Scene.—Monday at the Allen’s.—Mrs. Allen kneading bread. Tirzah Ann washing at the washtub.—Widder Doodle picking over beans.—Elder Peedick sitting in the corner arranging a book of manuscript sermons.
Wid. D. Oh how much these beans makes me think of Doodle. He died, Doodle did, and was a corpse just as quick as he died; but I never can forget that dear man, nor his linement never. And it hain’t no ways likely that I shall ever marry agin’.
Sam. Cheer up, Widder Doodle, cheer up. You’ll disturb the Elder, and he wants to get his sermons all pinned together before he starts; and Josiah is out after the horse now. I am glad you stayed over Sunday with us Elder.
Elder. I thank you, Madam. (He goes on with his work, speaking to himself): Let me see, where is the 20thly?
Wid. D. Could you forget your Josiah, if you lived to be his relict?
Sam. No; I loved Josiah Allen, though why I loved him, I know not. But in the immortal words of the poet, “Love will go where it is sent.” Yes, Tirzah Ann, I married your pa in mother’s parlor, on the 14th day of June, in a brown silk dress with a long boddist waist, from pure love. And that love has been like a beacon in our pathway ever since. Its pure light, though it has sputtered some, and in trying times, such as washing days and cleaning house, has burnt down pretty low—has never gone out. Tirzah Ann, look at your father’s wristbands and collar, and see if you can see any streaks of white on ’em. Now Tirzah Ann, you are inclined to be sentimental. You took it from your pa. Josiah Allen, if he was encouraged, would act spoony. I remember when we were first engaged he called me a little angel. I just looked at him and says I, I weigh 204 pounds by the stillyards; and he didn’t call me so agin. I guess he tho’t 204 pounds would make a pretty hefty angel. No, Tirzah Ann, sentiment hain’t my style; reason and common sense are my themes. Now there is Betsey Bobbett: she is one of the sentimentolest creeters that ever I did see. She is awful opposed to women’s rights. She says it looks so sweet and genteel, somehow, for wimmin to not have any rights. She says it is wimmen’s only spear to marry. But as yet she hain’t found any man willin’ to lay hold of that spear with her. But she is always a talking about how sweet it is for wimmin to be like runnin’ vines, a clingin’ to man like ivy to a tree.
Elder. (in a stately way) Them are my sentiments, Mrs. Allen. As I remarked yesterday in my tenthly, “Marriage is wimmen’s only spear.” And as I remarked in my fourteenthly, “How sweet, how heavenly the sight, to see a lovely woman clinging like a sweet, twining, creeping vine to a man’s manly strength.”
Wid. D. It is pretty to see it; I love to cling; I used to cling to Doodle.
Elder. I wish I had known Doodle; he must have been a happy man.
Sam. But, Elder, how is a woman to cling if she hain’t nothin’ to cling to. What are the wimmen to do whose faces are as humbly as a plate of cold greens? Is such a woman to go out into the street and collar a man and order him to marry her? Now I say a woman hadn’t ort to marry unless she has a man to marry to—a man whose love satisfies her head and her heart; some men’s love hain’t worth nothin’. I wouldn’t give a cent a bushel for it by the car load. But I mean a man that suits her; a man she seems to belong to, just like North and South America jined by nater, unbeknown to them ever since creation. She’ll know him if she ever sees him, jest as I knew my Josiah, for their two hearts will suit each other jest like the two halves of a pair of shears. These are the marriages heaven signs the certificuts of; and this marryin’ for a home, or for fear of bein’ called a old maid is no more marriage in the sight of God, no more true marriage than the blush of a fashionable woman that is bought for ten cents an ounce and carried home in her pocket, is true modesty.
Elder. I can only repeat what I said yesterday in my 21stly. That it is flyin’ in the face of the Bible for a woman not to marry. It is heaven’s design that women should be a vine, and man a tree.
Wid. D. I always thought my Doodle was a tree. I knew he was.
Sam. Well Elder, your wife is jest dead with the tyfus, and I ask you this queston. Are you willing to let Betsey Bobbett cling to you? She believes jest as you do, and she is fairly dying to make a runnin’ vine of herself; and are you willing to be a tree?
Elder. Wall—as it were—Mrs. Allen—I—that is—the religious state of the country at present is—as it were—
Sam. Are you willing to be a tree?
Elder. I believe Mrs. Allen you are a strong Grant woman. Now I favor Blaine.
Sam. Are you willing to be a tree?
Elder. I guess I’ll go to the barn and get my saddle bags.
Sam. I knew jest how it would be; I knew he wouldn’t be a tree.
Tirz. A. Wall; I don’t blame him mother. You ought to have seen Betsey last night to meetin’. She got up to talk, and she would look right at Elder Peedick, and then at the editor of the Augur, and at Simon Slimpsey, and says she: I know I am religious because I feel that I love the bretheren. I don’t blame him.
Sam. No, nor I nuther. I don’t want a man to be a tree, unless they want to, and I want them to use reason and not insist on every woman makin’ a vine of herself. But the Elder means middlin’ well, and he’d make a tolerable good husband for some woman.
Wid. D. It haint no ways likely I shall ever marry again. No other man’s linement can ever look to me like my Doodle’s linement.
Sam. But the Elder has belated us dreadfully with our Monday’s work. Here it is most night and we have only fairly got to work. But we can finish it in the morning. Yes, as I was a saying Tirzah Ann, Betsey hain’t handsome, her cheek bones are too high, and she, being not much more than skin and bone, they show more than if she was in good order. Time has seen fit to deprive her of her hair and teeth, but her large nose he has kindly suffered her to keep. I have seen a good many that was sentimental that had it bad; but Betsey has got it the worst of anybody I ever did see, unless it is her brother Shakespeare, and he acts as spoony round you, Tirzah Ann, as any spoon on my buttery shelves. It worrys me.
Wid D. My Doodle used to act spoony, as spoony as—as a teaspoon.
Sam. Wall if I thought there was any danger, Tirzah Ann, of you falling in love with Shakespeare Bobbett, I’d give you a good thoroughwort puke. That will cure most anybody if you take it in time.
Tirz. A. Wall, I guess there hain’t no chance, mother.
Sam. Wall, mabby not. Now you wring the clothes out, Tirzah Ann, and hang ’em right up here on the line.
Tirz. A. They will look awfully, mother, hangin’ up here. We shall look as if we was settin’ in a wet calico tent.
Sam. I don’t care, Tirzah Ann, we are so beat out we shall go to bed as soon as it is dark.
Tirz. A. We shall have to any way, for father forgot to take the kerosine can, and there hain’t a lamp in the house that we can light. But oh, dear, how it does look here, mother. I never in my hull life see our house look as it does to-night. It would mortify me most to death if any body should come in.
Sam.