Chapter V: Part 5

“Historical fits, and etcetery,” says I, in reasonable tones, “might come under the head of ‘worse.’ But you can’t slip your head out; that vow holds you, for better or worse. You no need to have tackled that vow, but you did, and now you ort to stand up under it; that is law, and that is gospel too, which don’t always go together.”

“Well, what of it,” says Danks; “what if it duz? What are you goin’ to do about it?”

Oh, how surly and mad that man did look. His mean would have skairt some wimmen, but it didn’t me; mebby it would if I hadn’t been talkin’ on such high principle, but that boyed me up.

“Why,” says I, “as I have said more’n 40 times, folks ort to get it into their heads that it is a great and serious subject that ort to be considered and prayed over and meditated upon. They ort to realize that gettin’ married is a solemn thing; solemner, if anything, than it is not to, and that has always been considered a very solemn thing, very. But instead of lookin’ on it in this serious and becomin’ way, folks will caper and prance off into matrimony in jest as light and highlarious and triflin’ a way as if they was headin’ a row of fantasticks on the 4th of July. They don’t consider and filosifize on it that the fantasticks can take off their uniforms at night, and be themselves agin, but the matrimourners can’t. They can’t do it nohow; there they be, matrimourners. No matter how bad they feel, and how disappointed they be by the looks of the state they have got into, they can’t get out of it. They are matrimourners, and can’t help themselves.

“The state of wedlock has got a high, slippery wall round it, as high up as eternity, and as low down as the same. It is a wall that can’t be stepped acrost and climbed over. It is a wall that a man or a woman can’t sneak out and creep up on without fallin’ back—it is too slippery. It is a wall that can’t be broke down, and jumped over only on Bible grounds. And then when you do take that jump on Bible grounds, oh how fatiguein’ that leap is. How much happiness and ease of mind the matrimourner has to drop in the jump, drop forever. And how much trouble he has to carry with him, and disquietude of mind, and condemnation, and upbraidin’s, and gossip, and evil speaking, and hateful memories, and hauntin’ ones, and travel of soul and body. Oh, what a time that matrimourner duz have.”

“I thought,” says he, with that surly, mad look of hisen, “I thought you was one that preached up liberty, freedom, and etcetery.”

“So I be,” says I. “Hain’t I jest been a doin’ of it? Hain’t I jest said that no man or woman ort to be drove into the state of matrimony by anybody only jest their own selves? But after they lay holt, and drive themselves in, they ortn’t to complain. But, as I have said frequent, they’ll find after they have drove themselves in that it is the curiousest state that ever was made. None of our States of America will compare with it for curiosity,—and some of our’n are exceedingly curious, take ’em laws and all, to wit: Havin’ a man in congress to make laws that imprison a man for havin’ two wives, while he himself, proud and hauty, a settin’ up a makin’ that law, has four on ’em. Exceedingly curious that is, and to wit: Fixin’ penalties against crime and vice, and then sellin’ licenses to encourage and make it respectable. Oh! how curious, how curious some of our states be! But the state of matrimony is far curiouser. It is curiouser in the beginning—some like a conundrum. States have to be admitted into the Union; a union admits you into that state. And then, it is bounded on every side by divinest possibilities of happiness, or the most despairin’ ones, and no knowin’ which will break over the frontier, and capture you. Sweetest and most rapturous joys may cover its soil as thick as blossoms on a summer prairie, or angry passions and disappointments and cares may crunch ’em down under foot, and set fire to ’em. Peace and trust and tenderness may rain over that state, or anarky and sizm.”

“Yes, and fallin’ fits,” says Danks, with a bitter tone, “and historicks.”

“Yes,” says I calmly, “matrimourners ort to take all the blessings and enjoyments and comforts with a thankful heart, and they ort to have the courage and the nobility and the common sense to take all the evils, fallin’ fits, historicks, and etcetery, and etcetery, with a willin’ mind. You ort,” says I firmly, “you ort to have figured it all out. You ort to have figured out the hull sum, orts and all, and seen what was to carry, and got the right answer to it, before you drove yourself into that state.”

“How could I see to carry historicks? how could I figured ’em out?” says he bitterly.

But I kep’ right on: “You ort to have studied it out, whether you was strong enough to stand the climate, with its torrid weather and its frigid zones, its sweet summery winds and its blasts, its squalls and hurrycains. But as I have said 40 times, if I have once, after you have drove yourself into that state, you ort to hist up your moral umberell, and make the best on’t.”

Danks didn’t look convinced at all. He muttered sunthin’ agin about fits and other things, and how he hadn’t made no calculations on ’em; and I felt fairly out of patience, and went to allegorin’, as I might have known I should before I got through. (It is next to impossible for me to be so eloquent as I was then without allegorin’ some).

“Why,” says I, “when a man buys a farm, he must be a natural fool, or else a luny, if he expects and calculates the sun to shine on it every day the year round. He must make calculations for rain and snow, sunshine and thunder. He can’t expect it all to be ripe wheat and apple-sass. He buys it with his eyes open; buys it with all its possibilities of good or evil; and don’t expect, if he hain’t a fool, to shirk out of carryin’ of ’em.”

“Who has shirked out of carryin’ of ’em?” says Danks. “I hain’t.”

“You have!” says Josiah, a jumpin’ up and hollerin’ at him agin; and his face was red as a fire-bran’.

“I hain’t!” says Danks.

“You have!” says Josiah. “And don’t you dispute me agin if you know what is good for yourself. You have shirked out of carryin’ that dumb boy of your’n, in his dumb fits. And I let you know that I have broke my back for the last time a luggin’ him round, or somebody or sunthin’ is goin’ to get hurt, and I can tell you so—dummit!”

I felt as if I should sink. My Josiah was almost doin’ what Miss Job advised Mr. Job to do when he was smote with agony and biles. He was almost a swearin’. But here was where I and the late Miss Job differ. I knew my pardner’s sufferin’s was intense, and them sufferin’s was terrible to me. But still I says in a reprovin’, but tender and pityin’ tone:

“Be calm, Josiah!”

“I won’t be calm!” says he.

Says I: “Josiah, you must; you are almost delerious.” Says I: “You are a swearin’, Josiah! be calm!”

“Wall, I tell you agin that I won’t be calm; and I tell you agin, _dummit_! there now! _dummit_!”

Oh! how my pardner did look, how his axent did sound, as he uttered them fearful and profane words. And then before I could put in a soothin’ word to soothe him, Danks spoke right out, and says he:

“You promised to take ’em for all summer, and if you don’t I won’t pay you a cent for their board, and you can’t make me.”

Here Josiah turned as white as a white milk-pail, and groaned to that extent that I thought he was a goin’ to faint away.

And as it turned out, the law was on Danks’es side. Josiah made ’em all go that very day, but he couldn’t get a cent from ’em. He hired a lawyer to prosicute Danks, but Danks, bein’ sharp-witted and ugly (and sometimes I think that such trials as he underwent, if anybody don’t take ’em as a means of grace, makes anybody ugly. I can’t help feelin’ sorry for Danks, after all). But as I was a sayin’, Danks worked it in such a way that Josiah lost the case, and had to pay the costs on both sides. They was heavy bills,—most as heavy as Bill Danks,—and take it with what we lost boardin’ of ’em, and what the childern tore to pieces, and Bill smashed and squshed down, a fallin’ on ’em,—take it all together, it is a loss that makes Josiah Allen groan now every time he thinks on it. We don’t either of us think his back will ever feel as it did before. He strained it beyond its strength.

A VISIT FROM MISS RICKERSON.

It was about a week after the Danks’es departure and exodus. It was a cool day for the time of the year, and very windy. And I was settin’ calm and peaceful, hullin’ some strawberries for dinner. For my companion, Josiah Allen, had gone to Jonesville, and I wanted to have dinner ready by the time of his arrival. But I had only jest got my potatoes pared and over the stove, when I heard the old mare and him drive into the barn-yard. He had come sooner than I looked for. But it didn’t excite me; I was prepared. For not knowin’ exactly the time of his arrival, I had made ready for any emergency. I had drawed the table out, and put the table-cloth on; and I felt at rest, and peaceful.

Let wimmen whose pardners are wont to rampage round and act, when they come in and find dinner only jest begun—let ’em not tell any wrong stories or exagerations or parables, let ’em not bandy words or argue, but let ’em, jest before he comes in, draw out the table and throw the table-cloth on, and everything will move on peaceful; their pardners will think dinner is most ready, and as they glance at that snowy table-cloth their wrath will leave ’em, and they will demean themselves like lambs.

I only tell what I have learnt from experience. And any little crumbs of wisdom and knowledge that I have gained by hard experience, and through tribulation, I am willin’ to share freely, without money and without price, with the female sect; I think so much of ’em, and wish ’em so well. Now jest this one little receipt,—this table-cloth performance,—would have been worth dollars and dollars to me if I had known it when I was first a pardner. But I never found it out till I had been married over thirteen years, and had been jawed accordingly, when I was belated and dinner wasn’t ready. Why no woman would have any idee of its value till they try it. Men are as likely creeters as the earth affords, if you only know how to get along with ’em. And wimmen has to try various ways and measures. I learnt this jest by tryin’ it as a experiment. I have tried a good many experiments—little harmless ones like this. Some of ’em work, and some don’t.

Wall, I sot there hullin’ my berries, and listenin’ to the wind, which was a roarin’ round the house. Seems as if I never heard it blow no harder. It blowed for all the world as if it had been kep’ in through sickness in its family, or sunthin’, and was out now for the first time, on a regular spree.

And though it didn’t come right out and sing ’em in plain words, yet it seemed to be a roarin’ it down the chimbley, and blowin’ it through the orchard and round the corners of the house, and whistlin’ it through the open buttery window—the song that other elevated and gay spirits indulge in, about bein’ fairly determined and sot to not go home till mornin’.

It blowed fearfully. But I was calm and peaceful, knowin’ the table-cloth was on, and Josiah would act first-rate. And then, when a tempest is a howlin’ and a actin’ out-doors, it seems as if I enjoy more than ever the safety and sweet repose and happiness of my own hearth-stun (which last is a poetical simely, our hearth not bein’ stun at all, but iron, with a nickel platin’ round it).

Wall, there I sot, feelin’ well and lookin’ well. I had combed my hair slick, and put on a clean gingham dress,—when Josiah Allen opened the door and walked in. He glanced at the table-cloth, and a calm, contented look settled upon his eye-brow, but he left the door open behind him as composed as if he had been born in a saw-mill; and says I:

“Josiah Allen, if there was a heavy fine to pay for shettin’ up doors, you wouldn’t never loose a cent of your property in that way.” And says I, clutchin’ my pan of strawberries with a firmer grip, for truly it was a movin’ and onstiddy, and my apron was a flutterin’ like a banner in the cold breeze: “If you don’t want me to blow away, Josiah Allen, shet up that door.”

“Oh shaw! Samantha. You won’t blow away; you are too hefty. It would take a hurrycane and a simon, too, to tackle you, and lift you.”

“Simon who?” says I, in cold axents, caused partly by my frigid emotions and the cool blast, and partly by his darin’ to say any man could take me up and carry me away.

“Oh! the simons they have on the desert. We hearn Thomas J. read about ’em. They’ll blow camels away, and everything.”

Says I dreamily: “Who’d have thought twenty years ago, to have heard that man a courtin’ me, and callin’ me a zephire and a pink posy and a angel, that he’d ever live to see the day he’d call me a camel.”

“I hain’t called you a camel. I only meant you was hefty, and camels was hefty, and it would take a simon or two to lift you round, either on you.”

“Wall,” says I, in frigid tones, “what I want to know is, are you a goin’ to shet that door?”

“Yes, I be, jest as quick as I change my clothes. I don’t want to fodder in these new briches.”

I rose with dignity,—or as much dignity as I could lay holt of, half bent, tryin’ to keep five or six quarts of strawberries from spillin’ all over the floor,—and went and shet the door myself, which I might have known enough to done in the first place, and saved time and breath. For shettin’ up doors is a accomplishment that Josiah Allen never will master. I have tutored him up on lots of things since we was married, but in this branch of education he has been too much for me. Experiments have been vain; I have about gin up.

In the course of ten or fifteen minutes, Josiah come out of the bedroom lookin’ as pleasant and peaceful as you please, with his hands in his pantaloons pockets, seemin’ly searchin’ their remotest depths, and says he in a off-hand, careless way:

“I’ll be hanged if there hain’t a letter for you, Samantha.”

“How many weeks have you carried it ’round, Josiah Allen?” says I. “It would scare me if you should give me a letter before you had carried it round in your pockets a month or so.”

“Oh! I guess I only got this two or three days ago. I meant to handed it to you the first thing when I got home. But I hain’t had on these old breeches sence that day I went to mill.”

“Three weeks ago to-day,” says I, in almost frosty axents, as I opened my letter.

“Wall,” says Josiah cheerfully, as he hunted round in the bedroom for his old hat, “I knew it wuzn’t long, anyway.”

I glanced my gray eye down the letter, and says I in agitated tones:

“Come out here, Josiah Allen, and let me look at you, and wither you! She that was Alzina Ann Allen is comin’ here a visatin’. She wrote me three weeks ahead, so’s to have me prepared. And here she is liable to come in on us any minute, now, and find us all unprepared.” Says I, “I wouldn’t have had it happen for a ten-cent bill to had one of the relation on your side come and ketch me in such a condition. There the curtains are all down in the spare room. Bill Danks fell and dragged ’em down onto the floor under him, and mussed ’em all up, and I washed ’em yesterday, and they hain’t ironed. And the carpet in the settin’-room up to mend, where he fell onto it with a lighted candle in his hand and sot it afire. And not a mite of fruit-cake in the house, and she a comin’ here to-day. I am mortified most to death, Josiah Allen. And if you had give me that letter, I should have hired help and got everything done. I should think your conscience would smart like a burn, if you have got a conscience, Josiah Allen.”

“Wall, less have a little sunthin’ to eat, Samantha, and I’ll help round.”

“Help! What’ll you do, Josiah Allen?”

“Oh! I’ll do the barn chores, and help all I can. I guess you’d better cook a little of that canned sammen I got to Jonesville.”

Says I coldly, “I believe, Josiah Allen, if you was on your way to the gallus, you’d make ’em stop and get vittles for you—meat vittles, if you could.”

I didn’t say nothin’ more, for, as the greatest poets have sung, “the least said, the soonest mended.” But I rose, and with outward calmness opened the can of salmon, and jest as I put that over the stove, with some sweet cream and butter, if you’ll believe it, that very minute she that was Alzina Ann Allen drove right up to the door, and come in. You could have knocked me down with a hen’s feather (as it were), my feelin’s was such; but I concealed ’em as well as I could, and advanced to the door, and says I:

“How do you do, Miss Rickerson?” She is married to Bildad Rickerson, old Dan Rickerson’s oldest boy.

She is a tall, bony woman, light-complected, sandy-haired, and with big, light-blue eyes. I hadn’t seen her for nineteen years, but she seemed dretful tickled to see me, and says she:

“You look younger, Samantha, than you did the first time I ever seen you.”

“Oh, no!” says I, “that can’t be, Alzina Ann, for that is in the neighberhood of thirty years ago.”

Says she, “It is true as I live and breathe, you look younger and handsomer than I ever see you look.”

I didn’t believe it, but I thought it wouldn’t look well to dispute her any more; so I let it go; and mebby she thought she had convinced me that I did look younger than I did when I was eighteen or twenty. But I only said “That I didn’t feel so young any way. I had spells of feelin’ mauger.”

She took off her things, or “wrappers,” as Tirzah Ann says it is more genteel to call ’em. She was dressed up awful slick, and Josiah helped the driver bring in her trunk. And I told her jest how mortified I wuz about Josiah’s forgettin’ her letter, and her ketchin’ me unprepared. But good land! she told me that “she never in her hull life see a house in such beautiful order as mine was, and she had seen thousands and thousands of different houses.”

Says I, “I feel worked up and almost mortified about my settin’-room carpet bein’ up.”

But she held up both hands—they was white as snow, and all covered with rings—and says she, “If there is one thing that I love to see more than another it is to see a settin’-room carpet up, it gives such a sort of a free, noble look to a room.”

Says I, “The curtains are down in the spare bedroom, and I am almost entirely out of cookin’.”

Says she, “If I had my way, I never would have a curtain up to a window. The sky always looks so pure and innocent somehow. It is so beautiful to set and look up into the calm heavens, with no worldly obstructions between, such as curtains. It is so sweet to sit in your chair, and knit tattin’, and commune with holy nature. And cookin’,” says she, with a look of complete disgust on her face, “why I fairly despise cookin’. What’s the use of it?” says she, with a sweet smile.

“Why,” says I, reasonably, “if it wasn’t for cookin’ vittles and eatin’ em, I guess we shouldn’t stand it a great while, none of us.”

I didn’t really like the way she went on. Never, never, through my hull life, was I praised up by anybody as I was by her durin’ the three days that she stayed with us. She praised everything fur beyond what they would bear.

I believe in praisin’ things that will stand praisin’. Nothin’ does any one more good than appreciation. Honest admiration, sympathy, and good-will put into words are more inspirin’ and stimulatin’ than tongue can tell. They are truly refreshin’. I think as a rule we New Englanders are too cold in our means. Mebby it is settin’ on Plymouth Rock so much, or leanin’ up against Bunker Hill Monument; or mebby we took it from our old Puriten four-fathers, and mebby them four old men ketched cold in their demeaniers from settin’ under the chilly blue light of their old laws, or took the trait from the savages. Any way, we are too undemonstrative and reticent (them are very hefty words, and it is seldom indeed that I harness up a span of such a size to carry my idees.

As a general thing I don’t have idees so hefty but what I can draw ’em along with considerable small words. And I prefer ’em always, as bein’ easier reined in, and held up, and governed. Why, I have seen such awful big words harnessed in front of such weak little idees that they run away with ’em, kicked in the harness, got all tangled up, and made a perfect wrack and ruin of the little idee. Hence, I am cautious, and if I owned droves of ’em, I should be on the safe side, and handle ’em careful and not drive ’em hardly any. But these two I have heard Thomas J. use in jest this place, and hain’t a doubt but they are safe and stiddy as any ever was of their size.)

Thomas J. said, and I believe, that we are too bashful, or shy, or sunthin’, too afraid of expressin’ our hearty appreciation, the honest, friendly admiration and regard we entertain for our friends. But if my friends like me, or my work, I want ’em to tell me of it, to give me the help, and encouragement, and insperation this knowledge will bring. A few sympathetic, cheerin’ words and a warm smile and hand-clasp will do more good than to wait and cut the praise on marble, when the heart they would have cheered and lightened is beyond the touch of joy or pain. I think it is not only silly, but unchristian, to be so afraid of tellin’ our friends frankly how pleasant and admirable we think them, _if we do think so_. But let us not lie. Let us not praise what won’t stand praisin’. Now when Alzina Ann Rickerson told me that I was as pretty as any wax doll she ever see in her life—and if my intellect and Shakespeare’s intellect was laid side by side, Shakespeare’s would look weak and shiftless compared with mine—and when she said that my old winter bunnet that I had wore on and off for thirteen years was the most genteel and fashionable, and the loveliest piece of millionary she ever sot her eyes on, she was goin’ too fur. Why, that old bunnet wouldn’t hardly hold together to stand her praisin’. And she praised up everything. She flattered Kellup Cobb so, when he happened to come in there one mornin’, that it skairt him most to death.

He had been up by on his father’s business, and as he come along back he stopped the hearse and come in to see when Kitty was a comin’ back, and to see if he could borrow Josiah’s stun-bolt that afternoon to draw some stuns. He was goin’ to wait till Josiah come back from the factory to see about it, but Alzina Ann praised him up so, and looked so admiringly at him, that he dassent. As a general thing I think Kellup is afraider than he need to be of doin’ hurt and gettin’ wimmen in love with him, but now I’ll be hanged if I blame him for thinkin’ he was doin’ damage. Why, she praised him up to the very skies.

She pretended to think that his hair and whiskers and eyebrows was the natural color. They was a sort of a greenish color that mornin’—he had been a tamperin’ with ’em agin, and tryin’ experements. He had been a usin’ smartweed and sage, as I found out afterwards, and they bein’ yellow before, the two colors together made ’em a sort of a dark bottle-green—made him look as curious as a dog, and curiouser than any dog I ever laid eyes on.

But oh, how Alzina Ann did praise ’em up. You’d have thought, to heard her go on, that she had all her hull life been longin’ to ketch a glimpse of jest such colored hair and whiskers. She said they looked so strikin’, and she never had seen anything like ’em in her life before, which last I don’t doubt at all. And then she would glance out at the hearse, and tell him he looked so noble and impressive on it, it give him such a lofty, majestic look, so becomin’ to his style. And then she would branch off again and praise up his looks.

Why, I don’t wonder a mite that Kellup thought he was ensnarin’ her affections and doin’ harm.

He follered me out onto the back stoop, where I was feedin’ a chicken that the old hen had forsook, and I was bringin’ up as a corset. He follered me out there, and whispered, with a anxious look, that he was goin’ to start for home that minute, that he dassent wait another minute to see Josiah about the stun-bolt; and, says he; with a awful anxious look:

“I am afraid I have done hurt as it is, but Heaven knows I didn’t mean to.”

I threw the corset another handful of dough, and told him, in a encouragin’ tone, that “I guessed he hadn’t done much harm.”

“Why,” says he, “don’t you s’pose I could see for myself what I was a doin’? She was a gettin’ head over heels in love with me. And,” says he, frownin’ and knittin’ up his eyebrows:

“What good will it do to have another married woman a droopin’ round after me?”

Says I, mechanically, as I put some fresh water on the corset’s dish:

“I thought you wanted to see Josiah about the stun-bolt, you said you needed it.”

“Yes, I need the stun-bolt, but I need a easy conscience more. I had ruther lug the stuns in my arms, and crack my back, and bruise my stomach, than crack the commandments and strain my principles. I see from her actions that I have got to leave at once, or no knowin’ what the consequences will be to her. I am afraid she will suffer now, suffer intensely. But what can a man do?” says he, frownin’ heavily. “They have got to go around some, and do errants. And if wimmen lay traps for ’em on every side, and make fools of themselves, what is a man to do? But I don’t want to do harm, Heaven knows I don’t.”

And he started for the gate almost on the run. And I was jest a goin’ in when Alzina Ann come out to the back door herself, and happenin’ to see the corset, she said “she should rather have it for a pet, and it was far handsomer and more valuable than any mockin’-bird, or canary, or parrot she ever laid eyes on.” And so she kep’ on in jest that way. And one mornin’ when she had been goin’ on dretfully that way, I took Josiah out one side and told him “I couldn’t bear to hear her go on so, and I believed there was sunthin’ wrong about it.”

“Oh, no,” says he, “she means every word she says. She is one of the loveliest creeters on earth. She is most a angel. Oh!” says he, dreamily, “What a sound mind she has got. How fur she can see into things.”

Says I, “I heard her a tellin’ you this mornin’ that you was one of the handsomest men she ever laid eyes on, and didn’t look a day over twenty-one.”

“Wall,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect, “she thinks so; she says jest exactly what she thinks.” And says he, in firm axents, “I am a good-lookin’ feller, Samantha—a crackin’ good-lookin’ chap; but I never could make you own up to it.”

I didn’t say nothin’, but my gray eye wandered up, and lighted on his bald head. It rested there searchin’ly and very coldly for a moment or two, and then says I sternly, “Bald heads and beauty don’t go together worth a cent. But you was always vain, Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “What if I wuz?” And says he, “She thinks different from what you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye in her head for beauty. She is very smart, very. And what she says, she means.”

“Wall,” says I, “I am glad you are so happy in your mind. But mark my words, you won’t always feel so neat about it, Josiah Allen, as you do now.”

Says he in a cross, surly way, “I guess I know what I do know.”

I hain’t a jealous hair in the hull of my foretop or back hair, but I thought to myself, I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s eyes opened; for I knew as well as I knew my name was Josiah Allen’s wife, that that woman didn’t think Josiah was so pretty and beautiful. But I didn’t see how I was goin’ to convince him, for he wouldn’t believe me when I told him she was a makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so there it was. But I held firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by her.

CASSANDRA’S TEA PARTY.

That very afternoon we was all invited to take tea with she that was Cassandra Allen, Miss Nathan Spooner, that now is. And we all went, Alzina Ann, Josiah, and me.

Cassandra didn’t use to be likely. She had a misfortune when she was a girl. It is six years old now. But all of a sudden she took a turn, and went to behavin’. She learnt the dress-maker’s trade, experienced religion, and jined the Methodist Church. And folks begun to make of her. I didn’t use to associate with her at all, Josiah didn’t want me to, though she is his 2nd cousin on his father’s side. But jist as quick as she went to behavin’, we went to makin’ of her. And the more she behaved, the more we made; till we make as much of her now as we do of any of the relation on my side, or on hisen. And last fall she was married to Nathan Spooner. She got acquainted with him about two years ago.

Nathan is a likely feller, all that ails him is he is bashful, too bashful for any sort of comfort. But Cassandra is proud-spirited, and holds him up, and I tell Cassandra “I dare say he’ll get over it by the time he gets to be a old man. I tell her “I shouldn’t wonder at all if by the time he got to be seventy or eighty, he would talk up quite well.” I try to make her feel well, and encourage her all I can.

But bein’ proud-spirited, it works her up awfully to have Nathan get over the fence, rather than meet a strange woman, and walk in the lot till he gets by her. And it mortified her dretfully, I s’pose, when she introduced him to our new minister and his wife, to have him instead of bowin’ to ’em, and speakin’, turn his back to ’em, and snicker.

But he couldn’t help it, I told her he couldn’t. I was present at the time, and I could see, his mouth bein’ a little open, that his tongue was dry, and parched, and his eyes wild and sot in his head.

He has the worst of it, as I told Cassandra—it don’t hurt nobody else so bad as it does him. But I s’pose it has been almost the means of his death, time and agin—through his not dastin’ to call for anything to eat when he is away from home, and not dastin’ to eat it when it is on the table. And then again, sometimes, through his not dastin’ to stop eatin’ when he gets at it.

He went to Bobbets’ one day in the fall of the year,—it was a year ago this present fall. Cassandra was a sewin’ for Miss Bobbet. They had jest had some new corn ground, and they had a new corn puddin’ and milk for dinner.

Nathan had been to dinner jest before he went in there. His mother had had a boiled dinner, and mince pie, and etcetery—he had eat a awful dinner, and was so full he felt fairly uncomfortable. But Miss Bobbet urged him to set down and eat, and wouldn’t take no refusal. She thought he was refusin’ because he was bashful, and she urged him out of his way, telling him he _must_ eat, and he, not dastin’ to refuse any longer, thought he would set down and eat a few mouthfuls, if he could, though it seemed to him as if he couldn’t get down another mouthful.

But when he stopped, Cassandra, thinkin’ it was bashfulness that made him stop, and thinkin’ a good deal of him then—and wantin him to eat all the puddin’ he wanted, she told him she shouldn’t think he showed good manners at all, if he didn’t eat as much as she did, anyway. So he dassent do anything else then, only jest eat as long as they wanted him to, and he did. Miss Bobbet would press him to have his bowl filled up again with milk, and Cassandra would urge him to have a little more puddin’, and he not dastin’ to stop, after she had said what she had, I spose he eat pretty nigh three quarts. It almost killed him. He vomited all the way home, and was laid up bed-sick for more’n two weeks.

And he has destroyed his clothes dretfully. Now hats,—I spose it took pretty nigh all he could earn to keep himself in hats. When he would go to any new place, or evenin’ meetings or anything, he would muss ’em so, rub ’em, and everything—why, he couldn’t keep no nap on a hat at all, not for any length of time—he would rub ’em so, and poke at ’em, and jab ’em, and wring ’em when he was feelin’ the worst. Why, he got holt of Josiah’s hat, thinkin’ it was hisen, one night at a church social; they appointed Nathan to some office, and he wrung that hat till there wasn’t no shape of a hat to it. When Josiah put it on to go home, it was a sight to behold. Anybody would have thought that it was the fashion in the Allen family to wear hats for night-caps, and this had been the family hat to sleep in for years. Josiah was for makin’ him pay for the wear and tear of it. But I wouldn’t hear a word to it. I told him breakin’ bruised reeds, or smokin’ flax, would be tender-hearted business compared to makin’ anybody pay for such sufferin’s as Nathan Spooner had suffered that night. Says I, “if he wrung one mite of comfort out o’ that hat, for pity sake don’t begrech it to him.”

Why, I have been so sorry for that feller that I didn’t know what to do. Now when he was a courtin’ Cassandra (and how he ever got up spunk enough to court a mouse, is a mystery to me), Cassandra used to sew for me, and he would come there evenin’s to see her, and set the hull evenin’ long and not say nothin’, but jest look at her, and twirl his thumbs one over the other. And I told Josiah “I felt bad for him, and it seemed as if his thumbs must give out after a while, and it looked fairly solemn to me, to see ’em a goin’ so, for evenin’ after evenin’, and week after week, without any change.”

And Josiah said there was a change. He said about the middle of the evenin’ he changed thumbs, and twirled ’em the other way.

I don’t know whether it was so or not. I couldn’t see no change; and I told Josiah I couldn’t.

How under the sun he ever got up courage to ask her to marry him, is another deep and mysterious mystery, and always has been. But there are strange things in this world that there hain’t no use tryin’ to pry into and explain. But in his feeble way, he courted her a good deal, and thought everything of her, anybody could see that. And he popped the question to her, or she to him, or it popped itself,—anyway it was popped, and they was married.

They said he suffered dretfully the day he was married, and acted strange and bad. They said he seemed to act sort o’ paralyzed and blind. And she had to take the lead, and take holt of his hand, and lead him up to the minister, instead of his leadin’ her.

Some made fun of it, but I didn’t. I told ’em I presumed he was fairly blind for the time bein’, and sort o’ numb, and didn’t sense what was passin’ round him.

It made it as bad agin for him, to think he fell jest after they was married. You see he sort ’o backed off to set down, for he needed rest. And feelin’ so weak and wobblin’ and sort o’ tottlin’, he didn’t back quite fur enough, and sot right down on the floor. It hurt him awfully, I s’pose, from their tell. He was tall, and they say he struck hard. But he was too bashful to have a doctor, or make any fuss, only jest set there where he wuz. Some think he would have sot there all night, and not tried to make a move towards gettin’ up at all. But Cassandra was proud-spirited, and helped him up onto his feet. But they said he acted jest exactly like a fool.

And I told ’em in reasonable axents “that I presumed he wuz a fool for the time bein’.” Says I, “When anybody’s senses are gone, they are a fool.” Says I, “It is jest as bad to be skairt out of ’em, as be born without ’em, as long as it lasts.”

But says I, “He knows enough when he hain’t skairt to death.” And he does. He is industrious, and so is she, and I shouldn’t wonder if they got along first-rate, and done well.

Wall, when we got there, Nathan was settin’ by the stove in the settin’-room. He was afraid of Alzina Ann, and was too bashful to set down, or stand up, or speak, or anything. And when she asked him “how his health was,” he didn’t say nothin’, but looked down on the floor, and under his chair, and into his hat, as if he was tryin’ to find his health, and drive it out, and make it tell how it was.

But she asked him over agin—she was perfectly heartless, or else she didn’t notice his sufferin’s. And the second time she asked him, he sort o’ looked under his chair agin, and into his coat pocket, and seemed to give up findin’ his health and makin’ it speak for him, so he said, sort o’ dry and husky, sunthin’ about bein’ “comfortable.”

Which was one of the biggest stories Nathan Spooner had told sence he j’ined the meetin’-house, for he wuzn’t comfortable; far from it. His face was red as blood, and he was more than half blind, I could see that by the looks of his mean. But after awhile he seemed to revive up a little. He wuzn’t afraid of me and Josiah, not very. And after Alzina Ann and Cassandra got engaged in talkin, he said quite a number of words to us, as rational and straight as anybody. But Alzina Ann had to bring back his sufferin’s agin, and worse than he had suffered.

I hadn’t said a word to Alzina Ann about Cassandra’s misfortune; I hadn’t mentioned the child to her. He is a dretful humbly child, about the humbliest boy I ever see in my life. He looks fairly pitiful he is so humbly, and he hain’t more than half-witted, I think. But Alzina Ann couldn’t keep still; she had to flatter somebody, or sunthin’, so she had to begin agin:

“How much! how much! that beautiful little boy looks like his pa! Don’t you think so?” says she to Cassandra.

And then she would look at Nathan, and then at the boy, in that rapt, enthusiastic way of her’n. And says she to Cassandra:

“Hain’t it a comfort to you to think he looks so much like his pa?”

And Cassandra’s face would get red as blood, and I could see by her looks that she hadn’t the least idee what to say, or do, she was so awful wretched, and feerfully uncomfortable. And truly if Nathan Spooner could have sunk right down through the floor into the suller, right into the potato-ben, or pork-barrell, it would have been one of the most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed.

If she had said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann never’ll do that; she has to enlarge on her idees. And so she would keep a-askin’ Cassandra in that rapturous, admirin’ way of her’n, if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look and manners that his father had. And Cassandra’s face and Nathan’s would be as red as two red woolen shirts. And then Alzina Ann would look at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathan’s, which is a sort of a Roman one, and the best feature on his face, as Josiah says. She would look from one nose to the other as if she admired both of ’em so she couldn’t hardly stop lookin’ at ’em, and would ask Nathan “if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy resembled his pa?”

And Nathan didn’t say nothin’ but jest set there red as blood, his eyes fixed and glarin’ on the opposite wall, a watchin’ it as close and wishful as if he expected to see a relief party set out from it to befriend him, and shoot him down where he sot, or drag him off into captivity. Anything that would relieve him of his present sufferin’s he would have hailed gladly. I could see that by his mean.

But at supper-time worse was in store for him. Her supper was good—good enough for anybody. She haint got a great deal to do with, but bein’ a little afraid of Alzina Ann, and bein’ proud-spirited and wantin to make a good appearance, Cassandra had sent over and borrowed her mother-in-laws’s white-handled knives, and entirely unbeknown to Alzina Ann I had carried her over some tea-spoons and other things for her comfort, for if Cassandra means to do better, and try to get along and be respectable, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.

But all the time Cassandra was a settin’ the table, Nathan looked worse and worse; he looked so bad it didn’t seem as if we _could_ keep him out of the suller. He realized what was in front of him.

You see Cassandra, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathan ask a blessin’. But he bein’ so uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they had company. He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on him. He looked more and more as if he would sink all the while she was a gettin’ the supper onto the table. And when she was a settin’ the chairs round the table he looked so bad that I didn’t know but what he would have to have help to get to the table. And he would give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks onto Cassandra that ever was, but she would shake her head at him, and look decided, and then he would look as if he would wilt right down agin.

So, when we got set down to the table, Cassandra give him a real firm look, and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and Cassandra, and me, and Josiah put on a becomin’ look for the occasion, and shet up our’n, when, all of a sudden, Alzina Ann—she never asked a blessin’ in her own house, and forgot that other folks did—she spoke out in a real loud, admirin’ tone, and says she:

“There! I will say it, I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in my hull life. White-handled knives, with a gilt of sun-flowers on ’em, is something I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But never, never did I see any that was so perfectly beautiful as these are.”

And she held her knife out at arm’s length, and looked at it admirin’ly, and almost rapturusly.

Nathan looked bad, dretful bad, for he see by Cassandra’s looks that she wuzn’t goin’ to set him free from the blessin’. And he sort o’ nestled round, and looked under the table, a wishful and melancholy look, as if he had hopes of findin’ a blessin’ there; as if he thought mebby there might be one a layin’ round loose on the floor that he could get holt of, and so be sot free himself. But we didn’t none on us reply to Alzina Ann, and she seemed to kind o’ quiet down, and Cassandra give Nathan another look, and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she, and me, and Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathan was jest beginnin’ agin, when Alzina Ann broke out afresh, and says:

“What wouldn’t I give if I owned some knives like them? What a proud and happy woman it would make me.”

That rousted us all up agin, and never did I see—unless it was on a funeral occasion—a face look as Nathan’s face looked. Nobody could have blamed him a mite if he had gin up then, and not made another effort. But Cassandra bein’ so awful determined to do jest right, and start right in the married life, she winked to Nathan agin, as firm and decided a wink as I ever see wunk, and shet up her eyes, and Josiah and I done as she done, and shet up our’n.

And Nathan (feelin’ as if he _must_ sink), got all ready to begin agin. He had jest got his mouth opened, when says Alzina Ann, in that rapturus way of her’n:

“Do tell me, Cassandra, how much did you give for these knives, and where did you get ’em?”

Then it was Cassandra’s turn to feel as if she must sink, for, bein’ so proud-spirited, it was like pullin’ out a sound tooth to tell Alzina Ann they was borrowed. But bein’ so sot in tryin’ to do right she would have up and told her. But I, feelin’ sorry for her, branched right off, and asked Nathan “if he layed out to vote republican or democrat.”

Cassandra sithed, and went to pourin’ out the tea. And Nathan, feelin’ so relieved, brightened up, and spoke up like a man, the first words he spoke out loud and plain, like a human bein’, that day—says he:

“If things turn out with me as I hope they will, I calc’late to vote for old Peter Cooper.”

I could see by the looks of Josiah’s mean that he was a gettin’ kinder sick of Alzina Ann, and (though I haint got a jealous hair in the hull of my back-hair and foretop) I didn’t care a mite if he wuz. But truly worse wuz to come.

After supper Josiah and me was a settin’ in the spare room close to the window, a lookin’ through Cassandra’s album, when we heard Alzina Ann and Cassandra out under the window a-lookin’ at the posy beds, when Alzina Ann says:

“You must excuse my lookin’ at you so much, Cassandra, but you are so lovely and fair-lookin’ that I can’t keep my eyes offen you. And what a noble-appearin’ husband you have got—perfectly splendid! And how pleasant it is here to your house—perfectly beautiful! Seein’ we are such friends to her, I feel free to tell you what a awful state I find Josiah Allen’s wife’s house in. Not a mite of a carpet on her settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look as that. She said it was up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t believe a word of it. I believe it was up for some other purpose, somethin’ she didn’t want to tell.

“And the curtains was down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first night in that condition. I might jest as well set up, for I could not sleep, it looked so. And when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they wuzn’t nothin’ but plain, white muslin. I should think she could afford something a little more decent than that for her spare room. And she hadn’t a mite of fruit cake in the house, only two kinds of common-lookin’ cake. She said Josiah forgot to give her my letter, and she didn’t get word I was comin’ till about ten minutes before I got there; but, between you and me, I never believed that for a minute. I believe they got up that story between ’em to excuse it off, things lookin’ so. If I wuzn’t such a friend of hern, and didn’t think such a sight of her, I wouldn’t mention it for the world. But I think everything of her, and everybody knows I do, so I feel free to talk about her.

“How humbly she has growed! Don’t you think so? And her mind seems to be kind o’ runnin’ down. For how under the sun she can think so much of that simple old husband of hern is a mystery to me, unless she is growin’ foolish. If it was your husband, Cassandra, nobody would wonder at it, such a splendid, noble-appearin’ gentleman as he is. But Josiah Allen was always a poor, insignificant-lookin’ creeter; and now he is the humbliest, and foolishest, and meachin’est-lookin’ creeter I ever see in human shape. And he looks as old as Grandfather Rickerson, every mite as old, and he is most ninety. And he is vain as a peahen.”