Part 3

I had made up my mind from the first on’t to face trouble, and so it didn’t put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins in getting into the boat stept onto my new lawn dress, and tore a hole in it as big as my two hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin’ felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when, jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off and blew it away out onto the lake. He had made up his mind to look so pretty that day, and be so dressed up, that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat down onto him; and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have seemed more shady. But I did the best I could by him, I stood by him, and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin’ it on, I see there was something more than mortification that ailed him. The lake was rough, and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginning to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad too. Oh! the wretchedness of that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness, in so short a time, as I did on that pleasure exertion to the island. I suppose our bein’ up all night a most, made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.

I set right down on a stun, and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After a while I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little. Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The butter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies, and tarts, and delicate cake, and cookies, looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of the companies did. But we did the best we could, and begun to make preparations to eat, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the way the sun scalded. There wasn’t a man or a woman there but what the perspiration jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy lookin’ set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn’t one of us but what had the rheumatiz, more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.

After we got the fire started, I histed a umbrell, and sat down under it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.

Wall, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, where is Josiah! I hadn’t seen him since we had got there. I riz right up and asked the company, almost wildly, “if they had seen my companion Josiah?” They said “No, they hadn’t.” But Celestine Wilkins’ little girl, who had come with her grandpa and grandma Gowdey, spoke up, and says she, “I seen him a goin’ off toward the woods; he acted dreadfully strange, too, he seemed to be a-walkin’ off side-ways.”

“Had the sufferins’ we had undergone made him delirious?” says I to myself, and then I started off on the run toward the woods, and old Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdey, and Sister Minkley, and Deacon Dobbins’ wife, all rushed after me. Oh, the agony of them 2 or 3 minutes, my mind so distracted with forebodins, and the perspiration a pourin’ down. But all of a sudden on the edge of the woods we found him. Miss Gowdey weighed 100 pounds less than me. He sat backed up against a tree, in a awful cramped position, with his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable, but when Miss Gowdey hollered out “Oh, here you be; we have been skairt about you. What is the matter?” he smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he, “Oh, I thought I would come out here, and meditate a spell. It was always a real treat to me to meditate.”

Jest then I came up a pantin’ for breath, and as the women all turned to face Josiah he scowled at me, and shook his fist at them 4 wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions with his hands toward ’em. But the minute they turned round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin’.

Says I, “What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you here for?”

“I am a meditatin’, Samantha.”

Says I, “Do you come down, and jine the company this minute, Josiah Allen. You was in a awful taken’ to come with ’em, and what will they think to see you act so?”

The wemmin happened to be lookin’ the other way for a minute, and he looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest motions toward ’em, but the minute they looked at him, he would pretend to smile that deathly smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, we’re goin’ to get dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain.”

“Oh, wall,” says he, “a little rain, more or less, haint a goin’ to hinder a man from meditatin!”

I was wore out, and says I, “Do you stop meditatin’ this minute, Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “I won’t stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain’t a goin’ to break it up.”

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

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

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

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

“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”

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

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

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

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

HOW WE TOOK IN SUMMER BOARDERS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My morals feel all right.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who’ll wait on them?” says I.

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

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

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