Part 5

Wall, when it came supper time, more wuz in store for him. Sylphina, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathen ask a blessin’. But he, bein’ so uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they had company. He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on him. He looked as if he would sink all the while Sylphina wus settin’ the table, for he knew what wus before him. He seemed to feel worse and worse all the time, and when she wus a-settin’ the chairs round the table, he looked so bad that I didn’t know but he would have to have help to get to the table. And he’d give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks to Sylphina that ever wus, but she shook her head at him, and looked decided, and then he’d look as if he’d wilt right down again.

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

“There! I will say it I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in my hull life. White-handled knives is suthin’ I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But never did I see any that wus so perfectly beautiful as these ’ere.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How pleasant it is here, to your house, Sylphina, perfectly beautiful! Seein’ we are both such friends to her, I feel free to tell you what a awful state I find Josiah Allen’s wife’s house in. Not a mite of a carpet in her settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look as that. She said it wus up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t believe a word of it. I believe it wus up for some other purpose. And the curtains wus down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first night in that condition. I might jest as well have sat up, it looked so. And when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they wusn’t nothin’ but plain white muslin. I should think she could afford somethin’ a little more decent than that for her spare-room. And she hadn’t a mite of fruit cake in the house, only two kinds of common-lookin’ cake. She said Josiah forgot to give her my letter, and she didn’t get word I wus comin’ till the day I got there, but between you and me, I never believed that for a minute. I believe they got up that story between ’em, to excuse it off, things lookin’ so. If I wuzn’t such a friend of hern, and didn’t think such a sight of her, I wouldn’t mention it for the world. But I think everything of her, and everybody knows I do, so I feel free to talk about her. How humbly she has growed! Don’t you think so? And her mind seems to be a kind o’ runnin’ down. For how, under the sun, she can think so much of that simple old husband of hern, is a mystery to me, unless she is growin’ foolish. He wus always a poor, insignificent lookin’ creeter; but now, he is the humblest and meekest lookin’ creeter, I ever seen in human shape. And he looks as old as grandfather Richerson, every mite as old, and he is most 90. And he is vain as a peahen.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agin I paused for breath, and agin Josiah whispered:

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

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

Agin I went on, and says I:

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

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

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

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

THE WIDDER DOODLE AS A COMFERTER.

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

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

But sometimes, I get almost discouraged with that boy. I can’t solemnize him down, and get him to take a realizin’ sense of things. His morals are as sound as brass. But he has, a good deal of the time, a light and triflin’ demeanor, and his mind don’t seem so sound and stabled as I could wish it to be.

I don’t s’pose anybody would believe me, but the very day after that boy told me of Nancy Cypher’s death, that boy began to poke his aunt Doodle about the relict.

I told him I never see nothin’, in my hull life, so wicked and awful, and I asked him, where he s’posed “he’d go to?”

He was fixin’ on a paper collar, to the lookin’-glass, and he says, in a kind of cherk, genteel way, and with a polite tone.

“I s’pose I shall go to the weddin’.”

You might jist as well exhort the winds to stop blowin’ when it is out on a regular spree, as to stop him when he gets to behavin’. But I guess he got the worst of it in this affair. I guess his aunt Doodle skeert him, she took on so, when he segested the idea of her marryin’ to another man.

She bust right out a cryin’, took her handkerchief out, and rubbed both her eyes with both hands, her elbows standin’ out most straight. She took on awful.

“Oh, Doodle! Doodle!” says she. “What if you had lived to hear your relict laughed at about marryin’ to another man. Oh! what agony it would have brought to your dear linements. Oh! I can’t bear it, I can’t. Oh! when I think of that dear man, how he worshipped the ground I walked on, and the neighbors said he did, they said he thought more of the ground, than he did of me; but he didn’t, he worshipped us both; and what his feelings be, if he had lived, to hear his widder laughed at about another man?”

She sobbed like an infant babe, and I came to the buttery door, I was a makin’ some cherry pies and fruit-cake, and I came to the door, with my nutmeg-grater in my hand, and winked at Thomas, not to say another word to hurt her feelin’s. I winked twice or three times at him, real, severe winks. And he took up one of his law books, and went to readin’, and I went back to my cake. But I kep’ one eye out at her, not knowin’ what trouble of mind might lead her into. She kep’ her handkerchief over her eyes and groaned badly for nearly nine minutes, I should judge. And then she spoke out from under it:

“Do you call Solomon Cypher good lookin’, Tommy?”

“Oh! from fair to middlin’,” says Thomas J.

And then she bust out again. “Oh! when I think what a linement Mr. Doodle had on him, how can I think of any other man? I can’t! I can’t!”

And she groaned out the loudest she had yet. And Thomas J., feelin’ sorry, I guess, for what he had done, got up, and said, “He guessed he’d go out to the barn, and help his father a spell.” Josiah was puttin’ some new stanchils on the stable.

Thomas J. hadn’t more’n got to the barn, and I had finished my cake, and had got my hands into the pie crust, a mixin’ it up, when there came a knock at the door, and my hands bein’ in the condition they was, the widder wipes up, and went to the door, and opened it. It was Solemen Cypher, came to borry my bembazine dress and crape veil for some of the mourners. I made a practice of lendin’ ’em. The veil was one I had mourned for father Allen in, and the dress was one I had mourned for grandmother Smith in. They was as good as new. I thought, seein’ the widder and he was some acquainted with each other, I wouldn’t go out till I had got my pies done.

And so I kep’ on a mixin’ up my crust, and pretty soon, I heard him say to her after she had set him a chair, and they had set down, and he had told his errant, says he,

“This is a dreadful blow to me, widder.”

“Yes,” says she, “I can feel to sympathize with you. I know well what feelin’s I felt, when I lost my Doodle.”

Not one word does she say about brother Timothy. But I hold firm, and so does Josiah. We do well by the widder.

“I believe you never wus acquainted with the corpse, was you, widder?” says Solemen.

“No,” says she. “But I have heard her well spoke of. Sister Samantha wus jest a sayin’ that she was a likely wemen.”

“She wus, widder! she wus. My heart-strings was completely wrapped round that wemen. Not a pair of pantaloons have I hired made, sense we wus married, nor a vest. I tell you it is hard to give her up. It is the hardest day’s work, I ever done in my life. Nobody but jest me knows what, for a wemen, she wus. She was healthy, savin’, hard workin’, pious, equinomical. And I never knew how dear she was to me—how I loved her, as I did my own soul, till I see I had got to give her up, and hired a girl at two dollars a week; and they waste more’n their necks are worth.”

And he sithed so loud, that it sounded considerable like a groan. Solemen takes her death hard. He sithed two or three times right along; and the widder sithed too. It was dretful affectin’ to hear ’em go on; and if I hadn’t been so busy, I don’t know but it would have drawed tears from me. But I was jest puttin’ in my sweetnin’ into my cherry pies, and I felt it my duty to be calm. So I composed myself, and kep’ on with my work, and heard ’em a talkin’ and a sympathizin’ with each other.

“Oh!” Solemen, in a mournful voice, “I can tell you, widder Doodle, there are tender memories in my heart for that wemen. When I think how good dispositioned she was, how she would get up and build fires in the winter, without saying a word, it seemed as if my heart must break.”

“I love to build fires,” says sister Doodle. “I always used to build the fire, when I was a livin’ with my Doodle.”

“Did you, widder? I wished you had known the corpse. I believe you would have loved each other like sisters.”

His tone sounded considerable chirker than it had sounded, and he went on. “I believe you look like her, widder. You look out of your eyes as she looked out of her’n; you put me in mind of her.”

The widder’s voice seemed something chirker, too, and, says she, “You must chirk up, Mr. Cypher, you must look forward to happier days.”

“I know it,” and he put on the tone he used to evenin’ meetin’s. “I know there is another spear, and I try to keep my mind on it; a happy spear, where hired girls are unknown, and partin’s are no more.”

“I hate hired girls,” says sister Doodle, almost warmly.

“Do you, widder? Do you hate ’em?” says he, in almost glad tones, and then says he, in real convinced axents, “You do look like her, I know you do; I can see it plainer and plainer every minute. Oh! what a wemen she was! So afraid of infringin’ on men. She new her place so well. I couldn’t have made that wemen think she was my equal; not if I had knocked her down. How many times she had said to me that no wemen was strong enough to go to the poles, and she had rather dig potatoes any time, than to vote. She was as good as a man at that. Many a time, when I would get backward with my fall’s work, she would go out on the lot, and dig as fast as I could.”

“I love to dig potatoes,” says sister Doodle, “and no money would have me to vote.”

“You do look like her, widder. If my own father disputed me on it, I’d stand my ground. You look like her, you make me think on her.”

“Well, then, you must think on me all you can; don’t be delicate about it at all. I’d love to think I could chirk you up, and be a comfort to you, in that way, or any other.”

“You do chirk me up, widder. I feel better than I did feel, when I came here to-day.”

“Well, then, you must come and be chirked up, oftener.”

“I will, widder.”

“Come Sunday night, or any time.”

“I will, widder, I will.”

I must say, that, as I heard her go on, I couldn’t help askin’ myself this mathematical question, and doin’ in my mind, this little sum in figures:

“Samantha, ort from ort, leaves how many? And how many to carry?”

And though I answered myself, calmly and firmly, “ort,” still I realized that figures wus made to differ from each other in value and glory, from figure one, clear up to figure nine, and “orts,” unbeknown to them. And if sister Doodle wouldn’t never be killed for knowin’ too much, still she was a clever critter, and what little sense she had run to goodness, and that is more than could be said of some folks’ essense; some runs to meanness every mite of it.

I was jest a thinkin’ this over, as I finished up my last pie; and I washed my hands at the sink, and went and carried ’em out, and put ’em into the oven. And, as I did so, I said, “Good-mornin’, Mr. Cypher,” in jest as friendly and sympathizin’ a way as them words wus ever said. I then went and done up the dress and veil ready for him and laid them on the table. And, thinkin’ that I must say sumthin’ to comfort him up, I says to him, in consolin’ axents, “That she was a likely wemen, and I dared presume to say, was better off than she was here.”

But though my words wus said with such a good motive, he didn’t seem to like ’em, and he spoke right up, and says he:

“I don’t know about that, I don’t know about her bein’ better off. It was only a year ago, last winter, that I bought her a new calico dress, and carried it home to her unexpected. And on her last sickness, she took it into her head that she could eat some chicken, and, though we had half a barrel of pork in the house, I went right out that same day and killed a hen. I done well by her, and I don’t know about her bein’ better off, I don’t know about it.”

I heerd my pies a sizzlin’ over in the oven, and I hastened to their relief. And while I wus a turnin’ ’em round, Solemen took the bundle offer the table and started off. The widder, that clever criter, went to the door with him. She said sumthin’ to him, I couldn’t really hear what it wus, as I wus turnin’ my last pie, as she said it, but I heard his last words, as he went down the stept. They wus: