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
+from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
+the meanin' of the word&mdash;sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
+both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
+their own idees, preachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?" sez
+he, proudly and loftily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
+biled. "Yes, I see."</p>
+
+<p>And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
+and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
+anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
+his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
+sect if I tried&mdash;clergymen, statesmen and all&mdash;so I didn't try, and I
+wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
+idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
+some good cream into it&mdash;I merely sez:</p>
+
+<p>"There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez he, "that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,"
+and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
+ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
+folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
+delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
+and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
+Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
+question I had put to him&mdash;for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
+skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
+elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
+recuperation, and so I sez agin them words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?" And Josiah said
+agin, "it wuz suthin' entirely different;" he said barells and rostrums
+wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
+hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
+argument full of Bible quotations and everything.</p>
+
+<p>And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
+the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
+skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
+the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
+that meetin house.</p>
+
+<p>And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
+then.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c20"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="079c20.jpg (100K)" src="images/079c20.jpg" height="729" width="595">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XX.</p>
+
+<p>
+Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
+and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
+meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
+we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
+wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
+middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
+round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
+and nerved up her body.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
+Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
+"Cleanliness <i>next</i> to godliness."</p>
+
+<p>So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
+with a willin' mind.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
+say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
+and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
+workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked&mdash;and all of the wimmen who
+wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
+a-workin' hard on articles for the fair&mdash;when all of a suddin the
+outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
+bretheren.</p>
+
+<p>They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
+Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
+wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
+to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
+it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
+that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
+derectin'.</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
+privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
+and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
+house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
+me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
+she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.</p>
+
+<p>And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
+near time for us to go home.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
+other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
+they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
+then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.</p>
+
+<p>I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
+temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
+the heat.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="080.jpg (135K)" src="images/080.jpg" height="678" width="605">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
+partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
+manners, and didn't say much.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
+news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
+way&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
+jest like you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, "no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
+wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
+your days at church work under the direction of us men."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you," sez she admirin'ly,
+"I could work jest like you&mdash;pass round the bread and wine and the
+contribution box Sundays?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Drusilly," sez he condesendinly, "these hard and arjuous dutys
+belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
+that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
+duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
+the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
+patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc."</p>
+
+<p>"But," sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
+deacon), "wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
+together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers&mdash;work for
+the good of the church together&mdash;go about doin' good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Drusilly," sez he, "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
+moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
+her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
+for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.</p>
+
+<p>"We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
+of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
+and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
+her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
+generally."</p>
+
+<p>Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
+of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
+the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
+side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
+usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
+transparent manner of speakin'.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
+"he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
+Conference, because it would <i>weaken</i> the Conference."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
+talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
+the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
+excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," sez he, "we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
+weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
+her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
+would admit would keep out a man. And that," sez he (a-leanin' back in
+a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), "that, you see, would
+tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="081.jpg (65K)" src="images/081.jpg" height="530" width="571">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, "move round a
+little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
+under it. And," sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
+and sweat offen my face, "Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
+holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
+'em? Some of 'em are very hefty," sez I, "and all of us Sisters almost
+are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
+and bile down; we would dearly love a little help," sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"I would help," sez Josiah in a willin' tone, "I would help in a minute,
+if I hadn't got so much work to do at home."</p>
+
+<p>And all the other male bretheren said the same thing&mdash;they had got to
+git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
+and I knew it.)</p>
+
+<p>But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
+it.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c21"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="082c21.jpg (109K)" src="images/082c21.jpg" height="731" width="584">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXI.</p>
+
+<p>
+Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
+his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
+of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
+a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
+the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
+the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
+she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.</p>
+
+<p>She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
+come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
+of his folks that day, over to Loontown.</p>
+
+<p>And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
+a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
+by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
+and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
+one work&mdash;deacon work&mdash;and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
+hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
+plain deacon work.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
+and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
+piece had convinced her&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
+should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
+be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
+would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="083.jpg (105K)" src="images/083.jpg" height="554" width="605">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
+this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
+up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
+tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
+bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his.  There was a bet upon these
+two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
+where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
+hollerin'.</p>
+
+<p>And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
+kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.</p>
+
+<p>His mean wuz wild.</p>
+
+<p>And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
+she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
+old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
+after 'em.</p>
+
+<p>And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
+a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
+nuther.</p>
+
+<p>And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
+invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
+long, long time, and it wuz what he called "A Travellin' Rat Trap." It
+wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="085.jpg (57K)" src="images/085.jpg" height="595" width="537">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
+machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em&mdash;rats
+or mice, or anything&mdash;and they do say that it wuz quite a success.</p>
+
+<p>Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
+all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
+chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
+out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
+minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.</p>
+
+<p>But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
+satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
+every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
+machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.</p>
+
+<p>Deacon Sypher had took the agency for "The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
+Boy of the Plain," and wuz doin' well by it.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
+winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
+tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
+took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
+deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
+and arneky.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="086.jpg (58K)" src="images/086.jpg" height="520" width="564">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
+help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.</p>
+
+<p>And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
+looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
+his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.</p>
+
+<p>He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
+away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
+his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
+about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
+as he could, to try it.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
+break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
+hardly dast to go nigh 'em.</p>
+
+<p>And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
+to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
+him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the
+"Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
+home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
+wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping Cow Boy."</p>
+
+<p>And then they said&mdash;the hull three of the deacons did&mdash;that any minute
+them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
+saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.</p>
+
+<p>And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
+demanded the hull of their time&mdash;every minute of it.</p>
+
+<p>So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
+of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.</p>
+
+<p>We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
+the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
+and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
+would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
+Curius as a dog, and curiuser.</p>
+
+<p>But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
+(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
+to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:</p>
+
+<p>"Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
+business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
+up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is on account of their minds," sez Josiah. "Men have got stronger
+minds than wimmen, that is the reason."</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Meechim sez agin&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
+deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
+if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez Josiah, "that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
+brains hain't so hefty es men's."</p>
+
+<p>But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
+loud, clear tone,</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shaw!"</p>
+
+<p>And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
+dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,</p>
+
+<p>"If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
+out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
+you are a-standin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," sez Josiah, in a polite axent,
+"certainly."</p>
+
+<p>And so the rest of the men said.</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah added to his remarks, as he went down the steps,</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better get home, Samantha, in time to cook a hen, and make some
+puddin', and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>And I sez, with quite a lot of dignity, "Have I ever failed, Josiah
+Allen, to have good dinners for you, and on time too?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," sez he, "but I thought I would jest stop to remind you of it,
+and also to tell you the last news from the Conference, about the
+deaconesses."</p>
+
+<p>And so they trailed down one after another, and left us to our work
+in the meetin' house; but as they disapered round the corner, Sister
+Arvilly Lanfear, who hain't married, and who has got a sharp tongue
+(some think that is why, but I don't; I believe Arvilly has had
+chances).</p>
+
+<p>But any way, she sez, as they went down the steps,</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet them men wuz a-practisen' their new parts of men
+superentendents, and look on us as a lot of deaconesses."</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="087.jpg (128K)" src="images/087.jpg" height="662" width="625">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez Sister Gowdy&mdash;she loves to put on Arvilly&mdash;"wall, you have
+got one qualificatin', Arvilly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank the Lord," sez she.</p>
+
+<p>And I never asked what she meant, but knew well enough that she spoke of
+her single state. But Arvilly has had chances, <i>I</i> think.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c22"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="088c22.jpg (111K)" src="images/088c22.jpg" height="768" width="610">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXII.</p>
+
+<p>
+I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me
+to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long,
+so I didn't care.</p>
+
+<p>Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in
+jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay
+to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his
+account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he
+wuz company, or lay out to.</p>
+
+<p>Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful
+good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.</p>
+
+<p>He had jest got home from the city.</p>
+
+<p>It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had
+to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody
+else couldn't sign.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="089.jpg (64K)" src="images/089.jpg" height="537" width="329">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful
+well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up
+powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper
+bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money
+that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had
+plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and
+museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et
+cetery, et cetery.</p>
+
+<p>He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder
+boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in
+the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very
+highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.</p>
+
+<p>And I sez, "Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's
+Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?"</p>
+
+<p>And he acted real scorfin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Wimmen's work!" sez he. "No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and
+too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such
+little trifles as wimmen's work."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if
+it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you
+are a-usin'?" sez I, "who educated you and made your life easy before
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother
+wuz a good woman.</p>
+
+<p>But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin'
+it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over
+with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz
+a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the
+table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of
+my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc.,
+etc.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="090.jpg (149K)" src="images/090.jpg" height="660" width="602">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>Sez Casper, "It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life," sez he,
+"when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen
+keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in
+that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the
+reasons why poor weak wimmen should <i>not</i> be admitted into that sacred
+enclosure&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what
+wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I
+have ever experienced. Why, he said," sez Casper, "that if wimmen wuz
+allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The
+next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly
+argument," sez Casper.</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been," sez my Josiah.</p>
+
+<p>"He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman
+a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear."</p>
+
+<p>"Well he might," sez Josiah, "well he might."</p>
+
+<p>Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This
+wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real
+solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only
+more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig
+some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its
+feet&mdash;no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of
+truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and
+curius I felt hearin' their talk.</p>
+
+<p>"And," sez I, "nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has
+had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I
+have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf," sez I, "deep
+and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his
+burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his
+unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the
+very depths of my soul at his freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"But," sez I, "when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as
+deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my
+emotions swelled up under my bask waste,</p>
+
+<p>"When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race,
+and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen
+are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach,
+I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and
+where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand
+and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all
+over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody
+says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the
+old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted
+and bring forth freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster
+would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him
+up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought
+and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many
+animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
+him so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', "no, you wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would," sez I. "And I'd 've enjoyed it <i>richly</i>" sez I, es I
+turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="091.jpg (128K)" src="images/091.jpg" height="681" width="572">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
+machin' for about the same length of time.</p>
+
+<p>But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
+a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
+done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.</p>
+
+<p>But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
+Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
+and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
+several days.</p>
+
+<p>And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
+must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.</p>
+
+<p>But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
+concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
+of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
+own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
+entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
+my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
+his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
+rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
+failure, and such.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="092.jpg (58K)" src="images/092.jpg" height="497" width="555">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
+and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
+and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
+takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
+seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
+I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
+to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake." Rosy wuz
+Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
+now a father's strong hand.</p>
+
+<p>Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always
+been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the
+savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property
+with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took
+his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.</p>
+
+<p>Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights
+and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the
+upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church
+by droves, and they jest worshipped him.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz
+lost&mdash;a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits,
+and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="093.jpg (58K)" src="images/093.jpg" height="554" width="352">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time&mdash;he felt
+weak and mauger.</p>
+
+<p>And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got
+in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she
+<i>needed</i> a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else
+she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with
+her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father
+wuz&mdash;so wouldn't Ralph come home.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked
+and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love
+and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith
+Robinson.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that
+the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost
+crazed him.</p>
+
+<p>He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with
+him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The
+world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so
+near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, "he
+walked with God." Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they
+wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for
+Yankees.</p>
+
+<p>And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a
+Presidential election.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph suffered.</p>
+
+<p>But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under
+the droppin's of the sanctuary.</p>
+
+<p>She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered
+up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under
+the steeple.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by
+the voice of his soul and his good silver watch&mdash;this volume of clamor,
+this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz
+perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin'
+dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he
+come down with nervous fever.</p>
+
+<p>He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he
+wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he
+bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no
+idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr><br><br>
+
+
+
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+<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 6.</title>
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+
+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 6</h1>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p5.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p7.htm">Next Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+<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 6.</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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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="#c23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></p>
+
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<a name="c23"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="094c23.jpg (102K)" src="images/094c23.jpg" height="723" width="582">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXIII.</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and
+Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got
+it.</p>
+
+<p>I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they
+all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister
+Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work
+of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't
+languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the
+female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in
+Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled
+me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel
+divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what
+day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend
+when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear
+a hankerchif pin or not&mdash;or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc.,
+etc., etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They
+meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case
+before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful
+that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence.
+One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder
+deprestin' about it.</p>
+
+<p>But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests
+with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled
+Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.</p>
+
+<p>We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go
+into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has
+always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice
+to Josiah Allen.</p>
+
+<p>Howsumever, I don't <i>know</i> that. But I do know that they started off
+a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back
+home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="095.jpg (48K)" src="images/095.jpg" height="524" width="317">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that
+said they bought 'em.</p>
+
+<p>And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some
+bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either
+one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the
+truth of this. I know what they <i>said</i>, they <i>said</i> the huntin' wuz
+excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.</p>
+
+<p>And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be
+excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they
+should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell
+and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.</p>
+
+<p>But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em,
+accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur
+bigger ones, and shot more deers.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a
+good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and,
+suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our
+journey to Loontown.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="096.jpg (123K)" src="images/096.jpg" height="640" width="581">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale
+and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been
+there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well
+as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts
+and their souls and their idealized fancies.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good
+a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.</p>
+
+<p>And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or
+mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24
+hours I begun to feel some as they did.</p>
+
+<p>But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.</p>
+
+<p>But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in
+that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre,
+and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.</p>
+
+<p>His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every
+mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all,
+had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and
+struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine
+sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.</p>
+
+<p>He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost
+as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But
+under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his
+good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire
+that wuz a-consumin' of him.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms
+and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss
+Timson to understand that I wuz there to <i>help</i> 'em if I could.</p>
+
+<p>"For," sez I softly, "the hull future time is left for us to weep in,
+but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson."</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves
+or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all
+through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).</p>
+
+<p>Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to
+give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be
+refused.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much
+from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his
+sleep, "buzz saw mill."</p>
+
+
+<p>But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and
+roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful." And I wouldn't
+waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor
+thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add
+in haste&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a
+real treat to keep awake all night, now and then."</p>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="097.jpg (59K)" src="images/097.jpg" height="521" width="464">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<p>No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case
+might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without
+disputin' with my Josiah.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time,
+still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
+stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
+language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
+feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
+strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
+the peace! the peace!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
+wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
+and inside, that he invoked.</p>
+
+<p>Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
+down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
+wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
+sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
+spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
+he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
+would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
+then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
+seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
+excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
+bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
+it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
+tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
+tackled him.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c24"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="098c24.jpg (93K)" src="images/098c24.jpg" height="699" width="586">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXIV.</p>
+
+<p>
+It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
+perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
+goes.</p>
+
+<p>Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
+And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
+to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
+of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
+tenderness and sweetness of nater.</p>
+
+<p>A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
+he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
+hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
+Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
+would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
+if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
+"business!"</p>
+
+<p>So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
+spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
+then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
+one of 'em good ones).</p>
+
+<p>He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
+ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
+or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
+make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
+and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
+to be.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="099.jpg (144K)" src="images/099.jpg" height="689" width="628">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
+is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
+and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
+in the mornin' would roust him up,  and I had come to see if he would
+omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Not ring the bells!" sez he, in wild amaze. "Not ring the church bells
+on the Sabbath day?"</p>
+
+<p>His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
+bells in the mornin'."</p>
+
+<p>"A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a <i>Christian</i> to not ring the
+Sabbath bells!"</p>
+
+<p>I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
+And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
+the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
+the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
+a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
+a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
+his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
+depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.</p>
+
+<p>But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
+anybody ever could, as he sez: "The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
+for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
+broke down and weak?" sez he.</p>
+
+<p>"No," sez I, honestly. "No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
+trap."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez he, "what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else."</p>
+
+<p>"But," sez I, "folks are made up different." Sez I, "The Bible sez so,
+and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you
+ever nervous?" sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"Never," sez he. And he added firmly, "I don't believe in nerves. I
+never did. There hain't no use in 'm."</p>
+
+<p>"It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then," sez I. "As a generel thing the
+Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever," sez I,
+"there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any
+way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one
+state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the
+sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to
+him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not
+have 'em rung in the mornin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a professor?" sez he.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"What perswaision?" sez he.</p>
+
+<p>"Methodist Episcopal," sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many
+errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set
+aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the
+Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause
+of religion languish&mdash;I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread
+desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:</p>
+
+<p>  "'The sound of the church-going bells,<br>
+  These valleys and hills never heard.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," sez I, "that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks
+seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and
+better time than they do to meetin'," sez I. "In your opinin' it hain't
+necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz,
+to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and
+agrivatin' to saint and sinner."</p>
+
+<p>"But," sez I, "they say they do it for the sake of religion."</p>
+
+<p>"Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks," sez he bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," sez I, "nor in a bell clapper."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," sez he, "that is a different thing entirely, that is to call
+worshippers together, that is necessary."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion."</p>
+
+<p>Sez he, "Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I candidly, "and in the sweet past they wuz necessary," sez
+I. "In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz
+fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what
+is runnin' over with clocks&mdash;everybody knows the time; they know it so
+much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right
+along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals,
+their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their
+visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They
+time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
+through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
+time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
+hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
+no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
+supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
+bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
+started.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a man with the Sunday <i>World</i> jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
+with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
+hain't a-goin' to start him.</p>
+
+<p>"And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
+novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
+and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
+won't start 'em.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="100.jpg (55K)" src="images/100.jpg" height="539" width="391">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
+church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
+trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
+bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
+bell on earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject," sez he (I had convinced
+him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
+wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). "But," sez he
+wavin' off that side of the subject, "the observance is so time honored,
+so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven," sez I, "that I know every single
+emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and
+associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in
+bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions
+that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt
+'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em.
+But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a
+feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony."</p>
+
+<p>"Agony!" sez he, "talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a
+more heavenly sound on earth."</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="101.jpg (124K)" src="images/101.jpg" height="693" width="616">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"So it has been to me," sez I candidly. "To me they have always sounded
+beautiful, heavenly. Why," sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond
+Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and
+insperation come to me borne out of  the past into my very soul, by the
+tender memories of the bells&mdash;thoughts of the great host of believers
+who had gathered together at the sound of the bells&mdash;the great army of
+the Redeemed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>  'Some of the host have crossed the flood,<br>
+and some are crossin' now,'</p>
+
+<p>thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to
+Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had
+used to him,</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a
+still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier
+roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine
+a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the
+hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over
+all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur
+off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells,
+a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin'
+memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears
+listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer
+beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet
+emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts,
+inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together
+at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the
+children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts
+of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their
+ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to
+their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave
+hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz
+ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed
+out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how
+the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
+with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
+(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
+emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
+have rung into my very soul.</p>
+
+<p>"But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
+dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
+sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
+common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
+lead me round a good deal of the time.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
+step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
+sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
+the year, better than they can without sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
+a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
+could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
+it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
+comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
+hain't so fortunate as I am.</p>
+
+<p>"I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
+also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
+get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
+I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
+gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
+than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
+in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
+on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
+subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
+of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.</p>
+
+<p>"What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
+sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
+a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
+from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep&mdash;the bells to them seem
+murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="102.jpg (134K)" src="images/102.jpg" height="644" width="626">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>"To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
+the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
+of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
+last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
+than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
+instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
+screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
+Religion.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
+under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
+sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
+we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
+have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
+So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
+the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
+can sleep in peace.</p>
+
+<p>"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
+benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
+can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
+can.</p>
+
+<p>"Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
+world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
+the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
+a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
+wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.</p>
+
+<p>"The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
+could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
+to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
+for 'em&mdash;the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
+It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
+always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
+oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
+under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
+that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
+coarser, more sensual vision."</p>
+
+<p>Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
+spread the Gospel."</p>
+
+<p>"And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I
+could, "Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of
+land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without
+the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he
+ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," he said, "he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with
+his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," he said, "it wuz different times now."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent
+over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind
+is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to
+the sick, and tender hearted always."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, <i>I</i> will help him," sez Deacon Garven, "I will watch, and I will
+pray, and I will work for him."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if
+he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the
+mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon,
+there would be a chance for him. Will you promise me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez he kinder meltin' down a little, "I will talk with the
+bretheren."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Promise me, Deacon Eben Garven, before you see 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Sez he, "I would, but I am so afraid of bringin' the Cause of Religeon
+into contempt. And I dread meddlin' with the old established rules of
+the church."</p>
+
+<p>Sez I, "Mercy and justice and pity wuz set up on earth before bells wuz,
+and I believe it is safe to foller 'em."</p>
+
+<p>But he wouldn't promise me no further than to talk with the bretheren,
+and I had to leave him with that promise. As things turned out
+afterwuds, I wuz sorry, sorry es a dog that I didn't shet up Deacon
+Garven in his own smoke house, or cause him to be shet, and mount a
+guard over him, armed nearly to the teeth with clubs.</p>
+
+<p>But I didn't, and I relied some on the bretheren.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph wuz dretful wild all the forepart of the night. He'd lay still for
+a few minutes, and then he would get all rousted up, and he would set up
+in bed and call out some words in that strange tongue. And he would lift
+up his poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long
+sermons in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon
+right through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know
+it by the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little
+in that same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.</p>
+
+<p>But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some&mdash;very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep&mdash;or it wuz a troubled sleep at first&mdash;but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.</p>
+
+<p>We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless,
+in our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="103.jpg (133K)" src="images/103.jpg" height="710" width="669">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"Your father is saved, the Lord be praised, we shall pull him through."</p>
+
+<p>She jest dropped onto her knees, and laid her head in my lap and cried
+and wept, but soft and quiet so's it wouldn't disturb a mice.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Timson wuz a-prayin', I could see that. She wuz a-returnin' thanks
+to the Lord for his mercy.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I sot demute, in that hushed and darkened room, a-watchin'
+every shadow of a change that might come to his features, with a
+teaspoon ready to my hand, to give him nourishment at the right time if
+he needed it, or medicine.</p>
+
+<p>When all of a sudden&mdash;slam! bang! rush! roar! slam! slam! ding! dong!
+bang!!! come right over our heads the wild, deafening clamor of the
+bells.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph started up wilder than ever because of his momentary repose. He
+never knew us, nor anything, from that time on, and after sufferin' for
+another 24 hours, sufferin' that made us all willin' to have it stop, he
+died.</p>
+
+<p>And so he who had devoted his hull life to religeon wuz killed by it.
+He who had gin his hull life for the true, wuz murdered by the false.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="104.jpg (158K)" src="images/104.jpg" height="667" width="645">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>His last move wuz to spread out his hands, and utter a few of them
+strange words, as if in benediction over a kneelin' multitude. And I
+thought then, and I think still, that he wuz pronouncin' a benediction
+on the savages. And I have always hoped that the mercy he besought from
+on High at that last hour brought down God's pity and forgiveness on all
+benighted savages, and bigoted ones, Deacon Garven, and the hull on 'em.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c25"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="105c25.jpg (104K)" src="images/105c25.jpg" height="717" width="618">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXV.</p>
+
+<p>
+The very next day after I got home from Miss Timson'ses, we wimmen all
+met to the meetin' house agin as usial, for we knew very well that the
+very hardest and most arjuous part of our work lay before us.</p>
+
+<p>For if it had been hard and tuckerin' to what it seemed the utmost limit
+of tucker, to stand up on a lofty barell, and lift up one arm, and
+scrape the ceilin', what would it be, so we wildly questioned our souls,
+and each other, to stand up on the same fearful hites, and lift <i>both</i>
+arms over our heads, and get on them fearful lengths of paper smooth.</p>
+
+<p>I declare, when the hull magnitude of the task we had tackled riz before
+us, it skairt the hull on us, and nuthin' but our deathless devotion to
+the Methodist meetin' house, kep us from startin' off to our different
+homes on the run.</p>
+
+<p>But lovin' it as we did, as the very apples in our eyes, and havin' in
+our constant breasts a determinate to paper that meetin' house, or die
+in the attempt, we made ready to tackle it.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="106.jpg (38K)" src="images/106.jpg" height="450" width="391">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>Yet such wuz the magnitude of the task, and our fearful apprehensions,
+that after we had looked the ceilin' all over, and examined the
+paper&mdash;we all sot down, as it were, instinctivly, and had a sort of a
+conference meetin' (we had to wait for the paste to bile anyway, it wuz
+bein' made over the stove in the front entry). And he would lift up his
+poor weak right arm, strong then in his fever, and preach long sermons
+in that same strange curius language. He would preach his sermon right
+through, earnest and fervent as any sermon ever wuz. I would know it by
+the looks of his face. And then he would sometimes sing a little in that
+same singular language, and then he would lay down for a spell.</p>
+
+<p>But along towards mornin' I see a change, his fever seemed to abate and
+go down some&mdash;very gradual, till just about the break of day, he fell
+into a troubled sleep&mdash;or it wuz a troubled sleep at first&mdash;but growin'
+deeper and more peaceful every minute. And along about eight o'clock he
+wuz a-sleepin' sweet for the first time durin' his sickness; it wuz a
+quiet restful sleep, and some drops of presperation and sweat could be
+seen on his softened features.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="107.jpg (158K)" src="images/107.jpg" height="726" width="632">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>We all wuz as still, almost, as if we wuz automatoes, we wuz so afraid
+of makin' a speck of noise to disturb him. We kep almost breathless, in
+our anxiety to keep every mite of noise out of his room. But I did
+whisper to Rosy in a low still voice&mdash;it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
+offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
+very afternoon&mdash;for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
+testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
+didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
+weakness&mdash;so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
+arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
+next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
+and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
+depend on, and what she had to do with.</p>
+
+<p>And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
+one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
+fair.</p>
+
+<p>And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
+us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
+them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
+melancholy groan all to herself.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="108.jpg (59K)" src="images/108.jpg" height="552" width="331">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
+and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
+I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
+that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
+wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
+Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
+always set the plate on for him&mdash;the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.</p>
+
+<p>But I'll bet that half or three quarters of that low melancholy groan of
+her'n wuz caused by the hardness of the job that loomed up in front of
+us, and the hull of mine wuz.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, that night Josiah Allen wuz a-feelin' dretful neat, fer he had
+sold our sorell colt for a awful big price.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a good colt; its mother wuz took sick when it wuz a few days old,
+and we had brung it up as a corset, or ruther I did, fer Josiah Allen
+at that time had the rheumatiz to that extent that he couldn't step his
+foot on the floor for months, so the care of the corset come on me, most
+the hull on it, till it got big enough to run out in the lot and git its
+own livin'.</p>
+
+<p>Night after night I used to get up and warm milk for it, when it wuz
+very small, for it wuz weakly, and we didn't know as we could winter it.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="109.jpg (139K)" src="images/109.jpg" height="633" width="617">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>We kep it in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell,
+but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out
+there in a icy night to feed it.  But jest as it is always the way with
+wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended
+on me, the better I liked it.</p>
+
+<p>Till I got to likin' it so well that it wuzn't half so hard a job for me
+to go out to feed it in the night as it would have been to laid still in
+my warm bed and think mebby it wuz cold and hungry.</p>
+
+<p>So I would pike out and feed it two or three times a night.</p>
+
+<p>That is the nater of wimmen, the weaker it wuz and the humblier it wuz,
+and the more it needed me, the more I thought on it.</p>
+
+<p>And as is the nater of man, Josiah Allen didn't seem to care so much
+about it while it wuz weak and humbly and spindlin'.</p>
+
+<p>He told me time and agin, that I couldn't save it, and it never would
+amount to anythin', and wuzn't nothin' but legs any way, and lots of
+other slightin' remarks. And he'd call it "horse corset" in a kind of
+a light, triflin' way, that wuz apt to gaul a woman when she come back
+with icy night-gown and frosty toes and fingers, way along in the night.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="110.jpg (134K)" src="images/110.jpg" height="684" width="612">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>He'd wake up, a-layin' there warm and comfortable on his soft goose
+feather piller and say to me:  "Been out to tend to your 'horse corset,'
+have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Horse corset</i>! 'Wall, what if it wuz?"</p>
+
+<p>Such language way along in the night, from a warm comfortable pardner to
+a cold one, is apt to make some words back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>And then he'd speak of its legs agin, in the most slightin' terms&mdash;and
+he'd ask me if didn't want its picter took&mdash;etc., etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>(I believe one thing that ailed Josiah Allen wuz he didn't want me to
+get up and get my feet so cold).</p>
+
+<p>But, as I wuz a-sayin', though I couldn't deny some of his words, for
+truly its legs did seem to be at the least calculation a yard and a half
+long, specilly in the night, why they'd look fairly pokerish.</p>
+
+<p>And though I knew it wuz humbly still I persevered, and at last it
+got to thrivin' and growin' fast. And the likelier it grew, and the
+stronger, and the handsomer, so Josiah Allen's likin' for it grew and
+increased, till he got to settin' a sight of store by it.</p>
+
+<p>And now it wuz a two-year-old, and he had sold it for two hundred and
+fifteen dollars. It wuz spozed it wuz goin' to make a good trotter.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, seem' he had got such a big price for the colt, and knowin' well
+that I wuz the sole cause of its bein' alive at this day, I felt that it
+wuz the best time in the hull three hundred and sixty-five days of the
+year to tackle him for sunthin' to give to the fair. I felt that the
+least he could do would be to give me ten or fifteen dollars for it. So
+consequently after supper wuz out of the way, and the work done up, I
+tackled him.</p>
+
+
+<br><br><hr><br><br>
+
+
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+<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 7.</title>
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+
+<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 7</h1>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
+<tr><td>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="p6.htm">Previous Part</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</td><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="9450-h.htm">Main Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+ </td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<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 7.</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&mdash;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&mdash;waitin',
+watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
+His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men&mdash;fallen men
+and fallen wimmen&mdash;workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
+in the hearts of a sinful world&mdash;weepin' pale-faced over its
+crucefixion&mdash;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&mdash;think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
+the Sanctuary&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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="#c26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#c28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></p>
+
+<p><i><a href="#appendix">Publishers' Appendix</a></i></p>
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<a name="c26"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="111c26.jpg (104K)" src="images/111c26.jpg" height="742" width="609">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXVI.</p>
+
+<p>
+He wuz jest a-countin' out his money prior to puttin' it away in his tin
+box, and I laid the subject before him strong and eloquent, jest the
+wants and needs of the meetin' house, and jest how hard we female
+sisters wuz a-workin', and jest how much we needed some money to buy our
+ingregiencies with for the fair.</p>
+
+<p>He set still, a-countin' out his money, but I know he heard me. There
+wuz four fifty dollar bills, a ten, and a five, and I felt that at the
+very least calculation he would hand me out the ten or the five, and
+mebby both on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>But he laid 'em careful in the box, and then pulled out his old
+pocket-book out of his pocket, and handed me a ten cent piece.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="112.jpg (128K)" src="images/112.jpg" height="649" width="623">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>I wuz mad. And I hain't a-goin' to deny that we had some words. Or at
+least I said some words  to him, and gin him a middlin' clear idee of
+how I felt on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Why, the colt wuz more mine than his in the first place, and I didn't
+want a cent of money for myself, but only wanted it for the good of the
+Methodist meetin' house, which he ort to be full as interested in as I
+wuz.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I gin him a pretty lucid idee of what my feelin's wuz on the
+subject&mdash;and spozed mebby I had convinced him. I wuz a-standin' with my
+back to him, a-ironin' a shirt for him, when I finished up my piece
+of mind. And thought more'n as likely as not he'd break down and be
+repentent, and hand me out a ten dollar bill.</p>
+
+<p>But no, he spoke out as pert and cheerful as anything and sez he:</p>
+
+<p>"Samantha, I don't think it is necessary for Christians to give such a
+awful sight. Jest look at the widder's mit."</p>
+
+<p>I turned right round and looked at him, holdin' my flat-iron in my right
+hand, and sez I:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Josiah Allen? What are you talkin' about?"</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="113.jpg (140K)" src="images/113.jpg" height="697" width="635">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>"Why the widder's mit that is mentioned in Scripter, and is talked about
+so much by Christians to this day. Most probable it wuz a odd one, I
+dare persume to say she had lost the mate to it. It specilly mentions
+that there wuzn't but one on 'em. And jest see how much that is talked
+over, and praised up clear down the ages, to this day. It couldn't have
+been worth more'n five cents, if it wuz worth that."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you spell mit, Josiah Allen?" sez I.</p>
+
+<p>"Why m-i-t-e, mit."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think," sez I, "that that spells mite."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, when you are a-readin' the Bible, all the best commentaters
+agree that you must use your own judgment. Mite! What sense is there in
+that? Widder's mite! There hain't any sense in it, not a mite."</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah kinder snickered here, as if he had made a dretful cute
+remark, bringin' the "mite" in in that way. But I didn't snicker, no,
+there wuzn't a shadow, or trace of anything to be heard in my linement,
+but solemn and bitter earnest. And I set the flat-iron down on the
+stove, solemn, and took up another, solemn, and went to ironin' on his
+shirt collar agin with solemnety and deep earnest. "No," Josiah Allen
+continued, "there hain't no sense in that&mdash;but mit! there you have
+sense. All wimmen wear mits; they love 'em. She most probable had a good
+pair, and lost one on 'em, and then give the other to the church. I tell
+you it takes men to translate the Bible, they have such a realizin'
+sense of the weaknesses of wimmen, and how necessary it is to translate
+it in such a way as to show up them weaknesses, and quell her down, and
+make her know her place, make her know that man is her superior in every
+way, and it is her duty as well as privilege to look up to him."</p>
+
+<p>And Josiah Allen crossed his left leg over his right one, as haughty
+and over bearin' a-crossin' as I ever see in my life, and looked up
+haughtily at the stove-pipe hole in the ceilin', and resoomed,</p>
+
+<p>"But, as I wuz sayin' about her mit, the widder's, you know. That is
+jest my idee of givin', equinomical, savin', jest as it should be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sez I, in a very dry axent, most as dry as my flat-iron, and that
+wuz fairly hissin' hot. "She most probable had some man to advise her,
+and to tell her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
+house." Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
+one I keep by me&mdash;and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
+necessity.</p>
+
+<p>"Most probable," sez Josiah, "most probable she did." He thought I wuz
+praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
+widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
+the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to
+mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
+up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me."</p>
+
+<p>But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
+burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:</p>
+
+<p>"If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
+livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you." And I would, if it wuz the
+last move I ever made.</p>
+
+<p>But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
+Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
+sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
+every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
+and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
+I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
+carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
+'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="114.jpg (41K)" src="images/114.jpg" height="515" width="464">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>And so the
+hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their money, told jest
+how they come by it.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
+Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
+banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
+mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
+cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
+exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
+has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.</p>
+
+<p>Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
+(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
+rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
+had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
+ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
+but she concluded to make it plain, and sent the ruffle money.</p>
+
+<p>And young Sister Serena Nott had picked geese for her sister, who
+married a farmer up in Zoar. She had picked ten geese at two cents
+apiece, and Serena that tender-hearted that it wuz like pickin' the
+feathers offen her own back.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="115.jpg (54K)" src="images/115.jpg" height="514" width="436">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>And then she is very timid, and skairt easy, and she owned up that while
+the pickin' of the geese almost broke her heart, the pickin' of the
+ganders almost skairt her to death. They wuz very high headed and
+warlike, and though she put a stockin' over their heads, they would lift
+'em right up, stockin' and all, and hiss, and act, and she said she
+picked 'em at what seemed to her to be at the resk of her life.</p>
+
+<p>But she loved the meetin' house, so she grin and bore it, as the sayin'
+is, and she brung the hull of her hard earned money, and handed it over
+to the treasurer, and everybody that is at all educated knows that twice
+ten is twenty. She brung twenty cents.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Grimshaw had, and she owned it right out and out, got four
+dollars and fifty-three cents by sellin' butter on the sly. She had took
+it out of the butter tub when Brother Grimshaw's back wuz turned, and
+sold it to the neighbors for money at odd times through the year, and
+besides gettin' her a dress cap (for which she wuz fairly sufferin'),
+she gin the hull to the meetin' house.</p>
+
+<p>There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in
+the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store.</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money
+got in that way.</p>
+
+<p>But Sister Lanfear sprunted up, and brung Jacob right into the argument,
+and the Isrealites who borrowed jewelry of the Egyptians, and then she
+brung up other old Bible characters, and held 'em up before us.</p>
+
+<p>But still we some on us felt dubersome. And then another sister spoke up
+and said the hull property belonged to Sister Grimshaw, every mite of
+it, for he wuzn't worth a cent when he married her&mdash;she wuz the widder
+Bettenger, and had a fine property. And Grimshaw hadn't begun to earn
+what he had spent sense (he drinks). So, sez she, it all belongs to
+Sister Grimshaw, by right.</p>
+
+<p>Then the sisters all begin to look less dubersome. But I sez:</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't she come out openly and take the money she wants for her own
+use, and for church work, and charity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is so hard with her," sez Sister Lanfear, "and tears round
+so, and cusses, and commits so much wickedness. He is willin' she should
+dress well&mdash;wants her to&mdash;and live well. But he don't want her to spend
+a cent on the meetin' house. He is a atheist, and he hain't willin' she
+should help on the Cause of religeon. And if he knows of her givin'
+any to the Cause, he makes the awfulest fuss, scolds, and swears, and
+threatens her, so's she has been made sick by it, time and agin."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall," sez I, "what business is it to him what she does with her own
+money and her own property?"</p>
+
+<p>I said this out full and square. But I confess that I did feel a little
+dubersome in my own mind. I felt that she ort to have took it more
+openly.</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Grimshaw's sister Amelia, who lives with her (onmarried and
+older than Sister Grimshaw, though it hain't spozed to be the case, for
+she has hopes yet, and her age is kep). She had been and contoggled
+three days and a half for Miss Elder Minkley, and got fifty cents a day
+for contogglin'.</p>
+
+<p>She had fixed over the waists of two old dresses, and contoggled a
+old dress skirt so's it looked most as well as new. Amelia is a good
+contoggler and a good Christian. And I shouldn't be surprised any day to
+see her snatched away by some widower or bachelder of proper age. She
+would be willin', so it is spozed.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Sister Henn kinder relented at the last, and brung two pairs of
+fowls, all picked, and tied up by their legs. And we thought it wuz
+kinder funny and providential that one Henn should bring four more
+of'em.</p>
+
+<p>But we wuz tickled, for we knew we could sell 'em to the grocer man at
+Jonesville for upwerds of a dollar bill.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="116.jpg (48K)" src="images/116.jpg" height="542" width="395">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>And Submit Tewksbury, what should that good little creeter bring, and we
+couldn't any of us hardly believe our eyes at first, and think she could
+part with it, but she did bring <i>that plate</i>. That pink edged, chiny
+plate, with gilt sprigs, that she had used as a memorial of Samuel
+Danker for so many years. Sot it up on the supper table and wept in
+front of it.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, she knew old china like that would bring a fancy price, and she
+hadn't a cent of money she could bring, and she wanted to do her full
+part towerds helpin' the meetin' house along&mdash;so she tore up her
+memorial, a-weepin' on it for hours, so we spozed, and offered it up, a
+burnt chiny offerin' to the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, I am safe to say, that nothin' that had took place that day had
+begun to affect us like that.</p>
+
+<p>To see that good little creeter lookin' pale and considerble wan, hand
+in that plate and never groan over it, nor nothin', not out loud she
+didn't, but we spozed she kep up a silent groanin' inside of her, for we
+all knew the feelin' she felt for the plate.</p>
+
+<p>It affected all on us fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>But the treasurer took it, and thanked her almost warmly, and Submit
+merely sez, when she wuz thanked: "Oh, you are entirely welcome to it,
+and I hope it will fetch a good price, so's to help the cause along."</p>
+
+<p>And then she tried to smile a little mite. But I declare that smile wuz
+more pitiful than tears would have been.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody has seen smiles that seemed made up, more than half, of unshed
+tears, and withered hopes, and disappointed dreams, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>Submit's smile wuz of that variety, one of the very curiusest of 'em,
+too. Wall, she gin, I guess, about two of 'em, and then she went and sot
+down.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c27"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="117c27.jpg (99K)" src="images/117c27.jpg" height="711" width="611">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXVII.</p>
+
+<p>
+And now I am goin' to relate the very singulerist thing that ever
+happened in Jonesville, or the world&mdash;although it is eppisodin' to tell
+on it now, and also a-gettin' ahead of my story, and hitchin', as you
+may say, my cart in front of my horse. But it has got to be told and I
+don't know but I may as well tell it now as any time.</p>
+
+<p>Mebby you won't believe it. I don't know as I should myself, if it wuz
+told to me, that is, if it come through two or three. But any way it is
+the livin' truth.</p>
+
+<p>That very night as Submit Tewksbury sat alone at her supper table,
+a-lookin' at that vacent spot on the table-cloth opposite to her, where
+the plate laid for Samuel Danher had set for over twenty years, she
+heard a knock at the door, and she got up hasty and wiped away her tears
+and opened the door. A man stood there in the cold a-lookin' into the
+warm cosy little room. He didn't say nothin', he acted strange. He gin
+Submit a look that pierced clear to her heart (so they say). A look
+that had in it the crystallized love and longin' of twenty years of
+faithfulness and heart hunger and homesickness. It wuz a strange look.</p>
+
+<p>Submit's heart begun to flutter, and her face grew red and then white,
+and she sez in a little fine tremblin' voice,</p>
+
+<p>"Who be you?"</p>
+
+<p>And he sez,</p>
+
+<p>"I am Samuel Danker."</p>
+
+<p>And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin'
+chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.</p>
+
+<p>And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair
+cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and
+the feather oozed out.</p>
+
+<p>I don't tell this for truth, I only say that <i>they say</i> thus and so.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="118.jpg (157K)" src="images/118.jpg" height="681" width="644">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And
+that they wuz married that  very night of his return, that too can be
+swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit&mdash;superanuated,
+but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the
+ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.</p>
+
+<p>But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so
+they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I
+don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years
+younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy
+he looks, and how he has renewed his age.</p>
+
+<p>The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't
+more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they
+wuz spozed to be envius.</p>
+
+<p>And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too,
+over both religous and seckuler grounds.</p>
+
+<p>One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for
+him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the
+plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself.
+How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of
+extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets
+down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="119.jpg (75K)" src="images/119.jpg" height="608" width="385">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p><i>They don't come!</i></p>
+
+<p>But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors
+onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and
+go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the
+frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to
+her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of
+company at that time of day.</p>
+
+<p><i>They come!</i></p>
+
+<p>Another moral and a more religeus one. When folks set alone sheddin'
+tears on their empty hands, that seem to 'em to be emptied of all
+hope and happiness forever. Like es not some Divine Compensation is
+a-standin' right on the door steps, ready to enter in and dwell with
+'em.</p>
+
+<p>Also that when Submit Tewksbury thought she had gin away for conscience'
+sake, her dearest treasure, she had a dearer one gin to her&mdash;Samuel
+Danker by name.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="120.jpg (140K)" src="images/120.jpg" height="683" width="639">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>Also I drew other ones of various sizes, needless to recapitulate, for
+time is hastenin', and I have eppisoded too fur, and to resoom, and take
+up agin on my finger the thread of my discourse, that  I dropped in the
+Methodist meetin' house at Jonesville, in front of the treasurer.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Submit brought the plate.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Nash brought twenty-three cents all in pennys, tied up in the
+corner of a old handkercif. She is dretful poor, but she had picked up
+these here and there doin' little jobs for folks.</p>
+
+<p>And we hadn't hardly the heart to take 'em, nor the heart to refuse
+takin' 'em, she wuz so set on givin' 'em. And it wuz jest so with Mahala
+Crane, Joe Cranes'es widder.</p>
+
+<p>She, too, is poor, but a Christian, if there ever wuz one. She had made
+five pair of overhawls for the clothin' store in Loontown, for which she
+had received the princely revenue of fifty cents.</p>
+
+<p>She handed the money over to the treasurer, and we wuz all on us
+extremely worked upon and wrought up to see her do it, for she did it
+with such a cheerful air. And her poor old calico dress she had on wuz
+so thin and wore out, and her dingy alpaca shawl wuz thin to mendin',
+and all darned in spots. We all felt that Mahala had ort to took the
+money to get her a new dress.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="121.jpg (118K)" src="images/121.jpg" height="615" width="609">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>But we dasted none on us to say so to her. I  wouldn't have been the one to
+tell her that for a dollar bill, she seemed to be so happy a-givin' her
+part towerds the fair, and for the good of the meetin' house she loved.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Sister Meachim had earned two dollars above her wages&mdash;she is a
+millinner by perswasion, and works at a millinner's shop in Jonesville.
+She had earned the two dollars by stayin' and workin' nights after the
+day's work wuz done.</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Arvilly Lanfear had earned three dollars and twenty-eight
+cents by canvassin' for a book. The name of the book wuz: "The Wild,
+Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man."</p>
+
+<p>And Arvilly said she had took solid comfort a-sellin' it, though she
+had to wade through snow and slush half way up to her knees some of the
+time, a-trailin' round from house to house a-takin' orders fer it. She
+said she loved to sell a book that wuz full of truth from the front page
+to the back bindin'.</p>
+
+<p>As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had
+some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I
+wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to&mdash;sez I,
+"Arvilly, men are <i>jest</i> as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite
+better."</p>
+
+<p>And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I
+gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly
+afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of
+but'nuts.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="122.jpg (57K)" src="images/122.jpg" height="552" width="388">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought
+the worth on it.</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her
+for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't
+no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a
+halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she
+calculated to make the old ones do.</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years
+old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all
+swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three
+pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have
+laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said
+a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she
+felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very
+strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.</p>
+
+<p>She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so
+Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she <i>had</i> to have to get
+Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We
+all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman
+there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands,
+besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't
+have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now
+he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't
+have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she
+had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for
+emergincies or bunnets.</p>
+
+<p>She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed
+right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work.
+When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out
+of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough
+strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it
+would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the
+Deacon's feet.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her
+uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.</p>
+
+<p>And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and
+gin it to the fair to sell.</p>
+
+<p>We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy
+needed it.</p>
+
+<p>But she would make us take it; she said "if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive,
+she would say to her,</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the
+dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress
+and mourn fer me in a black calico."</p>
+
+<p><i>That</i> Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say
+to her if she wuz alive.</p>
+
+<p>And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy
+worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything.
+She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or
+children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps,
+and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="123.jpg (127K)" src="images/123.jpg" height="705" width="630">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<blockquote><blockquote>
+<p>  "I love thy kingdom, Lord,<br>
+  The house of thine abode,<br>
+  The church our dear Redeemer bought<br>
+  With His most precious blood."</p>
+</blockquote></blockquote>
+<p>The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes,
+and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><blockquote>
+<p>  "For her my tears shall fall,<br>
+  For her my prayers ascend,<br>
+  For her my toil and life be given,<br>
+  Till life and toil shall end."</p>
+</blockquote></blockquote>
+
+<p>The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how
+she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought
+of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars;
+the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten
+to the fair.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother
+Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she
+hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived
+with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always
+sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the
+meetin' house.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for
+this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin'
+got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and
+paperin'.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<a name="c28"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="124c28.jpg (111K)" src="images/124c28.jpg" height="755" width="592">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>
+CHAPTER XXVIII.</p>
+
+<p>
+Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best
+qualified to lead off in the arjeous and hazerdous enterprize.</p>
+
+<p>And though we deeply felt the honor they wuz a-heapin' on to us, yet
+es it hes been, time and agin, in other high places in the land, if it
+hadn't been fer duty that wuz a-grippin' holt of us, we would gladly
+have shirked out of it and gin the honor to some humble but worthy
+constituent.</p>
+
+<p>Fer the lengths of paper wuz extremely long, the ceilin' fearfully high,
+and oh! how lofty and tottlin' the barells looked to us. And we both on
+us, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I, had giddy and dizzy spells right on
+the ground, let alone bein' perched up on barells, a-liftin' our arms up
+fur, fur beyond the strength of their sockets.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="125.jpg (106K)" src="images/125.jpg" height="600" width="616">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>But duty wuz a-callin' us, and the other wimmen  also, and it wuzn't for
+me, nor Sister Sylvester Bobbet to wave her nor them off, or shirk out
+of hazerdous and dangerous jobs when the good of the Methodist Meetin'
+House wuz at the Bay.</p>
+
+<p>No, with as lofty looks as I ever see in my life (I couldn't see my own,
+but I felt 'em), and with as resolute and martyrous feelin's as ever
+animated two wimmen's breasts, Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I grasped
+holt of the length of paper, one on each end on it, Sister Arvilly
+Lanfear and Miss Henzy a-holdin' it up in the middle like Aaron and Hur
+a-holdin' up Moses'ses arms. We advanced and boldly mounted up onto our
+two barells, Miss Gowdy and Sister Sypher a-holdin' two chairs stiddy
+for us to mount up on.</p>
+
+<p>Every eye in the meetin' house wuz on us. We felt nerved up to do our
+best, even if we perished in so doin', and I didn't know some of the
+time but we would fall at our two posts. The job wuz so much more
+wearin' and awful than we had foreboded, and we had foreboded about it
+day and night for weeks and weeks, every one on us.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme hite of the ceilin'; the slipperyness and fragility of the
+lengths of paper; the fearful hite and tottlin'ness of the barells; the
+dizzeness that swept over us at times, in spite of our marble efforts to
+be calm. The dretful achin' and strainin' of our armpits, that bid fair
+to loosen 'em from their four sockets. The tremenjous responsibility
+that laid onto us to get the paper on smooth and onwrinkled.</p>
+
+<p>It wuz, takin' it altogether, the most fearful and wearisome hour of my
+hull life.</p>
+
+<p>Every female in the room held her breath in deathless anxiety (about
+thirty breaths). And every eye in the room wuz on us (about fifty-nine
+eyes&mdash;Miss Shelmadine hain't got but one workin' eye, the other is
+glass, though it hain't known, and must be kep).</p>
+
+<p>Wall, it wuz a-goin' on smooth and onwrinkled&mdash;smiles broke out on every
+face, about thirty smiles&mdash;a half a minute more and it would be done,
+and done well. When at that tryin' and decisive moment when the fate of
+our meetin' house wuz, as you may say, at the stake, we heard the sound
+of hurryin' feet, and the door suddenly opened, and in walked Josiah
+Allen, Deacon Sypher, and Deacon Henzy followed by what seemed to me at
+the time to be the hull male part of the meetin' house.</p>
+
+<p>But we found out afterwerds that there wuz a few men in the meetin'
+house that thought wimmen ort to set; they argued that when wimmen had
+been standin' so long they out to set down; they wuz good dispositioned.
+But as I sez at the time, it looked to us as if every male Methodist in
+the land wuz there and present.</p>
+
+<p>They wuz in great spirits, and their means wuz triumphant and satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>They had jest got the last news from the Conference in New York village,
+and had come down in a body to disseminate it to us.</p>
+
+<p>They said the Methodist Conference had decided that the seven wimmen
+that had been stood up there in New York for the last week, couldn't
+set, that they wuz too weak and fraguile to set on the Conference.</p>
+
+<p>And then the hull crowd of men, with smiles and haughty linements, beset
+Josiah to read it out to us.</p>
+
+<p>So Josiah Allen, with his face nearly wreathed with a smile, a blissful
+smile, but as high headed a one as I ever see, read it all out to us.
+But he should have to hurry, he said, for he had got to carry the great
+and triumphant news all round, up as fur as Zoar, if he had time.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="126.jpg (143K)" src="images/126.jpg" height="709" width="629">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>And so he read it out to us, and as we see that  that
+breadth wuz spilte, we stopped our work for a minute and heard it.</p>
+
+<p>And after he had finished it, they all said it wuz a masterly dockument,
+the decision wuz a noble one, and it wuz jest what they had always said.
+They said they had always known that wimmen wuz too weak, her frame wuz
+too tender, she was onfitted by Nater, in mind and in body to contend
+with such hardship. And they all agreed that it would be puttin' the men
+in a bad place, and takin' a good deal offen their dignity, if the fair
+sex had been allowed by them to take such hardships onto 'em. And they
+sez, some on 'em, "Why! what are men in the Methodist meetin' house for,
+if it hain't to guard the more weaker sect, and keep cares offen 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>And one or two on 'em mentioned the words, "cooin' doves" and "sweet
+tender flowerets," as is the way of men at such times. But they wuz in
+too big a hurry to spread themselves (as you may say) in this direction.
+They had to hurry off to tell the great news to other places in
+Jonesville and up as fer as Loontown and Zoar.</p>
+
+<p>But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door
+as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate
+a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the
+nation on the decesion, for, sez they,</p>
+
+<p>"Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the
+time."</p>
+
+<p>And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If they are as beet out as we be they'd be glad to set down on
+anything&mdash;a Conference or anything else."</p>
+
+<p>And I sez, a-wipin' the presperatin of hard labor from my forwerd,</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake! Yes! I should think so."</p>
+
+<p>And then with giddy heads and strainin' armpits we tackled the meetin'
+house agin.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="127.jpg (100K)" src="images/127.jpg" height="739" width="612">
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<a name="appendix"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+<h2>
+PUBLISHERS' APPENDIX.</h2>
+<br>
+<p>
+In view of the frequent reference, in this work, to the discussion in
+and preceding the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
+of 1888, in regard to the admission of women delegates, the publishers
+have deemed it desirable to append the six following addresses delivered
+on the floor of the Conference during the progress of that discussion.</p>
+
+<p>The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the highest
+legislative body of that denomination. It is composed of delegates, both
+ministerial and lay, the former being elected by the Annual Conferences,
+and the latter by Lay Electoral Conferences. The sessions of the General
+Conference are held quadrennially.</p>
+
+<p>Prior to the session held in May, 1888, in New York City, women
+delegates were elected, one each, by the four following Lay Electoral
+Conferences&mdash;namely, The Kansas Conference, The Minnesota Conference,
+The Pittsburgh Conference, and The Rock River Conference. Protest was
+made against the admission of these delegates on the ground that the
+admission of women delegates was not in accord with the constitutional
+provisions of the Church, embodied in what are termed the Restrictive
+Rules. A special Committee on the Eligibility of Women to Membership in
+the General Conference was appointed, consisting of seventeen members,
+to whom the protest was referred. On May 3d the Committee reported
+adversely to the admission of the four women delegates, the report
+alleging "that under the Constitution and laws of the Church as they now
+are, women are not eligible as lay delegates in the General Conference."
+From the discussion following this report, and lasting several days, the
+following six addresses, three in favor of and three against the
+admission of the women delegates, are selected and presented, with a few
+verbal corrections, as published in the official journal of the
+Conference.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p>
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. THEODORE L. FLOOD.</p>
+
+<p>I am in accord, in the main, with Dr. Potts and Dr. Brush in what they
+have said on this question, unless it may be where my friend who last
+spoke said that these ladies, these elected delegates to this body,
+ought to be admitted. My judgment and my conscience before the
+Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Restrictive Rules
+is that these women elected by these Electoral Conferences are in this
+General Conference.</p>
+
+<p>Their names may not have been called when the roll was called, and yet
+it was distinctly stated by the Bishop presiding that morning that they
+would be called, and the challenges presented with their names; and
+afterward demanded it, the names of these delegates who were not
+enrolled with the others were called, and the protests were read. Their
+names have been called as members of this body, and they are simply here
+as "challenged" members. From that standpoint this question must be
+discussed, and any disposition of this case under the circumstances must
+be in this direction. These women delegates must be put out of this
+General Conference if they are not granted the rights and privileges
+of members here. It is not a question of "admitting" them. Before this
+report, before the bar of history, we stand, and will be called upon to
+vote and act, and millions of people will hold us responsible, and I
+dare say that our votes will be recorded as to whether they shall be
+"put out" or "stay in."</p>
+
+<p>Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists
+for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the
+membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was
+made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea
+in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the
+fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers
+and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical
+government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question
+to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of
+petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General
+Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question
+not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble
+man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England
+Conference, moved himself to strike out the word "male" from the report
+of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was
+stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the
+General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the
+Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay
+delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of
+suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed
+the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be
+questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts
+abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the
+right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law.
+Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government&mdash;and it has
+often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United
+States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in
+the government of the Church&mdash;you will find that the right of suffrage
+in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the
+most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right
+to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and
+for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American
+citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and
+trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this
+way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member
+of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little
+later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and
+under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the
+right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the "plan"
+of lay delegation, but on the "principle" of lay delegation. That was
+decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop
+Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences. On the principle
+of lay delegation, the women of the Church were granted the right of
+suffrage; presently they appeared in the Quarterly Conference, to vote
+as class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents; and it
+created a little excitement, a feverish state of feeling in the Church,
+and the General Conference simply passed a resolution or a rule
+interpreting that action on the part of women claiming this privilege
+in the Quarterly Conference as being a "right," and it was continued.
+Presently, as the right of suffrage of women passed on and grew, they
+voted in the Electoral Conferences, and there was no outcry made against
+it. I have yet to hear of any Bishop in the Church, or any presiding
+elder, or any minister challenging the right of women to vote in
+Electoral Conferences or Quarterly Conferences; and yet for sixteen
+years they have been voting in these bodies; voting to send laymen here
+to legislate; to send laymen to the General Conference to elect Bishops
+and Editors and Book Agents and Secretaries. They come to where votes
+count in making up this body; they have been voting sixteen years, and
+only now, when the logical result of the right of suffrage that the
+General Conference gave to women appears and confronts us by women
+coming here to vote as delegates, do we rise up and protest. I believe
+that it is at the wrong time that the protest comes. It should have come
+when the right to vote was granted to women in the Church. It is sixteen
+years too late, and as was very wisely said by Dr. Potts, the objection
+comes not so much from the Constitution of the Church as from the
+"constitution of the men," who challenge these women.</p>
+
+<p>Now, sir, another parallel. You take the United States Government just
+after the war, when the colored people of the South, the freedmen of our
+land, unable to take care of themselves, their friends, that had fought
+the battles of the war, in Congress determined that they should be
+protected, if no longer by bayonets and cannon, that they should
+be protected by placing the ballot in their hands, and the ballot was
+placed in the hands of the freedman of the South by the action of the
+National Congress, Congress submitting a constitutional amendment to the
+legislatures of the States; and when enough of them had voted in favor
+of it, and the President had signed the bill, it became an amendment to
+the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
+South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
+to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
+question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
+holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
+at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
+find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
+their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
+"stop!" "we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality"? No. They
+were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
+been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
+United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
+protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
+States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
+the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
+constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
+the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
+office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
+the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
+to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
+interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
+for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
+interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
+books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
+goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
+find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
+spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
+General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the
+Annual Conferences, and the members of our Church, there was not a
+woman practising law in the Supreme Court of the United States. Go back
+through the history of jurisprudence of this country and in England, and
+you will find that it had never been known that a woman practised law in
+the Supreme Court of this country or England. But to-day women have been
+admitted to practise law in the Supreme Court of the United States. No
+amendment to the Constitution of the United States had to be adopted
+in order to secure this privilege for them. But this is true, that the
+judges of the Supreme Court, by a more liberal interpretation of the
+Constitution of the United States, said, "Women may be officers of the
+Supreme Court, and may practise law there." The same kind of a spirit,
+in interpreting the Discipline and the Restrictive Rules of the
+Discipline of the Church, will place these women delegates in this body
+where they have been sent. The same thing is true of the Supreme Court
+of Pennsylvania and in the Courts of Philadelphia. There is no way out,
+as my judgment sees, and as my conscience tells me, since before the
+government of God man and woman are equally responsible. There is no way
+out of this dilemma for this General Conference, but to say that these
+women delegates shall sit in this body, where they have been sent, and
+where their names have been called.</p>
+
+<p>Why, take the missionary operations. The Woman's Missionary Society is
+to-day raising more money and doing more missionary work than the Parent
+Missionary Society did fifty years ago. And yet men legislate concerning
+the missionary operations of women, and give them no voice directly in
+this body.</p>
+
+<p>We bring up the temperance question here against license and in favor
+of Prohibition, and we pass our resolutions after we have given our
+discussions, and yet the Methodist Church has the honor of having in the
+ranks of her membership&mdash;(Time called.)</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p>
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY.</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. President, while the last speaker was on the floor, a modification
+of a passage of Scripture occurred to me, "The enemy cometh in like
+a flood, but I will lift up a standard against him." It is somewhat
+peculiar that he should begin by making a statement about one of the
+most honored names in American Methodism, a statement that has been
+published in the papers, and that nine tenths of this body knew as well
+as he did. It must have been intended as a part of his argument, and I
+regard it as of as much force as anything he said after it. But in
+point of fact the question does not turn upon the person, but upon the
+principle. I have received an anonymous letter containing the following
+among other things, "Beware how you attack the holy cause of woman. Do
+you not know that obstacles to progress are rem-o-o-v-e-d out of the
+way?" The signature of that letter is ingenious. I cannot tell whether
+it was a man or a woman, for it reads as follows, "A Lover of your Soul
+and of Woman." Now, Mr. President, the only candlestick that ought to be
+removed out of its place is the candlestick that contains a candle that
+does not burn the pure oil of truth. And I believe, sir, that with the
+best of intentions the three speakers who have appeared have given us
+three chapters in different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my
+duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says,
+"An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding
+discerneth where he slippeth." I have no claim to eloquence; never
+pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist
+history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any
+fear of the results, either present or prospective.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Mr. President, you notice from my friends that if they cannot
+command the judgment of the Conference they propose to say the women are
+in, and defy us to put them out. I am sorry that my friend did not take
+in the full significance of that. And they say that everybody who has
+a certificate in form is in until he is put out. Why, they do not
+discriminate between ordinary contested cases and a case where the
+constitutional point is involved. If these women have a right here,
+they have had it from the beginning by the Constitution. It is not a
+contested case as to whether John Smith was voted for by the people who
+ought to vote for him, or in the right place. Now, they talk of bringing
+up documents here. I wrote to the Hon. George F. Edmunds, the most
+distinguished member of the United States Senate, and simply put this
+question, If a certificate of election in the Senate shows anything that
+would prove the person unworthy of a seat, would he be seated pending an
+investigation or not? He did not know what it referred to, and I read
+it <i>verbatim</i>. I never mentioned the name of Methodist, and I read
+<i>verbatim</i> from his letter:</p>
+
+<p>"No officer of the Senate has any right to decide any such question,
+and, therefore, every person admitted to a seat is admitted by, in fact,
+a vote of the Senate. The ordinary course in the Senate is, when
+the credentials appear to be perfectly regular, and there is no
+notorious and undisputed fact or circumstance against the qualifications
+and election of a senator, to admit him at once and settle the question
+of his right afterward. But there have been cases in which the Senate
+declined to admit a claimant holding a regular certificate upon the
+ground that enough was known to the Senate to justify its declining to
+receive him until an inquiry should be had. Very truly yours,</p>
+
+<p>"GEORGE F. EDMUNDS."</p>
+
+<p>Now, Mr. President, all this twaddle about the women being in is based
+upon the pretence that one woman is there now. The certificate shows
+that they were women, though as yet no action has been taken in regard
+to them at all. If they were in, they were in with a constitutional
+challenge. I champion the holy cause of women. I stand here to champion
+their cause against their being introduced into this body without their
+own sex having had the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon
+the subject. I stand here to protect them against being connected with
+movements without law or contrary to law, and those who wish to bring
+them in and those who say it is the constitution of the man and
+prejudice (my friend, Dr. Potts, said prejudice), they are persons,
+indeed, to stand up here as, <i>par excellence</i> the champions of women!
+Is it the constitution of the men? Have you read the letter of
+Mrs. Caroline Wright in the <i>Christian Advocate</i>, one of our most
+distinguished American Methodist women? She does not wish to see them
+here. It is the constitution of the woman in that case, and I am opposed
+to their being admitted until the general sentiment of the women and the
+men of our Church have an opportunity of being heard upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Mr. President, note these facts.... This is not a fact, but
+my opinion. I solemnly believe that there was never an hour in the
+Methodist Episcopal Church when it was in so great danger as it is
+to-day, not on account of the admission of these women, two of whom I
+believe to be as competent to sit in judgment on this question as any
+man on this floor. That is not the question, as I propose to show. I
+assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
+Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
+Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
+upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
+has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
+thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
+delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
+intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
+we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
+cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
+not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
+capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
+goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "layman." There
+is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
+the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
+Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
+history of the Church. Who is the "General Superintendent" by Webster or
+Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
+the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
+Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
+seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
+not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
+the word "layman" ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
+clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
+world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
+for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
+from the <i>clergy</i>men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
+laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A
+woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
+the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit
+he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham
+Lincoln said, "All these things are done and suffered, that government
+of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish
+from the earth." Now, people, the dictionary says, are men, women, and
+children. Did Abraham Lincoln mean that any women or children can take
+any part in the government of the nation? No, no, no! He meant this.
+When he stood up and delivered his inaugural speech, he said this, "The
+intent of the lawmaker is the law."</p>
+
+<p>I give them something from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived
+to think of awhile&mdash;John Selden: "The only honest meaning of any word is
+the intent of the man that wrote it." At the time that the plan of lay
+delegation was adopted, there was not a single Conference of the Church
+on this wide globe, not one that distinguished between the ministry and
+the laity that allowed women to take any part in its law-making body.
+Some one will talk about the Quakers. But they deny the existence of the
+Church, the sacraments of the Church, and make no distinction between
+the ministry and the laity. Let them get up and show that there was ever
+one Church in the world worthy of the name that allowed women to make
+its laws. There is not one to-day. Let them name a Church, let them name
+one that has allowed women in its law-making body; and yet such is the
+blinding power of gush that men will say that our fathers all understood
+it and proposed to put women in. The fact is, that they only proposed to
+allow them to put us in. As soon as the General Conference adjourned the
+women made an appeal in a public statement. They were asked to vote for
+lay delegation, and were told that then they could set the Church right.
+The opponents appealed to them to vote against it on the ground that it
+would not make any difference to them. James Porter, Daniel Curry, Dr.
+Hodgson (Professor Little thinks he was the greatest of them all) wrote
+a series of articles in the <i>Advocate</i>, and it never occurred to them
+that the women could come into the General Conference. Lay delegation
+was only admitted by 33 votes. Had there been a change of 33 votes they
+would not have come in. Every member of the New York East Conference
+knows that Dr. Curry's influence was so powerful that he could almost
+get a majority against it. And they know if any one had set up an
+opposition to it on this ground, the whole Conference would have voted
+against the movement, and that if it had not been for Bishop Ames and
+Bishop Janes, who went to the Wyoming Conference where the majority was
+opposed to lay delegation, and by their influence there converted my
+friend Olin and others, he knows that if this matter of the women had
+been in or understood, the whole Conference would have been against it.
+It would not have been possible. Dr. Potts says that it is prejudice.
+Nothing of the kind. Do you know there are 12,000 Methodist ministers
+that are ciphers all the time except when they vote for delegates? Are
+you going to presume that when the Church has a multitude of members,
+that it is going to sit here and change, by an interpretation, a
+Restrictive Rule, or put in what was never in, and never understood to
+be in? The Restrictive Rule fills up the ministerial delegates. Every
+time you put a woman in, you put a man out. This subject has never come
+up here before. The question is this, Do those Restrictive Rules mean
+anything? If they do, you cannot put in anything that the fathers did
+not put in. And if you put in women as lawmakers; if you can read those
+Rules and put them in there, you can change any one of the Restrictive
+Rules by a majority of one. And I want to say to you, that if you do
+it, you will prove to the Methodist Episcopal Church that the sole
+protection we have against the caprice of a majority of the General
+Conference is not worth the paper it is written on. All you have to do
+is to get a majority of the Conference against the Episcopacy, and then
+put any interpretation, and then you get a few women admitted, and this
+you call the progress of the age. Mr. Chairman, I believe in progress,
+and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
+a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
+believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
+said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
+that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction&mdash;they must be
+interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
+despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
+all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
+is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
+eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
+despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
+the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
+house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
+Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.</p>
+
+<p>If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
+question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
+the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
+M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, "I think it
+best to send the question around." True progress is not gained in any
+other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, "He that cometh
+in by the door," the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
+another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p>
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Chairman, unfortunately for me, I have received no anonymous
+letters. And so I have nothing either sensational or startling with
+which to introduce my speech. I shall not speak this morning under
+any fear of being removed as an obstruction, or of having my future
+prospects blasted. It is my privilege, therefore, to speak to you this
+morning upon this subject calmly and dispassionately, having no motive
+to either suppress or exaggerate the truth. The party who wrote Dr.
+Buckley, threatening to remove him as an obstruction, must be highly
+gratified to know that that obstruction has already been removed.
+Brother Hughey removed the obstruction, extinguished the candle, and
+destroyed the candlestick.</p>
+
+<p>We are to approach this question this morning, to discuss it purely upon
+its merits. The ground of constitutional law was traversed thoroughly
+yesterday morning in the opening speech by Dr. Potts, a speech that,
+though he did not hear it himself, was heard by this body, and will
+be heard through the length and breadth of the Church everywhere. It
+remains for us who follow him simply to turn on a few side-lights here
+and there, or to give an opportunity of viewing this question from a
+new point of view. And, first, there is a line of argument that may be
+helpful to some that has already been presented in part touching the
+administration of our law and the interpretation of terms that is
+worthy, I think, of still further consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Buckley said in the New York <i>Christian Advocate</i> of March 15th,
+1888:</p>
+
+<p>"The question of eligibility turns, first, upon whether the persons
+claiming seats are laymen; secondly, whether they have been members of
+the Church for five years consecutively, and are at least twenty-five
+years of age; and, thirdly, upon whether they have been duly elected. If
+women are found to be eligible under the law, they would stand upon the
+same plane with men, in this particular, that they must be twenty-five
+years, etc."</p>
+
+<p>Now, then, is a woman legally qualified to sit in the General Conference
+as a lay delegate? Is she a layman in the sense of that word in the
+Discipline? If she be not in, she cannot be introduced contrary to law
+by a mere majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes
+writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of
+writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton
+would say) the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopal Address, which
+declares that no definition of "layman" settles the question of
+eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as
+laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it
+officially as laymen, yet themselves are ineligible as delegates. Well,
+in this case, we have the Episcopal Board over against the editor. Both
+are right and both are wrong. The editor is right when he said of a
+woman, if she be a lay member her right is clear as that of any duly
+elected man. But he is wrong when he denies to her a right to a seat in
+this body as a layman. The Episcopal Address is wrong when it says
+that "no definition of the word 'layman' settles the question of
+eligibility." But it is right when it says, "Many are classed as laymen
+for purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as
+lay members who are not themselves eligible as delegates."</p>
+
+<p>In the practical work of the Church, and in the administration of its
+laws, women have been regarded as laymen from the beginning until now.
+They pay quarterage. If they did not pay quarterage some of our salaries
+would be very short. They contribute to our benevolent collections, and
+if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
+over the "Million dollars for Missions." They pray and testify in our
+class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
+us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
+amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
+are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
+they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
+laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
+two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
+one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
+General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
+marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
+this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
+step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
+question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
+over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
+if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
+this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
+and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
+misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
+out the word "male" was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
+"rider" on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
+known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
+it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
+amendment would let women into the General Conference.</p>
+
+<p>Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the "women coming
+in" being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
+was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
+lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment
+and the laymen were allowed to come in, it would open the door to allow
+women to come in also.</p>
+
+<p>L. C. Queal said:</p>
+
+<p>I think I am entitled now to correct this putting of the case.</p>
+
+<p>Bishop Foss:</p>
+
+<p>Are you misrepresented?</p>
+
+<p>L. C. Queal:</p>
+
+<p>I am misrepresented in this, that while I stated that Dr. Sherman
+put that on as a "rider," with a view to defeating the bill, that
+immediately after thinking so I thought it might be the occasion of
+securing the approval of the principle in the laity of the Church. That
+is all I stated. All the rest of Dr. Leonard's statement is his own
+inference&mdash;a misconstruction of the fact. A.B. Leonard:</p>
+
+<p>I understood Dr. Queal as I stated. I have not had time to refer to
+the speech he made. I leave his statement with you, and you have the
+privilege of consulting his speech as it is printed this morning, in
+reference to this matter. It came to my thought very distinctly that the
+idea of the possibility of women coming in was then lodged in the minds
+that were both in favor of and opposed to lay delegation.</p>
+
+<p>Now, then, this vote that was taken, in accordance with the order of
+1868, laid the foundation stone for the introduction of women into this
+body. That sent the question of lay delegation down to be voted on by
+the laity of the Church. If the women were not to be recognized as laity
+here, why allow them to vote on the question of the laity at all? And,
+having allowed them to vote on the question of the laity, settling the
+very foundation principle itself, with what consistency can we disallow
+them a place in this General Conference, when by their votes they opened
+the way for the laymen coming into this General Conference? Do you not
+remember that we had a vote previously, and the men only voted, and that
+the lay delegation scheme was defeated, and the <i>Methodist</i>, that was
+published in this city, being the organ of the lay delegationists, said
+that "votes ought to be weighed, not counted"? And then the question was
+sent back to be voted upon by both the men and the women? And let the
+laymen of this General Conference remember that they are in this body
+to-day by reason of the votes of the women of the Methodist Episcopal
+Church. In 1880 we went still further. We went into the work of
+construing pronouns. There had been women in the Quarterly Conferences
+previously to that date; but there was a mist in the air with regard
+to their legality there. The General Conference by its action did not
+propose to admit women to the Quarterly Conferences. It simply proposed
+to clear away the mist and recognize their legal right to sit in the
+Quarterly Conference. Being in the Quarterly Conference, and in the
+District Conference, they have the right to vote on every question that
+comes before such bodies. They vote to license ministers, to recommend
+ministers to Annual Conferences, to recommend local preachers for
+deacons' and elders' orders. They vote on sending delegates to our Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates to Lay
+Electoral Conferences, and they vote in elections for delegates from Lay
+Electoral Conferences to this General Conference. And there are men
+on this floor to-day that would not be in this at all if they had
+not received the support of women in Lay Electoral Conferences. Now,
+brethren, let it be remembered that the votes of the women to send
+delegates to the Lay Electoral Conferences were never challenged until
+they came here asking for seats. They were good enough to elect laymen
+to this body, but not good enough to take seats with laymen in this
+body. With what consistency can laymen accept seats by the votes of the
+women and then deprive women of their seats? I am surprised at some of
+the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopacy concerning constitutional
+law. Allow me to say at this point that, having introduced into the
+Quarterly Conference these women, and having given them a right to
+vote there, and in the District Conferences, and in the Lay Electoral
+Conferences, in all honesty we must do one of two things, if we would
+be consistent, we must go back and take up that old foundation of lay
+delegation that we laid in 1868, or we must go forward and allow these
+women to have their seats. In a word, we must either lay again the
+"foundation of repentance from dead work, or go forward to perfection."
+And I am not in favor of going back.</p>
+
+<p>If it is true that the body of the Constitution is outside of the
+Restrictive Rules, and cannot be changed except in the way prescribed
+for altering the Restrictive Rules, then I say that this General
+Conference has again and again been both lawless and revolutionary.
+Every paragraph of the chapter, known as the Constitution, beginning
+with �63, and closing with �69, was put into that Constitution without
+any voice from an Annual Conference of this foot-stool. Not one single
+one of them was ever submitted to an Annual Conference; �20, �183, stood
+for many years in the Constitution of the Church, but was transferred
+bodily from that Constitution by the General Conference to the position
+it now occupies. You come and tell us to-day that we cannot change the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules without going down to the
+Annual Conferences; it is too late in the day to say that. We have made
+too much history on that point. The present plan of lay delegation was
+not submitted to the Annual Conferences. Bishop Simpson definitely
+stated when he reported to the General Conference the result of the vote
+ordered in 1868 that the question simply of the introduction of the
+laity into the General Conference was presented to be voted upon by the
+laity and by the Annual Conferences, but the "plan" was not submitted
+to either to be voted upon, and the "plan" for lay delegation by which
+these lay brethren occupy their seats here this morning was made in
+every jot and tittle by the General Conference without any reference to
+the Annual Conferences at all.</p>
+
+<p>I want to know, then, by what propriety we come here in this General
+Conference to say that there can be no change of Part I. of the
+Constitution outside of the Restrictive Rules. The General Conference
+cannot alter our articles of faith, it cannot abolish our Episcopacy; it
+cannot deprive our members of a right to trial and appeal. These come
+under the Restrictive Rules, and cannot be touched by this body without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences; but all else has been from
+beginning, and is now in the hands of the General Conference. Let it be
+remembered that this General Conference is a unique body. It is at once
+a legislative and a judicial body; in the former capacity it makes law;
+in the latter capacity it has the power to construe law.</p>
+
+<p>It is at once a Congress, if you please, to enact law, and a supreme
+court to interpret law. Now, then, in admitting women to our General
+Conference, we are simply construing the Constitution, and not changing
+the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States gives decisions
+on the construing of the Constitution, and who ever heard of a decision
+of the Supreme Court being sent down to be ratified by the State
+Legislatures? The Supreme Court of the United States construes the
+Constitution, without any reference to the State Legislatures, and so
+we construe law without any reference to the Annual Conferences. If we
+touch the law inside of the Restrictive Rules, we must go down to the
+Annual Conferences. Outside we are free to legislate as we may.</p>
+
+<p>What is the Constitution for? The Constitution is designed simply to
+limit the powers of the Legislature. In my own State of Ohio, for
+illustration, we have an article in our Constitution that forbids our
+Legislature to license the liquor traffic, but our legislators give a
+license under the guise of taxing, but they cannot give us a license
+law in form. The Constitution prevents it. There are States that have
+Constitutions that have no word to say about the liquor traffic at all,
+while they may either tax, license, or prohibit.</p>
+
+<p>This is a fact that is well settled, that the Constitution is a
+limitation of legislative power, and where there is no such limitation
+there is no restriction.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p>
+ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALFRED WHEELER.</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. President, it will be well for us, so far as we have progressed in
+this discussion, to see how near and how far we agree. It is admitted by
+the friends of the report, or by the committee, that this is a question
+of law, and to be decided exclusively upon principles of law. So far as
+those who are opposed to the report have spoken, they conceive, as I
+understand it, that the position taken by the committee is taken by
+those who are advocating its adoption. Then we are agreed that it is not
+a matter of sentiment, it is not a matter of chivalry. There is no place
+for knighthood, or any of its laws, or any other of the principles that
+dominated the contests of the knights of old. If it were a matter of
+knighthood there is not a man on this floor that would deem it necessary
+to bring a lance into this body. All would be peace and quiet.</p>
+
+<p>There are none that would hail with more joy and gladness the women of
+the Church to a seat in this body than those of us who now, under the
+circumstances, oppose their coming in.</p>
+
+<p>It is not either a matter of progressive legislation regarding the
+franchise of colored men, or of anybody else in the country. It is a
+question of law, Methodist law, and Methodist law alone.</p>
+
+<p>Now, so far as the intention is concerned of those who made the law, I
+do not see how those who have kept themselves conversant with the
+history of lay delegation can for a moment claim that it was even the
+most remote intention of those who introduced lay delegation into the
+General Conference to bring in the women, and for us to transfer the
+field now toward women, in view of their magnificent work in the last
+ten or fifteen years, back to twenty years, is to commit an anachronism
+that would be fatal to all just interpretation of law.</p>
+
+<p>I myself was in the very first meeting that was ever called to initiate
+the movement that at last brought in lay delegation. I voted for it; I
+wrote for it; I spoke for it in the General Conference and in the Annual
+Conferences. I was a member of the first lay committee, or Committee on
+Lay Delegation, that was appointed here by the General Conference in
+1868. And during all these various processes of discussion, so far as I
+know, the thought was never suggested that under it women would come in
+to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
+that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
+have embraced this design&mdash;the design of bringing women into the General
+Conference. I leave that.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
+them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
+of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
+the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
+General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
+argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
+Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
+introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
+according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
+General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
+endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
+prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
+been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
+interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
+The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
+placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
+accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
+that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
+<i>personnel</i> of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
+Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
+consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
+that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
+is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
+law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
+peril ahead of us.</p>
+
+<p>A simple body may disregard law with comparative impunity, but an
+organic body that is complicated, complex in its nature, will find its
+own security in adhering earnestly, strictly, and everlastingly, to the
+law that that body passes for the government of its own conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see, now, with regard to this Restrictive Rule. As I have said,
+it has been admitted all along that the action of the Annual Conferences
+must be secured. Here comes in the decision of the General Conference of
+1872. I do not need to recite it. But let us bear in mind two facts. One
+is, that this General Conference is a legislative body, and that it
+is also a judicial body. As a judicial body, it interprets law; as
+a legislative body, it makes law. The General Conference of 1872
+interpreted law, and the General Conference may reverse itself with
+just as much propriety as a court can reverse itself. And if it be
+the judgment of this General Conference that that interpretation was
+incorrect, it is perfectly competent for this Conference to say so, and
+have its action correspond with its own decision.</p>
+
+<p>There is another point. The case that was before the General Conference
+of 1876 was a specific case. It was the case of the relation that
+local preachers sustain to the Church, a particular case. This is the
+principle of all decisions in law, that when a particular case is
+decided in general terms, the scope and comprehension of the decision
+must be limited to the particular case itself. And if a court in its
+decision embraces more than was involved in the particular case, it has
+no force whatever. And as this was a particular case submitted to
+the General Conference, and the decision was in general terms, it
+comprehends simply the case that was before it, and cannot be advanced
+to comprehend more. And the reason of this is very obvious; for if it
+was not the case, then cases might be brought before the court for its
+decision that had never occurred.</p>
+
+<p>There is another point I wish to notice. The General Conference of 1880
+did not see the effect that legislation would have by admitting women
+to certain offices. Certain affirmative legislation is also negative
+legislation. When saloons are permitted to sell in quantities of one
+gallon, it forbids to sell in quantities of less than one gallon; when
+it says you can sell in quantities of one barrel, it forbids them to
+sell in quantities of two. When the General Conference of 1880
+decided that women should be eligible in the Quarterly Conferences as
+superintendents of Sunday-schools, class-leaders, and as stewards, by
+that very affirmative conclusion, the subject was passed upon about
+their taking any other position. That, I think, must be regarded as
+sound, and a just interpretation of the law.</p>
+
+<p>But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not
+understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it
+had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there
+would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands,
+that the pronoun "he," wherever employed, shall not be considered
+as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school
+Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward.</p>
+
+<p>Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of
+immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing
+the <i>personnel</i> of the General Conference without my Annual Conference
+has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a
+suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as
+soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and
+so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and
+I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard
+with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The
+only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the
+relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference,
+and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect,
+honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same
+way that their husbands and brothers are here.</p>
+
+<p>There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the
+possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of
+those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful?
+You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and
+pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect
+their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus
+lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this
+suggestion, but it is an <i>in posse</i>, and it may easily be made an <i>in
+esse</i>. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they
+have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make
+them more perfect.</p>
+
+<p>No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we
+may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement
+or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the
+Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe
+course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious,
+and conservative&mdash;I mean every word&mdash;and conservative course we have
+heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what
+Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is
+because of her firm adherence to law.</p>
+
+<p>It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon
+race&mdash;everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we
+pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p>
+ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. President and Brethren, to an onlooker of this remarkable scene,
+this great debate now in the third day of its progress must be
+suggestive of some of the marvellous plays, woven into song, which have
+made the hearts of the thronging multitudes who have crowded this place
+of meeting in the past throb alternately with emotions of hope and fear
+as to the outcome of the parties involved in plot and counterplot. The
+visitors to this General Conference, seated in their boxes and in the
+family circle, Will say surely these honored men of God who have been
+called as Superintendents of the affairs of our great conquering Church,
+these chosen ministers of reconciliation and peace, these <i>male</i>
+laymen called by their brethren to their high places in this General
+Conference, whose names at home are the synonym of chivalrous
+goodness&mdash;surely all these of rank and talent and authority, whose able
+and eloquent words have been ringing through the arches and dome of this
+temple of music on the wrong side of the question, are but simply acting
+the parts assigned them. In the final scene they will join hands around
+the eligible women elect, who, in obedience to the call of the laity in
+their several Conferences, are in their seats with us, and say, "Whom
+God hath joined, let not <i>male</i> put asunder." My brothers, let us
+briefly restate the case. Five noble women of the laymen of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church have been chosen as delegates to this General
+Conference under the Constitution and by the forms prescribed by the
+laws of the Church. As they enter, or attempt to enter, the portals of
+this great assemblage they hear a voice from the platform, in words not
+to be misunderstood, "Thou shalt not," and voices from all parts of the
+house take up the prohibitory words, and supplement the voices of the
+Bishops, "Thou shalt not." And one would think, from the vehement
+oratory of the resisting delegates of this General Conference, that the
+foundations of the Church were in imminent peril by the presence of
+these "elect ladies" among us.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn back a moment, and review the history of the rise, progress,
+and triumph of the cause of lay representation. I claim to know a little
+something about it, as I was on the skirmish line in the conflict, and
+in all its battles fought until the day of victory.</p>
+
+<p>In 1861, to the male members of the Church, was submitted the question
+of lay representation. It failed of securing a majority vote. Had it
+carried, there would have been plausibility in the argument this
+day made against the eligibility of women to seats in this General
+Conference. The evolution of the succeeding eight years lifted woman to
+a higher appreciation of her position in the Methodist Church, and her
+rights and privileges became the theme of discussion throughout the
+bounds of the Church. Among the champions for woman was that magnificent
+man, that grand old man, Dr. Daniel D. Whedon, who, in discussing this
+question, said:</p>
+
+<p>"If it is <i>rights</i> they talk of, every competent member of the Church of
+Christ, of either sex and of every shade of complexion, has equal
+original rights. Those rights, they may be assured, when that question
+comes fairly up, will be firmly asserted and maintained."</p>
+
+<p>And in answer to the expected fling, "But you are a woman's rights man,"
+he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"We are a human rights man. And our mother was a human being. And our
+wives, sisters, and daughters are all human beings. And that these human
+beings are liable as any other human beings to be oppressed by the
+stronger sex, and as truly need in self-defence a check upon oppression,
+the history of all past governments and legislation does most terribly
+demonstrate. What is best in the State is not indeed with us the
+question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living
+God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When
+that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal
+righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the
+ground!"</p>
+
+<p>The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the
+question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the
+Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as
+belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in
+the government of the Church, and having rights under that government.
+During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for
+submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman
+moved to strike out the word "male." While that motion was under
+consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, "If it were the last
+moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter,
+I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, <i>wherever church
+privileges are concerned</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the
+question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the
+Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask
+women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church
+should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then
+enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived
+of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few
+noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, "No, no," but
+they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the
+right thinking, orderly delegates.</p>
+
+<p>What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike
+out the word "male," now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of
+great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry
+made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:</p>
+
+<p>"Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the
+Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that
+those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a
+voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed
+in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that
+women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The
+Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take
+these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried
+with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter
+interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences
+laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the
+moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it,
+but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go
+back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?"</p>
+
+<p>It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore
+the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could
+the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the
+General Conference when it said, "The General Conference holds that
+in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word
+'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who
+are not members of the Annual Conferences"? This decision must include
+women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means
+the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears
+from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle
+in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the
+membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would
+have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted
+women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, "The
+General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election
+of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the
+members of the Annual Conferences, <i>and who are not women</i>." We would
+have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an
+utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its
+membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and
+the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and
+interchangeably. See Bingham's "Antiquities," Blackstone's
+"Commentaries," Schaffs "History," and kindred authorities. It is sheer
+trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between lay<i>men</i>
+and lay<i>women</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school
+superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before
+the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so
+appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the
+pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the
+voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from
+the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this
+debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.</p>
+
+<p>It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any
+elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless
+there be a <i>specific enactment discriminating against the elector</i>. Our
+law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five
+years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a
+delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.</p>
+
+<p>Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have
+been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats
+ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited.
+We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be
+revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a
+violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the
+just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from
+membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual
+Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to
+send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their
+action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will
+say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our
+Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot
+be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very
+front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the
+spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the
+banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and
+righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon
+tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's
+Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now
+waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not
+cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse
+of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church
+of the Redeemer.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of
+continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among
+the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous
+productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in
+that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries
+old. In it you may read as follows: "Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has
+a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a
+Saviour for which I gave a florin. It is a marvel that a woman could
+do so much." Three and a half centuries later Rosa Bonheur hangs her
+master-piece in the chief places of the galleries of the world, and
+Harriet Hosmer's studio contributes many of the best marbles that adorn
+the parlors of Europe and America, and no one wonders that a woman can
+do so much. From that day when Martin Luther, the protesting monk, and
+Catherine Von Bora, the ex-nun, stood together at the altar and the
+twain became one, woman has by her own heroism, by her faith in her sex
+and in God, who made her, fought a good fight against the organized
+selfishness of those who would withhold from her any right or privilege
+to which she is entitled, and has lifted herself from slavery and
+barbarism to a place by the side of man, where God placed her in
+paradise, his equal in tact and talent, moving upon the world with her
+unseen influences, and making our Christian civilization what it is
+to-day. Let not our Methodism in this her chiefest council say or do
+ought that shall lead the world to conclude that we are retreating from
+our advanced position of justice to the laity of the Church. Let us
+rather strengthen our guarantee of loving protection of every right and
+privilege of every member of our Church, without distinction of race,
+color, or sex. Amen and Amen.</p>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p>
+ADDRESS OF JUDGE Z. P. TAYLOR.</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. President and Gentlemen, when elected a delegate I had no opinion on
+the constitutional question here involved. But I had then, and I have
+now, a sympathy for the women, and a profound admiration of their work.
+No man on this floor stands more ready and more willing to assist them
+by all lawful and constitutional means to every right and and to every
+privilege enjoyed by men.</p>
+
+<p>But, sir, notwithstanding this admiration and sympathy, I cannot lose
+sight of the vital question before the General Conference now and here.</p>
+
+<p>That question is this: Under the Constitution and Restrictive Rules of
+the Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in
+this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by
+Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their
+right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this
+body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they are admitted.</p>
+
+<p>It follows that whoever supports this substitute either wrongs the elect
+ladies or violates the Constitution. If they are constitutionally a part
+of this body, seat them; if they are not, vote down this substitute, and
+adopt the report of the committee, with the amendment of Dr. Neely, and
+then let them in four years hence in the constitutional way. After
+the most careful study of the vital question in the light of history,
+ecclesiastical, common, and constitutional law, it is my solemn and
+deliberate judgment that women are not eligible as lay delegates in this
+body.</p>
+
+<p>Facts, records, and testimonials conclusively prove that in 1868, when
+the General Conference submitted the matter of lay delegation to the
+entire membership of the Church, the idea of women being eligible was
+not the intent. The intent was to bring into the General Conference a
+large number of men of business experience, who could render service
+by their knowledge and experience touching the temporal affairs of the
+Church. When the principle of admitting lay delegates was voted upon
+by the laity, this idea, and no other, was intended. When the Annual
+Conferences voted for the principle and the plan, this and this only was
+their intent.</p>
+
+<p>When the General Conference, by the constitutional majority, acted in
+favor of admitting the lay delegates provisionally elected, this idea,
+and none other, actuated them. It was not the intent then to admit
+women, but to admit men only, and the intent must govern in construing a
+Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Fisk said Judge Cooley is a high authority on constitutional law. I
+admit it, and am happy to say that I was a student of his over a quarter
+of a century ago, and ever since then have studied and practised
+constitutional law, and I am not here to stultify my judgment by
+allowing sentiment and impulse to influence my decision.</p>
+
+<p>Those opposing the report of the committee, with few exceptions, admit
+that it was not the intent and purpose, when the Constitution and
+Restrictive Rules were amended, to admit women as lay delegates. They
+claim, however, that times have changed, and now propose to force a
+construction upon the language not intended by the laity, the Annual
+Conferences, or the General Conference at the time of the amendment. Can
+this be done without an utter violation of law? I answer, No.</p>
+
+<p>In the able address read by Bishop Merrill, containing the views of the
+Board of Bishops, he says:</p>
+
+<p>
+"For the first time in our history several 'elect ladies' appear,
+regularly certified from Electoral Conferences, as lay delegates to this
+body. In taking the action which necessitates the consideration of the
+question of their eligibility, the Electoral Conferences did not consult
+the Bishops as to the law in the case, nor do we understand it to be our
+duty to define the law for these Conferences; neither does it appear
+that any one is authorized to decide questions of law in them. The
+Electoral Conferences simply assumed the lawfulness of this action,
+being guided, as we are informed, by a declarative resolution of the
+General Conference of 1872, defining the scope of the word 'laymen," in
+answer to a question touching the classification and rights of ordained
+local and located ministers. Of course, the language of that resolution
+is carried beyond its original design when applied to a subject not
+before the body when it was adopted, and not necessarily involved in the
+language itself. This also should be understood, that no definition of
+the word 'laymen' settles the question of eligibility as to any class
+of persons, for many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay
+representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, who are
+themselves not eligible as delegates. Even laymen who are confessedly
+ineligible, who are not old enough to be delegates, or have not been
+members long enough, may be stewards, class-leaders, trustees, local
+preachers and exhorters, and, as such, be members of the Quarterly
+Conference, and vote for delegates to the Electoral Conference without
+themselves being eligible.</p>
+
+<p>"The constitutional qualifications for eligibility cannot be modified by
+a resolution of the General Conference, however sweeping, nor can the
+original meaning of the language be enlarged. If women were included in
+the original constitutional provision for lay delegates, they are here
+by constitutional right. If they were not so included, it is beyond the
+power of this body to give them membership lawfully, except by the
+formal amendment of the Constitution, which cannot be effected without
+the consent of the Annual Conferences. In extending to women the highest
+spiritual privileges, in recognizing their gifts, and in providing for
+them spheres of Christian activity, as well as in advancing them to
+positions of official responsibility, ours has been a leader of the
+Churches, and gratefully do we acknowledge the good results shown in
+their enlarged usefulness, and in the wonderful developments of their
+power to work for God, which we take as evidences of the divine approval
+of the high ground taken. In all reformatory and benevolent enterprises,
+especially in the Temperance, Missionary, and Sunday-school departments
+of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest
+admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved
+in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the
+assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they
+were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of
+law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible,
+by special enactment, of the offices of steward, class-leader, and
+Sunday-school superintendent, and naturally the question arises as
+to whether the necessity for special legislation, in order to their
+eligibility to those specified offices, does not indicate similar
+necessity for special provision in order to their eligibility as
+delegates, and if so it is further to be considered that the offices of
+steward, class-leader, and Sunday-school superintendent may be created
+and filled by simple enactments of the General Conference itself; but to
+enter the General Conference, and form part of the law-making body
+of the Church, requires special provision in the Constitution, and,
+therefore, such provision as the General Conference alone cannot make."</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, sir, this language moves forward with a grasp of logic akin to that
+used by Chief Justice Marshall, or that eminent jurist, Cooley, from
+whom I beg leave to quote. Cooley, in his great work on "Constitutional
+Limitations," says:</p>
+
+<p>
+"A Constitution is not made to mean one thing at one time, and another
+at some subsequent time, when the circumstances may have changed as
+perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable. A principal
+share of the benefit expected from written Constitutions would be
+lost, if the rules they establish were so flexible as to bend to
+circumstances, or be modified by public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"The meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted, and is not
+different at any subsequent time."</p>
+
+<p>
+This same great author says:</p>
+
+<p>"Intent governs. The object of construction applied to a written
+constitution is to give effect to the intent of the people in adopting
+it. In the case of written laws it is the intent of the lawgiver that is
+to be enforced.</p>
+
+<p>"But it must not be forgotten in construing our constitutions that in
+many particulars they are but the legitimate successors of the great
+charters of English liberty whose provisions declaratory of the rights
+of the subject have acquired a well understood meaning which the people
+must be supposed to have had in view in adopting them. We cannot
+understand these unless we understand their history.</p>
+
+<p>"It is also a very reasonable rule that a State Constitution shall be
+understood and construed in the light, and by the assistance of the
+common law, and with the fact in view that its rules are still in force.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a maxim with the Courts that statutes in derogation of the common
+law shall be construed strictly."</p>
+
+<p>Here, sir, we have the language of Judge Cooley himself. It is as clear
+as the noonday's sun, and he utterly repudiates the pernicious doctrine
+that the Constitution can grow and develop so as to mean one thing when
+it is adopted, and something else at another time. You can never inject
+anything into a Constitution by construction which was not in it when
+adopted. And you are bound, according to all rules of construction, to
+give it the construction which was intended when adopted. No man of
+common honesty and common sense dares to assert on this floor that it
+was the intent when the Constitution was amended to admit women as lay
+delegates. It follows inevitably that they are not constitutionally
+eligible, and to admit them is to violate the Constitution of the
+Church, which, as a Court, we are in honor bound not to do.</p>
+
+<p>It has been asserted with gravity that the right to vote for a person
+for office carries with it the right to be voted for unless prohibited
+by positive enactment. This proposition is not true, and never has been.
+We have seen, when the Constitution and Restrictive Rules were amended,
+the intent was to admit men only as lay delegates. No General Conference
+can, by resolution or decision, change the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules. Grant, if you please, that the General Conference, by its action
+in 1880, had power to make women eligible in the Quarterly Conference as
+stewards and class-leaders, this could not qualify her to become a lay
+delegate in the law-making body of the Church. The qualifications of lay
+delegates to this body must inhere in the Constitution and Restrictive
+Rules, according to their intent and meaning when adopted. It is
+fundamental law that where general disabilities exist, not simply by
+statute, but by common law, the removal of lesser disabilities does not
+carry with it the removal of the greater ones.</p>
+
+<p>Legislation qualifying women to vote in Wyoming and elsewhere had to be
+coupled also with positive enactments qualifying her to be voted for,
+otherwise she would have been ineligible to office. This is so, and I
+defy any lawyer to show the contrary.</p>
+
+<p>�3, Article I, Constitution of the United States, reads:</p>
+
+<p>"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
+each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years. No person
+shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty
+years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall
+not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be
+chosen."</p>
+
+<p>
+These and no other qualifications are worded or found in the
+Constitution of the United States touching the qualification of
+Senators. Is there a layman on this floor who will dare assert that
+under the Constitution of the United States women are eligible as
+Representatives or Senators? Words of common gender are exclusively
+used as applied to the qualification of Senators. The words persons and
+citizens include women the same as they include men. Nevertheless, in
+the light of the past, I am bold to assert, that any man who would dare
+stand in the Senate of the United States, and contend that women are
+eligible to the office of United States Senators, would be regarded by
+the civilized world as a person of gush and void of judgment.</p>
+
+<p>Article 14, United States Constitution, �1:</p>
+
+<p>
+"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, wherein they
+reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+<i>privileges</i> or <i>immunities</i> of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law, <i>nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws</i>."</p>
+
+<p>
+(Tax case and what was decided.) (Mrs. Minor <i>vs</i>. Judges of Election.
+53 Mo. 68.)</p>
+
+<p>The first case indicates that the word citizen when affecting property
+rights includes corporations.</p>
+
+<p>The second, that the word person, when it relates to the woman claiming
+the right to vote, does not confer upon her that right.</p>
+
+<p>The language is: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
+abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United
+States. Nevertheless, a Republican Circuit Judge held this language did
+not entitle Mrs. Minor to vote. A democratic Supreme Court of Missouri
+held the same, and the Supreme Court of the United States, in an able
+opinion written by men known as the friends of women, conclusively
+demonstrated that these constitutional guarantees did not confer upon
+woman the right to vote. Why? Because, from time immemorial, this right
+had not obtained in favor of woman, and these words of common gender
+should not be so construed as to confer this right, since it was not
+intended when made to affect their status in this regard.</p>
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+
+
+<br><br><hr><br><br>
+
+
+<center>
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+<tr><td>
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+