Chapter II: Part 2

Just at that minute they called to me from the shore, to come that minute to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But, oh, the gloom of my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions, and looks of Josiah, were on me. Had the sufferins’ of the night added to the trials of the day made him crazy. I thought more’n as likely as not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days. And then, oh, how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the smoke so into my face, that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And then a perfect swarm of yeller wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick as we laid ’em down, so you couldn’t touch a thing without running a chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time. But I kep’ to work, and when we had got dinner most ready, I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there, and her boy Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would dig one to give him. So we started up the hill again. He set jest in the same position, all huddled up, with his leg under him, as uncomfortable lookin’ a creeter as I ever see. But when we both stood in front of him, he pretended to look careless and happy, and smiled that sickish smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, dinner is ready.”

“O, I hain’t hungry,” says he. “The table will probably be full. I had just as leves wait.”

“Table full!” says I. “You know just as well as I do that we are eatin’ on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute.”

“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet.

“Oh,” says he, with that ghastly smile, a pertendin’ to joke, “I have got plenty to eat here; I can eat muskeeters.”

The air was black with ’em, I couldn’t deny it.

“The muskeeters will eat you, more likely,” says I. “Look at your face and hands.”

“Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don’t begrech ’em. I haint small enough, I hope, to begrech ’em one meal.”

Miss Bobbet went off in search of her wild turnip, and Josiah whispered to me with a savage look, and a tone sharp as a sharp axe:

“Can’t you bring 40 or 50 more wimmin up here? You couldn’ come here a minute, without a lot of other wimmin tied to your heels!”

I began to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet got her wild turnip, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then Josiah told me.

It seems he had set down on that bottle of raspberry jell. That blue stripe on the side wasn’t hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn’t fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin’ at ’em to try to wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein’ sewed on a machine, that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he walked off sideways toward the woods for. Josiah Allen’s wife haint one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned ’em up as well as I could, and I didn’t say a word to hurt his feelin’s, only I jest said this to him, as I was a fixin’ ’em. I fastened my grey eye firmly and almost sternly onto him, and says I, “Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?” Says I, “You was determined to come.”

“Throw that in my face again, will you? What if I wuz? There goes a pin into my leg. I should think I had suffered enough without your stabin’ of me with pins.”

“Wall, then stand still, and not be a caperin’ round so. How do you suppose I can do anything with you a tossin’ round so?”

“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”

I fixed ’em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and then there they was all covered with jell too. What to do I didn’t know. But finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up corner ways, as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind, and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he wouldn’t, and I told him if he wouldn’t that he must make his own excuses to the company about wearin’ the shawl. So he told ’em that he always loved to wear summer shawls, he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink, all the time he was a sayin’ it. They all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin’ as if he had stole a sheep, and he never took a minute’s comfort nor I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the shore and so was I. And jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain begun to pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time; my lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bunnet. And I says to Josiah:

“This bunnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy some new ones.”

“Wall! wall! who said you wouldn’t!” he snapped out.

But it wore on him. Oh, how the rain poured down. Josiah havin’ nothin’ but his handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a apron to put on a gettin’ dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on to his head. But, says he, firmly:

“I haint proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin’ out with a pink apron on for a hat.”

“Wall, then,” says I, “get as wet as sop if you had rather.”

I didn’t say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down, the wind howled at us, the old mare went slow, the rheumatiz laid hold of both of us, and the thought of the new bunnet and dress was a wearin’ on Josiah, I knew.

There wasn’t a house for the first 7 miles, and after we had got there I thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had to get home to milk, any way, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron, we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as 13 miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward with the rain a-drippin’ offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his white pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:

“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”

He gave the old mare a awful cut, an says he, “I’d like to know what you want to be so agrevatin’ for?”

I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud puddle, I says to him:

“Mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”

And I’ll bet he will. I haint afraid to bet a ten cent bill, that that man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a PLEASURE EXERTION.

HOW WE TOOK IN SUMMER BOARDERS.

Last summer, as the days grew hot, Josiah grew fearfully cross. And his worst spells would come on to him, as he would come home from Jonesville.

You see, an old friend of his’n, Jake Mandagood by name, was a-takin’ in boarders, and makin’ money by ’em. And s’pose, from what I learned afterward, that he kep’ a-throwin’ them boarders into Josiah’s face, and sayin’ if it wuzn’t for his wife, he could make jest as much money. Jake Mandagood had heerd me talk on the subject time and agin. For my feelin’s about summer boarders, and takin’ of ’em in, had always been cast-iron. _I wouldn’t take ’em in_, I had allers said.

Josiah, like other pardners of his sect, is very fond of havin’ things as he wants ’em; and he is also fond of makin’ money; and I s’pose that wus what made him so fearfully cross to me. But I was skairt most to death, seein’ him come home lookin’ so manger, and crosser than any bear out of a circus.

Thinks I to myself: “Mebby, he is a-enjoyin’ poor health.” And then, thinks I: “Mebby, he is a-backslidin’, or mebby, he is backslid.”

And one day, I says to him, says I:

“Josiah Allen, what is the matter with you? You don’t act like the same man you did, several weeks ago. I am goin’ to steep you up some catnip, and thorough-wort, and see if that won’t make you feel better; and some boneset.”

“I don’t want none of your boneset and catnip,” says he, impatient-like.

“Wall, then,” says I, in still more anxious tones, “if it ’taint yur health that is a-sufferin’, is it yur morals? Do you feel totterin’, Josiah? Tell yur pardner.”

“My morals feel all right.”

Says I, anxiously: “if yur hain’t enjoyin’ poor health, Josiah, and yur morals feel firm, why is there such a change in yur mean?” says I. “Yur mean don’t seem no more like the mean it used to be, than if it belonged to another man.”

But, instead of answering my affectionate arguments, he jumped up, and started for the barn.

And, oh! how feerfully, feerfully cross he wus, for the next several days. Finally, to the breakfast-table, one mornin’, I says to him, in tones that would be replied to:

“Josiah Allen, you are a-carryin’ sunthin’ on yur mind.” And says I, firmly: “Yur mind hain’t strong enough to carry it. You must and _shall_ let yur pardner help you!”

Seein’ I was immovably sot onto the determination to _make_ him tell, he up and told me all about it.

Says he: “Summer boarders is what ails me; I want to take ’em in.”

And then he went on to tell how awfully he wus a-hankerin’ after ’em. Now, he knew, piles and piles of money wus to be made by it—and what awful pretty business it wus, too. Nothin’ but fun, to take ’em in! Anybody could take sights and sights of comfort with ’em. He said Mandagood said so. And, it wus so dreadful profitable, too. And he up and told me that Mandagood wus a-twittin’ him, all the time, that, if it wuzn’t for me, he could make jest as much as he chose.

Mandagood knew well how I felt on the subject. He knew well I was principled against it, and sot. I don’t like Mandagood. He misuses his wife, in the wurst way. Works her down almost to skin and bone. They don’t live happy together at all. He is always envious of anybody that lives pleasant and agreeable with their pardners, and loves to break it up. And I shall always believe that it wus one great reason why he twitted Josiah so. And, for Mandagood to keep at him all the time, and throw them dozen boarders in his face, it hain’t no wonder to me that Josiah felt hurt.

Josiah went on, from half to three-quarters of an hour, a-pleadin’ with me, and a-bringin’ up arguments, to prove out what a beautiful business it wus, and how awful happifying; and, finally, says he, with a sad and melancholy look:

“I don’t want to say a word to turn your mind, Samantha; but, I will say this, that the idee that I can’t take boarders in, is a-wearin’ on me; it is a-wearin’ on me so, that I don’t know but it will wear me completely out.”

I didn’t say nothin’; but I felt strange and curious. I knew that my companion wus a man of small heft—I knew it wouldn’t take near so much to wear him out, as it would a heftier man—and the agony that I see printed on his eyebrows, seemed to pierce clear to my very heart. But, I didn’t say nothin’.

I see how fearfully he was a-sufferin’, and my affection for that man is like an oxes, as has often been remarked.

And, oh! what a wild commotion began to go on inside of me, between my principles and my affections.

As I have remarked and said, I wus principled against takin’ in summer boarders. I had seen ’em took in, time and agin’ and seen the effects of it. And I had said, and said it calmly, that boarders was a moth. I had said, and I have weighed my words, (as it were,) as I said it, that when a woman done her own housework, it wus all she ort to do, to take care of her own menfolks, and her house, and housen-stuff. And hired girls, I wus immovably sot against from my birth.

Home seemed to me to be a peaceful haven, jest large enough for two barks; my bark, and Josiah’s bark. And when foreign schooners, (to foller up my simely), sailed in, they generally proved in the end to be ships of war, pirate fleets, stealin’ happiness and ease, and runnin’ up the death’s head of our lost joy at the masthead.

But, I am a-eppisodin’, and a-wanderin’ off into fields of poesy; and to resume, and go on. Any female woman, who has got a beloved pardner, and also a heart inside of her breast bones, knows how the conflict ended. I yielded, and giv’ in. And, that very day, Josiah went and engaged ’em.

He had heerd of ’em from Mandagood. They wus boarders that Mandagood had had the summer before, and they had applied to him for board agin; but, he told Josiah, that he would giv’ ’em up to him. He said “He wouldn’t be selfish and onneighborly, he would give ’em up.”

“Why,” says Josiah, as he wus a tellin’ it over to me, “Mandagood acted fairly tickled at the idee of givin’ ’em up to me. There hain’t a selfish hair in Jake Mandagood’s head—not a hair!”

I thought it looked kinder queer, to think that Mandagood should act so awful willin’ to give them boarders up to Josiah and me, knowin’, as I did, that he was as selfish as the common run of men, if not selfisher. But I didn’t tell my thoughts. No, I didn’t say a word. Neither did I say a word when he said there wus four children in the family that wus a-comin’. No, I held firm. The job was undertook by me, for the savin’ of my pardner. I had undertook it in a martyr way, a almost John Rogers way, and I wuzn’t goin’ to spile the job by murmurin’s and complainin’s.

But, oh! how animated Josiah Allen wus that day, after he had come back from engagin’ of ’em. His appetite all came back, powerfully. He eat a feerful dinner. His restlessness, and oneasyness, had disappeared; his affectionate demeanor all returned. He would have acted spoony, if he had so much as a crumb of encouragement from me. But, I didn’t encourage him. There was a loftiness and majesty in my mean, (caused by my principles), that almost awed him. I looked firstrate, and acted so.

And, Josiah Allen, as I have said, how highlarious he was. He wus goin’ to make so much money by ’em. Says he: “Besides the happiness we shall enjoy with ’em, the almost perfect bliss, jest think of four dollars a week apiece for the man and wife, and two dollars apiece for the children.”

“Lemme see,” says he, dreamily. “Twice four is eight, and no orts to carry; four times two is eight, and eight and eight is sixteen—sixteen dollars a week! Why, Samantha,” says he, “that will support us. There hain’t no need of our ever liftin’ our fingers agin, if we can only keep ’em right with us, always.”

“Who is goin’ to cook and wait on ’em?” says I, almost coldly. Not real cold, but sort o’ coolishlike. For I hain’t one, when I tackle a cross, to go carryin’ it along, groanin’ and cryin’ out loud, all the way. No, if I can’t carry it along, without makin’ too much fuss, I’ll drop it and tackle another one. So, as I say, my tone wuzn’t frigid; but, sort o’ cool-like.

“Who’ll wait on them?” says I.

“Get a girl, get two girls,” says Josiah. Says he: “Think of sixteen dollars a week. You can keep a variety of hired girls, you kin, on that. Besides the pure happiness we are going to enjoy with ’em, we can have everything we want. Thank fortune, Samantha, we have now got a competency.”

“Wal,” says I, in the same coolish tones, or pretty nigh the same, “time will tell.”

Wal, they came on a Friday mornin’, on the five o’clock train. Josiah had to meet ’em to the depot, and he felt so afraid that he should miss ’em, and somebody else would undermind him, and get ’em as boarders, that he wus up about three o’clock; and went out and milked by candlelight, so’s to be sure to be there in season.

And I had to get up, and cook his breakfast, before daylight; feelin’ like a fool, too, for he had kept me awake all night, a-most, a-walkin’ ’round the house, a-lookin’ at the clock, to see what time it wus; and, if he said to me once, he said thirty times durin’ the night:

“It would be jest my luck to have somebody get in ahead of me to the cars, and undermind me at the last minute, and get ’em away from us.”

Says I, in a dry tone (not as dry as I had used sometimes, but dryish):

“I guess there won’t be no danger, Josiah.”

Wal, at about a-quarter to seven he driv’ up with ’em; a tall, waspish-lookin’ woman, and four children; the man they said wouldn’t be there till Saturday night. I thought the woman had a singular look to her: I thought so when I first sot my eyes on her. And the oldest boy, about thirteen years old, he looked awful curious. I thought, to myself, as they walked up to the house, side by side, that I never, in all my hull life, seed a waspisher and more spindliner-lookin’ woman and a curiouser, stranger-lookin’ boy. The three children that come along behind ’em, seemed to be pretty much of a size, and looked healthy, and full of witchcraft, as we found afterward, they indeed was.

Wal, I had a hard tussle of it, through the day, to cook and do for ’em. Their appetites wus tremendous, ’specially the woman and oldest boy. They wuzn’t healthy appetites, I could see that in a minute. Their eyes would look holler and hungry, and they would look voraciously at the empty, deep dishes, and tureens, after they had eat them all empty—eat enough for four men.

Why, it did beat all: Josiah looked at me, in silent wonder and dismay, as he see the vittles disappear before the woman and boy. The other three children eat about as common, healthy children do: about twice what Josiah and me did. But there wuzn’t nothin’ mysterious about ’em. But, the woman and Bill—that was the biggest boy’s name—they made me feel curious; curiouser than I had ever felt. For, truly, I thought to myself, if their legs and arms hain’t holler, how do they hold it?

It wus, to me, a new and interestin’ spectacle, to be studied over, and philosophized upon; but, to Josiah, it was a canker, as I see the very first meal. I could see by the looks of his face, that them two appetites of theirn was sunthin’ he hadn’t reckoned and calculated on; and I could see, plain, havin’ watched the changes of my companion’s face, as close as astronimers watch the moon, I could see them two appetites of theirn wus a-wearin’ on him.

Wal, I thought mebby they was kinder starved out, comin’ right from a city boardin’-house, and a few of my good meals would quell ’em down. But, no; instead of growin’ lighter, them two appetites of theirn seemed, if possible, to grow consuminer and consuminer, though I cooked lavish and profuse, as I always did. They devoured everything before ’em, and looked hungry at the plates and tablecloth.

And Josiah looked on in perfect agony, I knew. (He is very close). But he didn’t say nothin’. And it seemed so awful mysterious to me, that I would get perfectly lost, and by the side of myself, a-reasonin’ and philosophizin’ on it, whether their legs wus holler, or not holler. And, if they wus holler, how they could walk ’round on ’em; and if they wuzn’t holler, where the vittles went to.

“Will they never stop eatin’?” said Josiah, and he got madder every day. He vowed he would charge extra.

It was after we went to bed, that he said this. But I told him to talk low; for her room wus jest over ours, and says I, in a low but firm axent:

“Don’t you do no such thing, Josiah Allen. Do you realize how it would look? What a sound it would have in the community? You agreed to take ’em for four dollars, and they’d call it mean.”

“Wal!” he hollered out. “Do you s’pose I am goin’ to board people for nothin’? I took men and wimmen and children to board. I didn’t agree to board elephants and rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses and whales and sea serpents. And I won’t neither, unless I have my pay for it; it wuzn’t in the bill.”

“Do you keep still, Josiah Allen,” I whispered. “She’ll hear you calling her a sea-serpent.”

“Let her hear me. I say, agin, it wuzn’t in the bill!” He hollered this out louder than ever. I s’pose he meant it wuzn’t in the bargain; but he was nearly delirious. He is close, I can’t deny it; nearly tight.

But, jest that minute, before I could say a word, we heard an awful noise, right over our heads. It sounded as if the hull roof had fallen in.

Says Josiah, leaping out of bed, “The old chimbley has fell in.”

“No!” says I, follerin’ him, “It is the roof.”

And we both started for up stairs, on a run.

I sent him back from the head of the stairs, howsomever; for, in the awful fright he hadn’t realized his condition, and wuzn’t dressed. I waited for him at the top of the stairway; for, to tell you the truth, I dassent go on. He hurried-on his clothes, and he went on ahead, and there she lay; there Miss Danks wus, on the floor, in a historical fit.

Josiah, thinkin’ she was dead, run in and ketched her up, and went to put her on the bed; and she, just as they will in historicks, clawed right into his hair, and tore out almost all he had on the nigh side. Then she struck him a feerful blow on the off eye and made it black and blue for a week. She didn’t know what she was about. She wuzn’t to blame, though the hair was a great loss to him, and I won’t deny it. Wal, we stood over her, most all night, to keep the breath of life in her. And the oldest boy bein’ skairt, it brought on some fits he wus in the habit of havin’, a sort of fallin’ fits. He’d fall anywhere; he fell onto Josiah twice that night, almost knocked him down; he was awful large of his age. Dredful big and fat. It seemed as if there was sunthin’ wrong about his heft, it was so oncommon hefty, for a boy of his age. He looked bloated. His eyes, which was a pale blue, seemed to be kinder sot back into his head, and his cheeks stood out below, some like balloons. And his mouth wus kinder open a good deal of the time, as if it was hard work for him to breathe. He breathed thick and wheezy, dredful oncomfortable. His complexion looked bad, too; sallow, and sort o’ tallery lookin’. He acted dreadful lazy, and heavy at the best of times, and in them fits he seemed to be as heavy as lead.

Wal, that wus the third night after they got there; and, from that night, as long as they staid, she had the historicks, frequent and violent; and Bill had his fallin’ fits; and you wouldn’t believe unless you see it, how many things that boy broke, in fallin’ on ’em in them fits. It beat all, how unfortunate he wus. They always come onto him unexpected, and it seemed as if they always come onto him while he wus in front of sunthin’ to smash all to bits. I can’t begin to tell how many things he destroyed, jest by them fits: finally, I says to Josiah, one day, says I:

“Did you ever see, Josiah Allen, anybody so unlucky as that boy is in his fits: seems as if he’ll break everything in the house, if it goes on.”

Says he: “It’s a pity he don’t break his cussed neck.”

I don’t know as I wus ever more tried with Josiah Allen than I wus then, or ever give him a firmer, eloquenter lecture, against swearin’. But, in my heart I couldn’t help pityin’ him, for I knew Bill had jest fell onto some tomato-plants, of a extra kind, and set out, and broke ’em short off. And it wus only the day before, that he fell, as he was lookin’ at the colt; it was only a week old; but it was a uncommon nice one, and Josiah thought his eyes of it; and Bill wus admirin’ of it; there wuzn’t nothin’ ugly about him; but a fit come on, and he fell right onto the colt, and the colt, not expectin’ of it, and bein’ entirely unprepared, fell flat down, and the boy on it. And the colt jest lived, that is all. Josiah says it never will be worth anythin’; he thinks it broke sunthin’ inside.

As I said, there wuzn’t nothin’ ugly about the boy. He’d be awful sorry, when he broke things, and flatted ’em all out a-fallin’ on ’em. All I blamed him for, wus in prowlin’ ’round so much. I thought then, and I think still, that seein’ he knew he had ’em, and wus liable to have ’em, he’d have done better to have kept still, and not tried to get ’round so much. But, his mother said he felt restless and oneasy. I couldn’t help likin’ the boy. And when he fell right into my bread, that wus a-risin’, and spilt the hull batch—and when he fell unto the parlor table, and broke the big parlor lamp, and everything else that wus on it—and when he fell onto a chicken-coop, and broke it down, and killed a hull brood of chickens—and more than fifty other things, jest about like ’em—why, I didn’t feel like scoldin’ him. I s’pose it wus my lofty principles that boyed me up; them and the thought that would come to me, another time; mebby Josiah Allen will heer to me, another time; mebby he will get sick of summer boarders, and takin’ of ’em in.

THE SUFFERENS OF NATHAN SPOONER.

Says I, “Josiah Allen, if there was a heavy fine to pay for shettin’ up doors, you wouldn’t never lose a cent of your property in that way,” and says I clutchin’ my lap full of carpet rags with a firmer grip, for truly, they wus flutterin’ like banners 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, and lift you.”

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

“Oh! the Simons they had on the desert; I’ve hearn Thomas J. read about ’em. They’ll blow camels away, and everything.”

Says I, dreamily, “Who’d have thought, twenty yeers ago, to 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 that you was hefty, and camels wus 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, jist as quick as I can 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 ten or twelve quarts of carpet rags from spillin’ over the floor—and went and shet the door myself, which I might have known enough to done first place and saved time and breath. For shettin’ of in the doors is truly a accomplishment that Josiah Allen never will master. I have tuched him up in lots of things, sense we wus married, but in that branch of education he has been too much for me; I about gin up.

In the course of ten or fifteen moments, Josiah came out of the bed-room, lookin’ as peaceful and pleasant as you may please, with his hands in his pantaloons pockets searchin’ their remote 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 sense 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, “I knew it wuzn’t long, anyway!”

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

“She that was Alzina Ann Allen is comin’ here a-visitin’. 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 ketch us all unprepared,” says I. “I wouldn’t have had it happen for a ten-cent bill, to had one of the relations, on your side, come and ketch me in such a condition. Then the curtains are all down in the spare room. I washed ’em yesterday, and they hain’t ironed. And the carpet in the settin’-room up to mend; 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’d 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 sammon, I got to Janesville.”

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

I didn’t say nothin’ more, for, as the greatest poets has sung, “the least said, the soonest mended.” But I ’rose, and with outward calmness, put on the tea kettle and potatoes, and opened the can of salmon, and jist 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 wus such; but I concealed ’em as well as I could, and advanced to the door, and says I:

“How do you do, Miss Richerson?”—she is married to Jenothen Richerson, old Daniel Richerson’s oldest boy.

She is a tall, “spindlin’ lookin’” women, light complected, sandy-haired, and with big, light blue eyes. I hadn’t see her for nineteen yeers, but she seemed dredful 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 neighborhood 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 anyway. I had spells of feelin’ mauzer.”

She took off her things, she was dressed up awful slick, and Josiah helped bring in her trunk. And I told her just how mortified I wus about Josiah’s forgettin’ her letter, and her ketchin’ me unprepared. But, good Lord! she told me that she never in her hull life see a house in the order mine wus, never, 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 wus white as snow, and all covered with rings). And says she, “If there is one thing that I love to see, Samantha, 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 bed-room, 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. 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, reesonably, “if it wasn’t for cookin’ vittles and eatin’ ’em, guess we shouldn’t stand it a great while, none on 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 wus by her, durin’ the three days that she stayed with us. 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,” says he. “She is one of the loveliest creeters this earth affords. She is most a angel. Oh!” says he, dreamily, “what a sound mind she has got.”

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

“Well,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect. “She thinks so,” 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 grey eye wandered up, and lighted on his bald head. It rested there searchinly, 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 wus always vain, Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “What if I wus?” and says he, “She thinks different from what you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye on 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 yaller hair in the hull of my foretop, 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 wus 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 wus a makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so there it wus. But I hold firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by her.

That very afternoon we wus invited to tea, that wus Sylphina Allen’s, Miss Nathen Spooner’s, us and Alzina Ann Allen. Sylphina didn’t use to be the right sort of a girl. She wus a kind of helpless, improvenden thing, and threw herself away on a worthless, drunken feller, that she married for her first husband, though Nathen Spooner wus a dyin’ for her, even then. But when her drunken husband died, and she wus left with that boy of hers, about six years old, she up and jined the Methodist church. I didn’t use to associate with her at all, and Josiah didn’t want me to, though she wus a second cousin on his father’s side. But folks began to make much of her. So I and Josiah did everything for her we could, to help her do well, and be likely. And last fall, she wus married to Nathen Spooner, who hadn’t forgotten her in all this time.

They make a likely couple, and I shouldn’t wonder if they do well. Nathen Spooner is bashful; he looks as if he wanted to sink if any one speaks to him; but Sylphina is proud-spirited and holds him up.

They hain’t got a great deal to do with, and Sylphina bein’ kind o’ afraid of Alzina Ann, sent over and borrowed her mother-in-law’s white-handled knives, and, unbeknown to Alzina Ann, I carried her over some tea-spoons, and other things for her comfort, for if Sylphina means to do better, and try to git along, and be a provider, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.

Wall, no sooner had we got seated over to Mrs. Spooner’ses, than Alzina Ann begun:

“How much!—how much that beautiful little boy looks like you, Mr. Spooner,” she cried, and she would look first at Nathen, and then at the child, with that enthusiastic look of her’s.

Sylphina’s face wus red as blood, for the child looked as like her first husband as two peas, and she knowed that Nathen almost hated the sight of the boy, and only had him in the house for her sake. And truly, if Nathen Spooner could have sunk down through the floor into the seller, right into the potato bin or pork barrel, it would have been one of the most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed. I could see that by his countenance.

If she had just said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann never’ll do that; she had to enlarge in her idees, and she would ask Sylphina if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look to him that Nathen had. And Sylphina would stammer, and look annoyed more’n ever, and get as red in the face as a red woollen shirt. And then Alzina Ann, looking at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathen’s, which was a sort of Roman one, and the best feetur in his face, as Josiah says, would ask Nathen if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy resembled his pa. And Nathen would look this way and that, and kind o’ frown; and it did seem as if we couldn’t keep him out of the seller, to save our lives. And there it wuz.

Wall, when it came supper time, more wuz in store for him. Sylphina, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathen 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 as if he would sink all the while Sylphina wus settin’ the table, for he knew what wus before him. He seemed to feel worse and worse all the time, and when she wus a-settin’ the chairs round the table, he looked so bad that I didn’t know but he would have to have help to get to the table. And he’d give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks to Sylphina that ever wus, but she shook her head at him, and looked decided, and then he’d look as if he’d wilt right down again.

So when we got set down to the table, Sylphina gave him a real firm look and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and Sylphina 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 other folks did, leastways that Nathen did. Alzina Ann, I say, 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 is suthin’ I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But never did I see any that wus so perfectly beautiful as these ’ere.”

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

Nathen looked bad—dretful bad, but we didn’t none on us reply to her, and she seemed to sort o’ quiet down, and Sylphina gave Nathen another look, and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she, and me and Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathen wus just a-beginnin’ agin, when Alzina Ann broke out afresh, and says:

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

That roasted us all up agin, and never did I see—unless it wus on a funeral occasion—a face look as Nathen’s face looked. Nobody could have blamed him if he had gin up, then, and not made another effert. But Sylphina, bein’ so awful determined to do jist right, and start right in the married life, she winked to Nathen agin, a real sharp and encouragin’ wink, and shet up her eyes, and Josiah and I done as she done, and shet up our’n.

And Nathen (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 rapturous way of her’n:

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

Then it wus Sylphina’s turn to feel as if she must sink, for being so proud sperited, it wus like pullin’ out a sound tooth, to tell Alzina Ann they wus borrowed. But bein’ so set in tryin’ to do right, she would have up and told her. But I, feelin’ sorry for her, branched right off, and asked Nathen “if he lived out to vote Republican, or Democrat, or Greenback.” So we had no blessin’ asked after all, that day.

Sylphina sithed, and went to pourin’ out the tea. And Nathen brightened up and said, “if things turned out with him as he hoped they would that fall, he calculated to vote for old Peter Cooper.”

I could see from his mean, that Josiah was gettin’ kinder sick of Alzina Ann, and (though I hain’t got a jealous hair in hull of my back hair and foretop) I didn’t care a mite if he wuz. But, truly, werse wus to come.

After supper, Josiah and me wus a-settin’ in the spare-room, close to the winder, a-lookin’ through Sylphina’s album; when we heered Alzina Ann and Sylphina, out under the winder, a-lookin’ at Sylphina’s peary bed, and Alzina Ann was a talkin’, and says she:

“How pleasant it is here, to your house, Sylphina, perfectly beautiful! Seein’ we are both 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 in her settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look as that. She said it wus up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t believe a word of it. I believe it wus up for some other purpose. And the curtains wus down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first night in that condition. I might jest as well have sat up, it looked so. And when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they wusn’t nothin’ but plain white muslin. I should think she could afford somethin’ 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 wus comin’ till the day 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 a 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. He wus always a poor, insignificent lookin’ creeter; but now, he is the humblest and meekest lookin’ creeter, I ever seen in human shape. And he looks as old as grandfather Richerson, every mite as old, and he is most 90. And he is vain as a peahen.”

I jest glanced round at Josiah, and then, intentively, looked away again. His countenance wus perfectly awful. Truly, the higher we are up the worse it hurts us to fall down. Bein’ lifted up on such a height of vanity and vain glory, and fallin’ down from it so sudden, it most broke his neck, (speakin’ in a poetical and figurative way.) I, myself, havin’ had doubts of her all along, didn’t feel nigh so worked up and curious; it mere sort o’ madded me, it kind o’ operated in that way on me. And so when she begun agin, to run Josiah and me down to the very lowest noch, called us all to naught, made out we wuzn’t hardly fit to live, and wus most fools. And then says agin:

“I wouldn’t say a word againt ’em for the world, if I wusn’t such a friend to ’em——”

Then I rose right up, and stood in the open winder, and it came up in front of me, some like a pulpit, and I s’pose my mean looked considerable like a preacher’s when they get carried away with the subject, and almost by the side of themselves.

Alzina Ann quitted the minute she sot her eyes on me, as much or more than any minister ever made a congregation quail, and says she, in trembling tones:

“You know I do think everything in the world of you. You know I shouldn’t have said a word againt you, if I wusn’t such a warm friend of yourn.”

“Friend!” says I, in awful axents. “Friend, Alzina Ann Richerson, you don’t know no more about that word than if you never see a dictionary. You don’t know the true meanin’ of that word, no more than an African babe knows about slidin’ down hill.”

Says I, “The Bible gives a pretty good idea of what it means; it speaks of a man layin’ down his life for his friend. Dearer to him than his own life. Do you s’pose such a friendship as that would be a mistrustin’ round, a-tryin’ to rake up every little fault they could lay holt of, and talk ’em over with everybody? Do you s’pose it would creep round under winders, and back-bite, and slander a Josiah?”

I entirely forgot, for the moment, that she had been a-talkin’ about me, for truly, abuse heaped upon my pardner seems ten times as hard to bear up under, as if it wus heaped upon me.

Josiah whispered to me, “That is right, Samantha! Give it to her!” and upheld by duty, and that dear man, I went on, and says I:

“My friends, those I love and who love me, are sacred to me. Their well-being and their interest is as dear to me as my own. I love to have others praise them, prize them as I do; and I should jist as soon think of goin’ ’round, tryin’ to rake and scrape sunthin’ to say against myself as against them.”

Agin I paused for breath, and agin Josiah whispered:

“That is right, Samantha; give it to her!”

Worshippin’ that man as I do, his words wus far more inspirin’ and stimulatin’ to me than root beer.

Agin I went on, and says I:

“Maybe it hain’t exactly accordin’ to Scripture; there is sunthin’ respectable in open enmity, in beginnin’ your remarks about anybody honestly, in this way. (Now, I detest and despise that man, and I am goin’ to try to relieve my mind by talkin’ about him, jist as bad as I can), and then proceed and tear him to pieces in a straightforward, manly way. I don’t s’pose such a course would be upheld by the ’postles. But, as I say, there is a element of boldness and courage in it, ammountin’ almost to grandeur, when compared to this kind of talk. ‘I think everything in the world of that man. I think he is jist as good as he can be, and he hain’t got a better friend in the world than I am.’ And then go on, and say everything you can to injure him. Why, a pirate runs up his skeleton and cross-bars, when he is goin’ to rob and pillage. I think, Alzina Ann, if I wus in your place, I would make a great effort, and try to be as noble and magnanimous as a pirate.”

Alzina Ann looked like a white holley hawk, that had been withered by an untimely frost. But Sylphina looked tickled (she hadn’t forgot her sufferens, and the sufferens of Nathen Spooner). And my Josiah looked proud and triumphant in mean. And he told me, in confidence, a-going home, “that he hadn’t seen me look so good to him, as I did when I stood there in the winder, not for upwards of thirteen years.” Says he:

“Samantha, you looked, you did, almost perfectly beautiful.”

That man worships the ground I walk on, and I do his’n.

THE WIDDER DOODLE AS A COMFERTER.

Nancy Cypher is dead. Yes, Solomon has lost his wife with the typus. She was a likely wemen, had a swelled neck, but that wusn’t nothin’ aginst her, I never laid it up against her for a moment.

I told Thomas Jefferson, when he brought me the news, that I wished “he and I was as likely a wemen as she was,” for it came sudden onto me, and I wanted to praise her up. And, says I, still more warmly, “If the hull world was as likely a woman as she was, there wouldn’t be so much cuttin’ up and actin’, as there is now. And,” says I, “Thomas Jefferson, it stands us on hand to be prepared.”