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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9443-h.zip b/9443-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2058ca2 --- /dev/null +++ b/9443-h.zip diff --git a/9443-h/9443-h.htm b/9443-h/9443-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..72be712 --- /dev/null +++ b/9443-h/9443-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1817 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>AMONG THE BRETHREN, Part 1.</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + PRE { font-family: Times; font-size: 97%; margin-left: 15%;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h1>Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1</h1> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1. +by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1. + +Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + +<br><br><hr><br><br> + + +<center> +<img alt="002.jpg (24K)" src="images/002.jpg" height="663" width="550"> +<br><br> +<img alt="001.jpg (118K)" src="images/001.jpg" height="912" width="711"> +</center> +<br><br> +<center> +<h1>SAMANTHA +<br><br> +AMONG THE BRETHREN.</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + + +<h3>"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"</h3> +<br><br> +<h2>(MARIETTA HOLLEY).</h2> +<br><br><br><br> +<h3><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</i></h3>. +<br><br> +<h2>1890</h2> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<center> +<h3>Part 1.</h3> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + + + +<h3> +TO</h3> +<br> +<h3>All Women</h3> + +<p>WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES</p> + +<p>THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A</p> + +<p>BETTER COUNTRY,</p> + +<p><i>THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED</i>.</p> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p> +Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah +Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, +and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' +room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me:</p> + +<p>"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"</p> + +<p>And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal +Justice, Josiah Allen."</p> + +<p>"Anythin' else?" sez he, lookin' sort o' oneasy at me. (That man +realizes his shortcomin's, I believe, a good deal of the time, he duz.)</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez I, "I lay out in petickuler to tackle the Meetin' House. She +is in the wrong on't, and I want to set her right."</p> + +<p>Josiah looked sort o' relieved like, but he sez out, in a kind of a pert +way, es he set there a-shellin corn for the hens:</p> + +<p>"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she—it is a he."</p> + +<p>And sez I, "How do you know?"</p> + +<p>And he sez, "Because it stands to reason it is. And I'd like to know +what you have got to say about him any way?"</p> + +<p>Sez I, "That 'him' don't sound right, Josiah Allen. It sounds more right +and nateral to call it 'she.' Why," sez I, "hain't we always hearn about +the Mother Church, and don't the Bible tell about the Church bein' +arrayed like a bride for her husband? I never in my life hearn it called +a 'he' before."</p> + +<p>"Oh, wall, there has always got to be a first time. And I say it sounds +better. But what have you got to say about the Meetin' House, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"I have got this to say, Josiah Allen. The Meetin' House hain't a-actin' +right about wimmen. The Founder of the Church wuz born of woman. It wuz +on a woman's heart that His head wuz pillowed first and last. While +others slept she watched over His baby slumbers and His last sleep. A +woman wuz His last thought and care. Before dawn she wuz at the door of +the tomb, lookin' for His comin'. So she has stood ever sense—waitin', +watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for +His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men—fallen men +and fallen wimmen—workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good +in the hearts of a sinful world—weepin' pale-faced over its +crucefixion—lookin' for its reserection. Oh how she has worked all +through the ages!"</p> + +<p>"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy +work and back combs."</p> + +<p>I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez, +reasonable:</p> + +<p>"Yes, there are such wimmen, Josiah, but think of the sweet and saintly +souls that have given all their lives, and hopes, and thoughts to the +Meetin' House—think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of +the Sanctuary—there are five wimmen to one man, I believe, in all the +meetin' houses to-day a-workin' in His name. True Daughters of the King, +no matter what their creed may be—Catholic or Protestant.</p> + +<p>"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the +Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."</p> + +<p>"Wall, hain't <i>he</i>?" sez Josiah.</p> + +<p>"No, <i>she</i> hain't," sez I.</p> + +<p>"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has <i>he</i> done lately to +rile you up?"</p> + +<p>Sez I, "<i>She</i> wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the +Conference."</p> + +<p>"Wall, I say <i>he</i> wuz right," sez Josiah. "<i>He</i> knew, and I knew, that +wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."</p> + +<p>"Why," sez I, "it don't take so much strength to set as it duz to stand +up. And after workin' as hard as wimmen have for the Meetin' House, she +ort to have the priveledge of settin'. And I am goin' to write out jest +what I think about it."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't +be too severe with the Meetin' House."</p> + +<p>And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head +in and sez:</p> + +<p>"Don't be too hard on <i>him</i>"</p> + +<p>And then he shet the door quick, before I could say a word. But good +land! I didn't care. I knew I could say what I wanted to with my +faithful pen—and I am bound to say it.</p> + +<p><br> JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE, + Bonny View,<br> + near Adams, New York,<br> + Oct. 14th, 1890.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<h2> +CONTENTS.</h2> +<br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<p><a href="#c1">CHAPTER I.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c2">CHAPTER II.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#c3">CHAPTER III.</a></p> + + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + + +<br><br><br><br> + +<a name="c1"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="003c1.jpg (74K)" src="images/003c1.jpg" height="710" width="609"> +</center> +<br><br> +<p> +CHAPTER I.</p> + +<p> +When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a +Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion, +Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great +hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.</p> + +<p>And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons, +every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined +our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em—we spoze +because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.</p> + +<p>Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons +from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and +our own three Jonesvillians—Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own +particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.</p> + +<p>It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz +a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative +answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon +Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).</p> + +<p>The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through +Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and +other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).</p> + +<p>As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill +apiece for the five deacons—each one of 'em to overlook their own +particular buzz saw—but the money comin' from all on 'em to be divided +up equal among the five deacons.</p> + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="004.jpg (122K)" src="images/004.jpg" height="764" width="747"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set +against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws +a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would +make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin' +that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on +the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz +not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world, +and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's +salvation.</p> + +<p>I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that +apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that +deacons ought to cultivate.</p> + +<p>But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured +to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the +deed."</p> + +<p>They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be +likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and +wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="005.jpg (68K)" src="images/005.jpg" height="572" width="375"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it—"If bein' set +apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work +that they ought to be expected to do—and if it wuz right for 'em to +go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this +enterprise?"</p> + +<p>And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man, +the better the deed. We need buzz saws."</p> + +<p>And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very +high-headed.</p> + +<p>And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through +Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on +havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not +brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.</p> + +<p>But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful +prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good +of his own soul, and my piece of mind.</p> + +<p>And I sez to him in solemn axents:</p> + +<p>"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on +your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"</p> + +<p>And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when +he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if +I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb +religious duties.</p> + +<p>And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and +said, "he didn't dumb 'em."</p> + +<p>"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.</p> + +<p>"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he +has a chance to."</p> + +<p>But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin—</p> + +<p>"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and +a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a +meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour +all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your +farms.</p> + +<p>"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance +of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the +interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions, +prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good +works generally?"</p> + +<p>And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I +most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,</p> + +<p>"Dumb good works!"</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="006.jpg (97K)" src="images/006.jpg" height="540" width="631"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly +ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin' +axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"</p> + +<p>And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men +can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are +so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had +collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in +a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:</p> + +<p>"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen +will 'tend to it."</p> + +<p>And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the +question—and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't +have put the question to him.</p> + +<p>For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to +go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for +there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house, +and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and +bimeby).</p> + +<p>There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get +mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male +brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house, +and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as +theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.</p> + +<p>But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and +wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.</p> + +<p>Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break +this enterprise of theirs up—and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister +Henzy.</p> + +<p>Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a +buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.</p> + +<p>"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez, +"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."</p> + +<p>Some sez he duz.</p> + +<p>Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's +efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn. +And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher +begin to feel bad.</p> + +<p>She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told +me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of +the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that +she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and +Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she +had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and +dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on +his face till dinner time.</p> + +<p>And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon +left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step, +four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed +because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.</p> + +<p>She is a dretful admirin' woman.</p> + +<p>She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men—always calls +her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was +perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that +when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as +Samuel (his given name is Samuel).</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="007.jpg (120K)" src="images/007.jpg" height="861" width="691"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of +dreams is a place where you can't slip on your sun-bonnet and foller +neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin' +from hour to hour.</p> + +<p>No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look +into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.</p> + +<p>No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.</p> + +<p>But, as I said, this had been spozen.</p> + +<p>But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and +napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day +what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for +Drusillia Sypher.</p> + +<p>And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for +"Miss Deacon Sypher."</p> + +<p>Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a +pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen +hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under +the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a +good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.</p> + +<p>Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin' +into the buzz saw-mill business.</p> + +<p>But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up +every time he came in sight.</p> + +<p>They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon +every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at +her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb—he had jest +smashed it in the barn door—and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door +step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."</p> + +<p>But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so +low.</p> + +<p>But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense, +and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story +books. And he sez:</p> + +<p>"Stand there like a——fool, will you! Get me a <i>rag!</i>"</p> + +<p>I guess he did say as much as that.</p> + +<p>But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time—couldn't seem to +stop, she had got so hardened into that way.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="008.jpg (61K)" src="images/008.jpg" height="507" width="556"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she +smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the +effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he +was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they +get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general, +and he makes a good deal of her.</p> + +<p>I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of +difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know +this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.</p> + +<p>Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to +Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference +together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard +the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist +Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:</p> + +<p>Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the +foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article +that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler—a witherin' +article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of +fun of the projeck.</p> + +<p>We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the +capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request. +His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it +fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery +store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great +workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt, +bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper. +He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly +worshipped him.</p> + +<p>They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his +father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.</p> + +<p>The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together—she loved to +work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz +very congenial—and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat +that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left +in the shop.)</p> + +<p>He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a +doubt of that.</p> + +<p>Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be +educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was +born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish +in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables. +Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz +any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six +syllables wuz common in it.</p> + +<p>His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he +thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said +he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought +to be disseminated abroad.</p> + +<p>The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference. +She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too +ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room +up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the +sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed +guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care +from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and +howsumever."</p> + +<p>Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It +painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would +strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work—or would +weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin +herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and +tottlin' eminence.</p> + +<p>The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big +letters over each one.</p> + +<p>The <i>first</i> wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;</p> + +<p><i>Secondly</i>, NONE WHERESOEVER;</p> + +<p><i>Thirdly</i>, NONE HOWSUMEVER.</p> + +<p>The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, <i>what</i> cares +and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he +proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted +wimmen to do—not a single thing.</p> + +<p>Then he proceeded to tell <i>where</i> men wuz willin' to keep their labors +and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every +<i>where</i>. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the +farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz +sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every +<i>where</i> men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor, +even the lightest and slightest.</p> + +<p>Then lastly came the <i>howsumever</i>. He proceeded to show <i>how</i> this could +be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first +great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her +place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin' +eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.</p> + +<p>And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that +Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors, +the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself +in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous +posture as settin' up on a Conference.</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="009.jpg (113K)" src="images/009.jpg" height="611" width="596"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would +endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It +would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall. +It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm." Why, Josiah Allen +handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously +as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we +had some words about it.</p> + +<p>And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the +Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see—Second +Galatians.</p> + +<p>And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to +Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great +price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.</p> + +<p>And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar, +bed rid.</p> + +<p>Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any +idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.</p> + +<p>And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the +very first.</p> + +<p>Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the +next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from +it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this +idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil +so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.</p> + +<p>And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow +and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?</p> + +<p>But of this, more anon and bimeby.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<a name="c2"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="010c2.jpg (98K)" src="images/010c2.jpg" height="740" width="589"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER II.</p> + +<p> +Wall, it wuz on the very next day—on a Thursday as I remember well, for +I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day—Fridays +bein' considered onlucky—and it being a day for punishments, hangin's, +and so forth.</p> + +<p>But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to +Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the +old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of +granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper +on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.</p> + +<p>(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)</p> + +<p>Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back. +But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set +there for some time alone.</p> + +<p>Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the +first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven—they wuz all ready, I +had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the +oven—and then I set down and read my letters.</p> + +<p>Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on +his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence +that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been +delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I +sithed deep. I love company dearly, but—oh my soul, is there not a +difference, a difference in visitors?</p> + +<p>Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter, +thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.</p> + +<p>And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It +wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful +Repose."</p> + +<p>I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter +brung me startlin' intelligence.</p> + +<p>It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had +been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.</p> + +<p>And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote +dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful +repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."</p> + +<p>But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I +see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I +see it wuz writ on duty.</p> + +<p>She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't. +She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down, +and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken +in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong +on't.</p> + +<p>She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into +that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude +buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil, +any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she +was mistook.</p> + +<p>She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one +for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She +said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she +had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her +own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy +man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved +round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had +two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her +mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she +couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this +broke in on her serenity.</p> + +<p>Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his +bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.</p> + + +<p>Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of +affection and confidence, yet doors <i>had</i> been slammed and oaths +emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange +actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and +impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin' +accustomed to 'em.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="011.jpg (114K)" src="images/011.jpg" height="584" width="580"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely +cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times, +they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work—lots of work. +And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say. +The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.</p> + +<p><i>He</i> snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated +it, but she found out too late—too late, that he snored. The house wuz +small; she could <i>not</i> escape from snores, turn she where she would. She +got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband, +as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard +near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin' +of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the +lambs callin' on their dams.</p> + +<p>It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by +saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had +been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she +hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."</p> + +<p>The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song +of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The +snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and +I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the +events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as +yesterday.</p> + +<p>I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah +Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that +there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at +the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.</p> + +<p>And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road, +moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while +Josiah hitched the mair.</p> + +<p>We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a +rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my +life.</p> + +<p>And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the +lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="012.jpg (45K)" src="images/012.jpg" height="538" width="335"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and +extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz +all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the +rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it, +first rate.</p> + +<p>I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of +time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of +the heads of it.</p> + +<p>It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish, +eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the +bare heads.</p> + +<p>She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to +speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of +the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"</p> + +<p>She had even read these dreadful words—"Marriage is a Failure." She +hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke +against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as +privilege, to speak in its praise.</p> + +<p>I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For +no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she +whose name vuz once Smith.</p> + +<p>I <i>love</i> Josiah Allen, I am <i>glad</i> that I married him. But at the same +time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every +side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love +Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with +every word she said.</p> + +<p>But she went on perfectly beautiful—I didn't wonder it brought the +school-house down—about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and +how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.</p> + +<p>How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every +rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz +like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and +onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of +Repose—melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.</p> + +<p>And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How +peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh, +how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united +souls bathed in blissful repose!</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="013.jpg (125K)" src="images/013.jpg" height="624" width="600"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry +eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin' +vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest +slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind. +(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.) +And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new +vest.</p> + +<p>Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by +remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.</p> + +<p>And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused +by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.</p> + +<p>I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep' +me calmer wuz, I <i>knew</i>, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she +went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.</p> + +<p>And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations, +comparin' married life and single—jest as likely metafors as I ever +see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one +of 'em had this fault—when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too +fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince +me.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="014.jpg (47K)" src="images/014.jpg" height="483" width="352"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost +the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along +over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy +forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold +foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye +lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for +a possible mate, for the comin' gander—restless, wobblin', oneasy, +miserable.</p> + +<p>Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought +up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept +aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).</p> + +<p>And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful +wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm, +bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never +broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a +cloud.</p> + +<p>And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two +states to—flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.</p> + +<p>She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird, +melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one +of 'em brought the school-house down.</p> + +<p>And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin' +together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and +forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.</p> + +<p>And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety +hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony, +perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.</p> + +<p>Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I +wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and +searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.</p> + +<p>He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin' +so—why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.</p> + +<p>But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was +beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have +mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.</p> + +<p>I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't +deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the +lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though +its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it +stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy +wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet +occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms, +sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.</p> + +<p>And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest +that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it—the very +sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.</p> + +<p>Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended +discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as +major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There +shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and +me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.</p> + +<p>Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz +over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.</p> + +<p>She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife +told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I +spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the +day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I +have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and +as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get +hold of my opinion.</p> + +<p>Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed +her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.</p> + +<p>I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet, +confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I +meant it. When I like a person, I <i>do</i> like 'em, and visy-versey.</p> + +<p>But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to +overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How +I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up +against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree +with every word of it."</p> + +<p>Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off, +if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.</p> + +<p>And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of +beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in +June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must +say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever +see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say +that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."</p> + +<p>"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness, +megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."</p> + + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="015.jpg (113K)" src="images/015.jpg" height="659" width="598"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<p>She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed +she didn't go too far."</p> + +<p>And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she +didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when +it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em +hain't <i>all</i> happiness."</p> + +<p>"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."</p> + + +<p>And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I wuz mistaken, "she +thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said:</p> + +<p>"He <i>knew</i> it wuz, and he would take his oath to it."</p> + +<p>But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most +peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes +'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'. +But," sez I, "marriage hain't <i>all</i> peace."</p> + +<p>Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it."</p> + +<p>Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds +the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it +hain't all radiance."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it."</p> + +<p>And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is +right; I think it is."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married +you will change your opinion, you mark my word."</p> + +<p>And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't; +she guessed she was in the right of it."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all +earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?"</p> + +<p>And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!"</p> + +<p>"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years, +and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called +a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many +changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round +and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too.</p> + +<p>"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet +nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care +of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid, +a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a +dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a +doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things.</p> + +<p>"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time; +but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it +haint if you are ever married."</p> + +<p>But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken—she +thought it wuz."</p> + +<p>"You do?" sez I.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mem," sez she.</p> + +<p>I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'." +I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah +started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor.</p> + +<p>She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She +seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would +give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me, +and have me criticise it. Sez she:</p> + +<p>"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have."</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way."</p> + +<p>And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to +each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two +rocks that couldn't be moved."</p> + +<p>And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my +advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where +there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she +was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed +that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on."</p> + +<p>And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could."</p> + +<p>It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the +midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to +drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and +come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men.</p> + +<p>And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped +and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three +sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of +manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees +of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand +the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face +a Greenland winter in.</p> + +<p>And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back +and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's +call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way:</p> + +<p>She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and +stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the +lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a +place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and +she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and +forth and try to convince each other.</p> + +<p>And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in +my frame, though dreadin' the job some.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<a name="c3"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="016c3.jpg (99K)" src="images/016c3.jpg" height="724" width="582"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +CHAPTER III.</p> + +<p> +But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture—crazy as a loon. He +raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it +to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's +happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in +a serene calm—a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect, +how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts."</p> + +<p>"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew +that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they +wuz till to-night"</p> + +<p>"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents—not so dry as I keep by +me, but pretty dry—"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel +labor."</p> + +<p>"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger +in emanuel labor."</p> + +<p>"Manuel, Josiah."</p> + +<p>"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I, +firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little +better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that +has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get +along without some work and care."</p> + +<p>"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care, +not a single care. Not as long as I live—if it wuzn't for me, you might +have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live."</p> + +<p>I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and +won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly +anon—</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="017.jpg (111K)" src="images/017.jpg" height="606" width="610"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on +perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life—did you +notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified +to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands."</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap +on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been +a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have +never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and +tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs, +jest like any other human states."</p> + +<p>Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and +I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm +forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea +by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold +their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies +blow—and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It +is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into +billows. But our sea—the sea of married life—is not like that, it is +ofttimes billowy and rough."</p> + +<p>"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the +lecture, and enthused.</p> + +<p>"We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen, +for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly +smooth?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."</p> + +<p>"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"</p> + +<p>"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."</p> + +<p>Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has +cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue +if I was in your place."</p> + +<p>"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more +till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:</p> + +<p>"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have +that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah +Allen."</p> + +<p>"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or +ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her +lecture."</p> + +<p>Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down, +and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and +company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she +did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't +have come in a much worse time.</p> + +<p>It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that. +There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz +a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.</p> + +<p>Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men, +but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are +always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish +to have showed off to the public.</p> + +<p>He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the +entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward +with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late.</p> + +<p>He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen +himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty, +thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't +have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as +he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my +cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket, +and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the +settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to +see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.</p> + +<p>There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there. +There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the +wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black, +and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost +frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor +be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the +language he hurled at me acrost that stove.</p> + +<p>"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from +this side."</p> + +<p>And then he hollered at me, and asked me:</p> + +<p>"How in thunder he was a goin' to <i>get</i> in." And then he wanted to know +"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it—or +if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream +of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He +hollered wildly.</p> + +<p>"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told +you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It +would go in all right if you had started it the other way."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha, +with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be +perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day. +But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way +out of this door—if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall +be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth—not while I have got the +breath of life in me."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."</p> + +<p>"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves, +and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me—and let 'em look at +that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."</p> + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="018.jpg (116K)" src="images/018.jpg" height="640" width="585"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want +them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'." "Wall, I want 'em to +ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say +every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her +perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job—seven times a year do +I have to move this stove back and forth—and I say it is high time I +said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."</p> + +<p>Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:</p> + +<p>"Won't you be still?"</p> + +<p>"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go +through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have +got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin' +under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man +a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."</p> + +<p>I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there +stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful +Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see +she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o' +awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and +took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have +to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back +to Josiah.</p> + +<p>And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard +every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now +about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"</p> + +<p>But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that +he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much +repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all +tore to pieces to get that stove started."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the +door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift +for two hours as I have, and then see."</p> + +<p>Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And +there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who +is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>you</i> did it! I moved it myself."</p> + +<p>I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.</p> + + + + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="019.jpg (53K)" src="images/019.jpg" height="489" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't +go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with +chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out." +I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I +see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of +"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'.</p> + +<p>But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose +to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out +for years and years—why, then I <i>had</i> to correct him on the subject, +and we had a little dialogue.</p> + +<p>I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so +much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple +sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin' +machine a-comin'.</p> + + +<br><br><hr><br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1. +by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + +***** This file should be named 9443-h.htm or 9443-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/4/9443/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1. + +Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #9443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +SAMANTHA + +AMONG THE BRETHREN. + +By + +"Josiah Allen's Wife" + +(Marietta Holley) + + +Part 1 + + +_With Illustrations_. + + + + +1890 + + + + +TO + +All Women + +WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES + +THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A + +BETTER COUNTRY, + +_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_. + + + +PREFACE. + + +Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah +Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, +and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' +room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me: + +"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?" + +And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal +Justice, Josiah Allen." + +"Anythin' else?" sez he, lookin' sort o' oneasy at me. (That man +realizes his shortcomin's, I believe, a good deal of the time, he duz.) + +"Yes," sez I, "I lay out in petickuler to tackle the Meetin' House. She +is in the wrong on't, and I want to set her right." + +Josiah looked sort o' relieved like, but he sez out, in a kind of a pert +way, es he set there a-shellin corn for the hens: + +"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he." + +And sez I, "How do you know?" + +And he sez, "Because it stands to reason it is. And I'd like to know +what you have got to say about him any way?" + +Sez I, "That 'him' don't sound right, Josiah Allen. It sounds more right +and nateral to call it 'she.' Why," sez I, "hain't we always hearn about +the Mother Church, and don't the Bible tell about the Church bein' +arrayed like a bride for her husband? I never in my life hearn it called +a 'he' before." + +"Oh, wall, there has always got to be a first time. And I say it sounds +better. But what have you got to say about the Meetin' House, anyway?" + +"I have got this to say, Josiah Allen. The Meetin' House hain't a-actin' +right about wimmen. The Founder of the Church wuz born of woman. It wuz +on a woman's heart that His head wuz pillowed first and last. While +others slept she watched over His baby slumbers and His last sleep. A +woman wuz His last thought and care. Before dawn she wuz at the door of +the tomb, lookin' for His comin'. So she has stood ever sense--waitin', +watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for +His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men--fallen men +and fallen wimmen--workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good +in the hearts of a sinful world--weepin' pale-faced over its +crucefixion--lookin' for its reserection. Oh how she has worked all +through the ages!" + +"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy +work and back combs." + +I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez, +reasonable: + +"Yes, there are such wimmen, Josiah, but think of the sweet and saintly +souls that have given all their lives, and hopes, and thoughts to the +Meetin' House--think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of +the Sanctuary--there are five wimmen to one man, I believe, in all the +meetin' houses to-day a-workin' in His name. True Daughters of the King, +no matter what their creed may be--Catholic or Protestant. + +"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the +Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her." + +"Wall, hain't _he_?" sez Josiah. + +"No, _she_ hain't," sez I. + +"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to +rile you up?" + +Sez I, "_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the +Conference." + +"Wall, I say _he_ wuz right," sez Josiah. "_He_ knew, and I knew, that +wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set." + +"Why," sez I, "it don't take so much strength to set as it duz to stand +up. And after workin' as hard as wimmen have for the Meetin' House, she +ort to have the priveledge of settin'. And I am goin' to write out jest +what I think about it." + +"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't +be too severe with the Meetin' House." + +And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head +in and sez: + +"Don't be too hard on _him_" + +And then he shet the door quick, before I could say a word. But good +land! I didn't care. I knew I could say what I wanted to with my +faithful pen--and I am bound to say it. + + JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE, + Bonny View, + near Adams, New York, + Oct. 14th, 1890. + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER I. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHAPTER IX. + +CHAPTER X. + +CHAPTER XI. + +CHAPTER XII. + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CHAPTER XIV. + +CHAPTER XV. + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHAPTER XXV + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +_Publishers' Appendix_ + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a +Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion, +Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great +hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em. + +And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons, +every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined +our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze +because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to. + +Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons +from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and +our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own +particular Deacon, Josiah Allen. + +It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz +a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative +answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon +Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt). + +The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through +Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and +other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all). + +As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill +apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own +particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all on 'em to be divided +up equal among the five deacons. + +[Illustration: "A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME."] + +They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set +against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws +a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would +make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin' +that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on +the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz +not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world, +and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's +salvation. + +I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that +apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that +deacons ought to cultivate. + +But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured +to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the +deed." + +They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be +likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and +wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em. + +[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.] + +But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--"If bein' set +apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work +that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to +go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this +enterprise?" + +And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man, +the better the deed. We need buzz saws." + +And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very +high-headed. + +And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through +Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on +havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not +brook any interference, least of all from a female woman. + +But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful +prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good +of his own soul, and my piece of mind. + +And I sez to him in solemn axents: + +"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on +your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?" + +And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when +he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if +I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb +religious duties. + +And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and +said, "he didn't dumb 'em." + +"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly. + +"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he +has a chance to." + +But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin-- + +"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and +a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a +meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour +all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your +farms. + +"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance +of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the +interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions, +prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good +works generally?" + +And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I +most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice, + +"Dumb good works!" + +[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"] + +But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly +ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin' +axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?" + +And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men +can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are +so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had +collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in +a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark: + +"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen +will 'tend to it." + +And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the +question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't +have put the question to him. + +For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to +go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for +there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house, +and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and +bimeby). + +There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get +mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male +brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house, +and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as +theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such. + +But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and +wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along. + +Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break +this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister +Henzy. + +Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a +buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her. + +"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez, +"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'." + +Some sez he duz. + +Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's +efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn. +And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher +begin to feel bad. + +She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told +me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of +the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that +she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and +Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she +had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and +dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on +his face till dinner time. + +And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon +left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step, +four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed +because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon. + +She is a dretful admirin' woman. + +She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls +her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was +perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that +when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as +Samuel (his given name is Samuel). + +[Illustration: "THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'"] + +But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of +dreams is a place where you can't slip on your sun-bonnet and foller +neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin' +from hour to hour. + +No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look +into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it. + +No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores. + +But, as I said, this had been spozen. + +But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and +napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day +what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for +Drusillia Sypher. + +And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for +"Miss Deacon Sypher." + +Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a +pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen +hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under +the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a +good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it. + +Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin' +into the buzz saw-mill business. + +But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up +every time he came in sight. + +They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon +every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at +her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest +smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door +step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool." + +But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so +low. + +But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense, +and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story +books. And he sez: + +"Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_" + +I guess he did say as much as that. + +But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to +stop, she had got so hardened into that way. + +[Illustration: "ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT +HIM."] + +And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she +smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the +effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he +was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they +get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general, +and he makes a good deal of her. + +I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of +difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know +this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon. + +Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to +Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference +together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard +the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist +Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows: + +Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the +foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article +that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin' +article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of +fun of the projeck. + +We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the +capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request. +His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it +fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery +store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great +workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt, +bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper. +He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly +worshipped him. + +They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his +father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him. + +The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to +work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz +very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat +that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left +in the shop.) + +He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a +doubt of that. + +Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be +educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was +born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish +in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables. +Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz +any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six +syllables wuz common in it. + +His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he +thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said +he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought +to be disseminated abroad. + +The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference. +She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too +ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room +up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the +sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed +guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care +from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and +howsumever." + +Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It +painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would +strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would +weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin +herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and +tottlin' eminence. + +The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big +letters over each one. + +The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER; + +_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER; + +_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER. + +The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares +and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he +proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted +wimmen to do--not a single thing. + +Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors +and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every +_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the +farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz +sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every +_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor, +even the lightest and slightest. + +Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could +be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first +great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her +place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin' +eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength. + +And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that +Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors, +the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself +in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous +posture as settin' up on a Conference. + +[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."] + +"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would +endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It +would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall. +It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm." Why, Josiah Allen +handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously +as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we +had some words about it. + +And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the +Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second +Galatians. + +And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to +Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great +price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy. + +And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar, +bed rid. + +Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any +idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference. + +And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the +very first. + +Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the +next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from +it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this +idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil +so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies. + +And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow +and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows? + +But of this, more anon and bimeby. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for +I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays +bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's, +and so forth. + +But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to +Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the +old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of +granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper +on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's. + +(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.) + +Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back. +But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set +there for some time alone. + +Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the +first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I +had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the +oven--and then I set down and read my letters. + +Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on +his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence +that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been +delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I +sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a +difference, a difference in visitors? + +Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter, +thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off. + +And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It +wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful +Repose." + +I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter +brung me startlin' intelligence. + +It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had +been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio. + +And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote +dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful +repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is." + +But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I +see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I +see it wuz writ on duty. + +She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't. +She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down, +and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken +in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong +on't. + +She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into +that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude +buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil, +any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she +was mistook. + +She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one +for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She +said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she +had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her +own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy +man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved +round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had +two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her +mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she +couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this +broke in on her serenity. + +Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his +bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected. + +[Illustration: "FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM."] + +Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of +affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths +emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange +actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and +impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin' +accustomed to 'em. + +The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely +cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times, +they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work. +And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say. +The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em. + +_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated +it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz +small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She +got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband, +as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard +near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin' +of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the +lambs callin' on their dams. + +It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by +saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had +been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she +hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo." + +[Illustration: THE LECTURE.] + +The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song +of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The +snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and +I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the +events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as +yesterday. + +I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah +Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that +there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at +the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go. + +And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road, +moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while +Josiah hitched the mair. + +We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a +rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my +life. + +And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the +lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose." + +A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and +extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz +all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the +rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it, +first rate. + +I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of +time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of +the heads of it. + +It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish, +eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the +bare heads. + +She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to +speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of +the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?" + +She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She +hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke +against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as +privilege, to speak in its praise. + +I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For +no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she +whose name vuz once Smith. + +I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same +time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every +side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love +Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with +every word she said. + +But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the +school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and +how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares. + +How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every +rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz +like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and +onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of +Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage. + +And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How +peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh, +how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united +souls bathed in blissful repose! + +[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."] + +It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry +eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin' +vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest +slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind. +(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.) +And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new +vest. + +Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by +remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby. + +And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused +by admiration and bein' so highly tickled. + +I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep' +me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she +went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough. + +And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations, +comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever +see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one +of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too +fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince +me. + +[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."] + +Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost +the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along +over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy +forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold +foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye +lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for +a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy, +miserable. + +Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought +up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept +aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby). + +And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful +wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm, +bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never +broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a +cloud. + +And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two +states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent. + +She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird, +melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one +of 'em brought the school-house down. + +And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin' +together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and +forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies. + +And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety +hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony, +perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes. + +Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I +wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and +searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest. + +He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin' +so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe. + +But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was +beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have +mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness. + +I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't +deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the +lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though +its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it +stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy +wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet +occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms, +sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery. + +And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest +that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very +sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing. + +Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended +discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as +major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There +shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and +me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom. + +Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz +over, to be introduced to her and talk it over. + +She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife +told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I +spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the +day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I +have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and +as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get +hold of my opinion. + +Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed +her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks. + +I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet, +confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I +meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey. + +But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to +overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How +I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up +against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree +with every word of it." + +Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off, +if looks could behead anybody. But they can't. + +And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of +beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in +June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must +say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever +see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say +that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough." + +"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?" + +"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness, +megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur." + +She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed +she didn't go too far." + +And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she +didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth." + +Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when +it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em +hain't _all_ happiness." + +"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too." + +[Illustration: "YOU GO TOO FUR."] + +And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I wuz mistaken, "she +thought it wuz." And Josiah jined right in with her and said: + +"He _knew_ it wuz, and he would take his oath to it." + +But I went right on, and, sez I, "Mebby it is in one sense the most +peaceful; that is, when the affections are firm set and stabled it makes +'em more peaceful than when they are a-traipsin' round and a-wanderin'. +But," sez I, "marriage hain't _all_ peace." + +Sez Josiah: "It is, and I'll swear to it." + +Sez I, goin' right on, cool and serene, "The sunshine of true love gilds +the pathway with the brightest radiance we know anything about, but it +hain't all radiance." + +"Yes, it is," sez Josiah, firmly, "it is, every mite of it." + +And Serena Fogg sez, tenderly and amiably, "Yes, I think Mr. Allen is +right; I think it is." + +"Wall," sez I, in meanin' axcents, awful meanin', "when you are married +you will change your opinion, you mark my word." + +And she said, gently, but persistently, "That she guessed she shouldn't; +she guessed she was in the right of it." + +Sez I, "You think when anybody is married they have got beyend all +earthly trials, and nothin' but perfect peace and rest remains?" + +And she sez, gently, "Yes, mem!" + +"Why," sez I, "I am married, and have been for upwards of twenty years, +and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called +a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many +changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round +and be a little of everything, and change sudden, too. + +"I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a housemaid, a church woman, a wet +nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take care +of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid, +a literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a adviser, a soother, a +dressmaker, a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a +doctor, a carpenter, a woman, and more'n forty other things. + +"Marriage is a first-rate state, and agreeable a good deal of the time; +but it haint a state of perfect peace and rest, and you'll find out it +haint if you are ever married." + +But Miss Fogg said, mildly, "that she thought I wuz mistaken--she +thought it wuz." + +"You do?" sez I. + +"Yes, mem," sez she. + +I got up, and sez I, "Come, Josiah, I guess we had better be a-goin'." +I thought it wouldn't do no good to argue any more with her, and Josiah +started off after the mair. He had hitched it on the barn floor. + +She didn't seem willin' to have me go; she seemed to cling to me. She +seemed to be a good, affectionate little creetur. And she said she would +give anything almost if she could rehearse the hull lecture over to me, +and have me criticise it. Sez she: + +"I have heard so much about you, and what a happy home you have." + +"Yes," sez I, "it is as happy as the average of happy homes, any way." + +And sez she, "I have heard that you and your husband wuz just devoted to +each other." And I told her "that our love for each other wuz like two +rocks that couldn't be moved." + +And she said, "On these very accounts she fairly hankered after my +advice and criticism. She said she hadn't never lived in any house where +there wuz a livin' man, her father havin' died several months before she +was born; and she hadn't had the experience that I had, and she presumed +that I could give her several little idees that she hadn't thought on." + +And I told her calmly "that I presumed I could." + +It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the +midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to +drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and +come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men. + +And she had always lived with her mother (who naturally worshipped +and mentally knelt before the memory of her lost husband) and three +sentimental maiden aunts. And they had drawed all their knowledge of +manhood from Moore's poems and Solomon's Songs. So Serena Fogg's idees +of men and married life wuz about as thin and as well suited to stand +the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face +a Greenland winter in. + +And so, after considerable urgin' on her part (for I kinder hung back +and hated to tackle the job, but not knowin' but that it wuz duty's +call), I finally consented, and it wuz arranged this way: + +She wuz to come down to our house some day, early in the mornin', and +stay all day, and she wuz to stand up in front of me and rehearse the +lecture over to me, and I wuz to set and hear it, and when she came to a +place where I didn't agree with her I wuz to lift up my right hand and +she wuz to stop rehearsin', and we wuz to argue with each other back and +forth and try to convince each other. + +And when we got it all arranged Josiah and I set out for home, I calm in +my frame, though dreadin' the job some. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +But Josiah Allen wuz jest crazy over that lecture--crazy as a loon. He +raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over lots of it +to me. About "how a man's love was the firm anchor that held a woman's +happiness stiddy; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in +a serene calm--a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect, +how they watched over 'em and held 'em in their hearts." + +"Oh," sez he, "it went beyond anything I ever heard of. I always knew +that men wuz good and pious, but I never realized how dumb pious they +wuz till to-night" + +"She said," sez I, in considerable dry axents--not so dry as I keep by +me, but pretty dry--"No true man would let a woman perform any manuel +labor." + +"Wall, he won't. There ain't no need of your liftin' your little finger +in emanuel labor." + +"Manuel, Josiah." + +"Wall, I said so, didn't I? Hain't I always holdin' you back from work?" + +"Yes," sez I. "You often speak of it, Josiah. You are as good," sez I, +firmly, "full as good as the common run of men, and I think a little +better. But there are things that have to be done. A married woman that +has a house and family to see to and don't keep a hired girl, can't get +along without some work and care." + +"Wall I say," sez he, "that there hain't no need of you havin' a care, +not a single care. Not as long as I live--if it wuzn't for me, you might +have some cares, and most probable would, but not while I live." + +I didn't say nothin' back, for I don't want to hurt his feelin's, and +won't, not if I can help it. And he broke out again anon, or nearly +anon-- + +[Illustration: "OH, WHAT A LECTURE THAT WUZ."] + +"Oh, what a lecture that wuz. Did you notice when she wuz goin' on +perfectly beautiful, about the waveless sea of married life--did you +notice how it took the school house down? And I wuz perfectly mortified +to see you didn't weep or even clap your hands." + +"Wall," sez I, firmly, "when I weep or when I clap, I weep and clap +on the side of truth. And I can't see things as she duz. I have been +a-sailin' on that sea she depictured for over twenty years, and have +never wanted to leave it for any other waters. But, as I told her, and +tell you now, it hain't always a smooth sea, it has its ups and downs, +jest like any other human states." + +Sez I, soarin' up a very little ways, not fur, for it wuz too cold, and +I was too tired, "There hain't but one sea, Josiah Allen, that is calm +forever, and one day we will float upon it, you and me. It is the sea +by which angels walk and look down into its crystal depths, and behold +their blessed faces. It is the sea on whose banks the fadeless lilies +blow--and that mirrors the soft, cloudless sky of the Happy Morning. It +is the sea of Eternal Repose, that rude blasts can never blow up into +billows. But our sea--the sea of married life--is not like that, it is +ofttimes billowy and rough." + +"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the +lecture, and enthused. "We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen, +for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly +smooth?" + +"Yes, it has; smooth as glass." + +"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?" + +"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud." + +Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has +cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue +if I was in your place." + +"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more +till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he: + +"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have +that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah +Allen." + +"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or +ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her +lecture." + +Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down, +and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and +company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she +did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't +have come in a much worse time. + +It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that. +There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz +a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come. + +Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men, +but I can't conceal it from myself that his words at such a time are +always voyalent, and his demeanor is not the demeanor that I would wish +to have showed off to the public. + +He wuz at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the +entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward +with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz too late. + +He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen +himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty, +thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't +have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as +he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my +cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket, +and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the +settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to +see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in. + +There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there. +There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the +wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black, +and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost +frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor +be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the +language he hurled at me acrost that stove. + +"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from +this side." + +And then he hollered at me, and asked me: + +"How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in." And then he wanted to know +"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or +if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream +of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He +hollered wildly. + +"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told +you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It +would go in all right if you had started it the other way." + +"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha, +with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be +perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day. +But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way +out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall +be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the +breath of life in me." + +Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door." + +"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves, +and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at +that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock." + +[Illustration: "WON'T YOU BE STILL?"] + +Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want +them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'." "Wall, I want 'em to +ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say +every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her +perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do +I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I +said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to." + +Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip: + +"Won't you be still?" + +"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go +through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have +got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin' +under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man +a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove." + +I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there +stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful +Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see +she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o' +awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and +took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have +to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back +to Josiah. + +And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard +every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now +about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?" + +But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that +he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much +repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all +tore to pieces to get that stove started." + +Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the +door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that." + +"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift +for two hours as I have, and then see." + +Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And +there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who +is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along." +"Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself." + +I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that. + +[Illustration: "AND HE SAID I HAD RUBBED 'EM OUT."] + +Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't +go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with +chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out." +I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I +see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of +"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" was a-listenin'. + +But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose +to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out +for years and years--why, then I _had_ to correct him on the subject, +and we had a little dialogue. + +I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so +much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple +sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin' +machine a-comin'. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha Among the Brethren, Part 1. +by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN, *** + +***** This file should be named 9443.txt or 9443.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/4/9443/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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