WALL, it never rains but it pours, duz it? And it has been my experience durin’ quite a middlin’ long life (jest how long, hain’t no matter, as I know on, to anybody but the man who takes our senses).
But as I wuz sayin’, it has always been my experience that if company gets to comin’ either on my side or hisen, they keep a comin’.
And it wuz only a short time after John Richard’s departure and exodus that I got a letter from a aunt on my side kinder askin’ and proposin’ to have her daughter Melinda Ann come to Jonesville to make us a long visit.
And only a little while after this, one of hisen writ to the same effect.
And we had ’em both here to one time.
It wuz hard, but it seemed providential, and couldn’t be helped, and it worked out a onexpected good in the end that paid us some for it. But I wouldn’t go through it agin for a dollar bill.
You see the way on’t is, I sot out in married life determined to do as well or better by the relations on his side than I did by them on my own side. I wuz bound to do well by the hull on ’em, jest bound to.
But I made up my mind like iron that I would stand more, take more sass, be more obleegin’, and suffer and be calm more from hisen than from mine, and I would do awful, awful well by both sides.
And it wuz these beliefs carried out and spread out into practice that caused my agonies and my sufferin’s that I went through for weeks.
The way on’t wuz, I had a letter from the city from my great-aunt Melinda Lyons, a tellin’ me that her oldest girl, Melinda Ann (a old maiden), wuz all run down with nervous prostration, nervous fits and things, and she asked me if I would be willin’ to have her come down into the country and stay a few weeks with me.
Wall, Aunt Melinda had done a good many good turns by me when I wuz a girl, and then I set quite a good deal of store by Melinda Ann, she and I wuz jest about of a age, and I talked it over with Josiah, and we give our consents and writ the letter, and the next week Melinda Ann come on, bag and baggage. A leather trunk and a bag for baggage.
Wall, we found Melinda Ann wuz very good dispositioned and a Christian, but hard to get along with.
The least thing we could do or say that wuz not jest so would throw her into a fit—a nervous fit you know—she would have spazzums, and all sally away, and faint like, and act.
And then I would have to soothe her with catnip, and bring her up with mustard poultices, and apply a soap-stone to her.
Why, one night Josiah happened to throw he bootjack down kinder hard (he had a corn and hit it, bein’ the cause).
Wall, I stood over Melinda more’n two hours after that, three poultices bein’ applied in vain for relief, till arneky softened the blow to her.
And one night the slats came out of the hired man’s bed, jest acrost the hall from hern, and it took more’n a quart of catnip to make her hull agin.
And the cat fell through the suller winder—we have got a blind cat that acts like fury, always a fallin’ round and a prowlin’—wall, I thought Melinda Ann would never come to.
She thought it wuz Injuns; and the cat did scream awful, I’ll admit; it fell onto some tin ware piled up onto a table under the winder, and it skairt even the cat almost to death, so you can imagine the condition it throwed Melinda into. I thought it wuz ghosts, and so did Josiah, and felt riz up in my mind and full of or.
But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.
Wall, I guess Melinda Ann had been there about a week, and as well as I liked Aunt Melinda, and as well as I loved duty, I wuz a beginnin’ to feel perfectly beat out and fearfully run down in my mind and depressted, for fits is depresstin’, no matter how much duty and nobility of soul you may bring to bear onto ’em, or catnip.
Wall, I wuz a beginnin’ to look bad, and so wuz Josiah, although Josiah, though I am fur from approvin’ of his course, yet it is the truth that he seemed to find some relief in givin’ vent to his feelin’s out on one side, and blowin’ round and groanin’ out to the barn and in the woodhouse, more than I did, who took it calm, and considered it a dispensation from the first, and took it as such.
Wall, if you’ll believe it, right on the top of these sufferin’s come a letter from a relation of Josiah’s, a widowed man by the name of Peter Tweedle.
He wuz a distant relation of Josiah Allen—lived about two hundred miles away.
He writ that he wuz lonesome—he had lost his companion for the third time, and it wore on him. He felt that the country air would do him good. (We found out afterwards that he had rented his house sence his bereavement and had lived in a boarding-house, and had been warned out by the crazed landlady and the infuriated boarders, owing to reasons which will appear hereafter, and had to move on).
Wall, he wanted to come and visit round to our house first, and then to the other relations.
And I sez to myself, it is one of ’em on his side, and not one word will I say agin the idee, not if I fall down in my tracks.
And Josiah was so kinder beat out with Melinda, and depressted and wore out by havin’ to go round in his stockin’ feet so much and whisperin’, that he said, “That any change would be a agreeable one, and he should write for Peter to come.”
And I, buoyed up by my principle, never said a word agin the idee, only jest this:
“Think well on it, Josiah Allen, before you make the move.”
And sez Josiah, “It will be a comfort to make a move of any kind.”
He had been kep’ awful still, I’ll admit. But I couldn’t see how it wuz goin’ to make it any better to have another relation let in, on whomsoever’s side they wuz.
Howsomever, I see that Josiah wuz determined, and I felt a delicacy about interferin’, knowin’ well that I had one of the relations on my own side in the house. Who wuz I, I sez to myself—who be I, to set up agin hisen? No, I never will. So the letter of acceptance wuz writ, and in less than a week’s time Peter Tweedle come.
We spozed he would bring a satchel bag with him; mebby a big one, but—good land! Josiah had to go after his baggage with the Democrat wagon. We see he had come to stay; it wuzn’t a evenescent visit, but a long campane.
We didn’t know at the time that they wuz most all musical instruments; we thought they wuz clothes.
I see a black shadder come over my companion’s face as he shouldered the fifth trunk and took it up two flights of stairs into the attick.
He had filled the bedroom and hall.
Wall, I guess Peter Tweedle hadn’t been in the house over half an hour before he walked up to the organ and asked me if it wuz in good repair.
Sez he, “How many banks of reeds is in it?”
I sez, “I don’t know.”
Sez he, “Have you any objections to my tryin’ it?”
I sez, “No.”
Sez he, “Sence my last affliction I have turned my mind agin towards music, I find it soothes.” Sez he, “After my first bereavement I took up the pickelo—I still play on it at intervals; I learned that and the snare drum durin’ them dark hours,” sez he. “And I still play on ’em in lonesome moments. I have ’em both with me,” sez he.
“Durin’ my next affliction I learned the clarinet, the fife, and the base violin. Now,” sez he, “I am turnin’ my mind onto the brass horn in various keys. But I have brought all my instruments with me,” sez he, in a encouragin’ axent. “I frequently turn from one to another. When I get lonesome in the night,” sez he, “I frequently run from one to another till I have exhausted the capabilities of each, so to speak.”
I sithed and couldn’t help it, but I held firm on the outside, and he turned to the organ.
“I love the organ,” sez he; and with that he sot down on the music-stool, opened up all the loud bases, the double octave coupler, blowed hard, and bust out in song.
Wall, it all come jest as sudden onto Melinda as a thunder-clap out of a parlor ceilin’, or a tornado out of a teacup, it wuz as perfectly onexpected and onlooked for as they would be, and jest as skairful.
For this wuz one of her bad days, and bein’ a old maid, we thought mebby it would excite her too much to know a widower wuz in the house, so we had kep’ it from her.
And the first intimation she had of Peter’ses presence wuz this awful loud blast of sound.
His voice wuz loud in the extreme, and it wuz “Coronation” he bust out in.
He is pious, there hain’t a doubt on’t, but still “Coronation” is the loudest him in the him-book.
Wall, the very first time he blasted forth I knew jest as well as I knew afterwards what the result would be.
I hastened upstairs, and there she wuz, there sot Melinda Ann in a fit; she hadn’t had time to get onto the bed, and there she sot bolt upright in her rockin’ chair in a historical fit. We had better let her known he wuz there.
Wall, I histed her onto the bed as quick as I could, and hollered down the back stairs for catnip.
And as soon as I had brung her to a little, she would clench right into me, and groan and choke, and sort o’ froth to the mouth.
And I’ll be hanged if I didn’t feel like it myself, for right down under our feet I heard that loud, thunderin’ organ, for his legs wuz strong, and he blowed hard.
But yet so curius is human nater, specially wimmen’s human nater—right there in my agony I couldn’t help bein’ proud o’ that instrument. I had no idee, I said to myself, not a idee, that it had such a volume of sound.
But loud as it wuz, Peter’ses clarion voice rung out loud and high above it.
It wuz a fearful time, very. But even at that moment I sez to myself agin:
“He is a relation on his side—be calm!” and I wuz calm.
“IT WUZ ‘HOLD THE FORT’ HE BELCHED OUT IN.”
Wall, I rubbed Melinda Ann and explained it to her, and poulticed her, and got her kinder settled down.
And I see it took up her mind some. She didn’t seem to dislike it now, after the first shock wuz over.
And I left her propped up on her piller a listenin’, and went down and got supper.
Wall, it wuz all I could do to get that man away from the instrument long enough to eat.
He seemed to be kinder absent-minded and lost like till he got back to it agin.
Wall, it had been still for some time; you couldn’t hear a thing from the dinin’ room up in Melinda’s room. And when he bust out agin imegiatly after supper, it wuz too much, too much, for I spoze she had been in a drowze.
It wuz “Hold the Fort” he belched out in, with all the steam on. He had a way, Peter had, of bustin’ out loudest when he begun, and then kinder dwindle down towards the last of the piece. (But it wuz one of ’em on his side, and I didn’t murmur, not out loud, I didn’t.)
Wall, I knew what wuz before me at the first volley of sound. I sez to myself:
“Melinda Ann! Melinda Ann!” and hurried upstairs.
And there she wuz layin’ back on her piller with her eyes rolled up in her head and fixed, and her nuckels clenched.
Wall, I brung her to agin after a long and tejus process, and then agin I see that she sort o’ enjoyed it; and I left her propped up and went down and helped do up the work.
Wall, Peter never stopped playin’ till a late bedtime.
And then I might have slept some at first, only Josiah begun a noise where he left off, a scoldin’ and a jawin’.
And oh! my sufferin’s that I suffered with that man. I reminded him that Peter wuz a relation on his side—no avail.
I brung up his lonesome state.
Josiah said, “He’d ought to be lonesome! He’d ought to be fur away in the middle of the desert or on a island in the depths of the seas. Alone! alone!”
He raved, he swore, he said, “Dumb him!” repeatedly.
You see Josiah hated music anyway, only the very softest, lowest kind; and Peter’ses wuz powerful—powerful and continuous.
But I reminded Josiah Allen in the cause of duty that he had complained that the house wuz too still sence Melinda Ann had come, and he wanted a noise.
“I never wanted to be in a Lunatick Asylum,” sez he; “I didn’t hanker for Bedlam,” he yelled.
Wall, suffice it to say that I never got a wink of sleep till past midnight. And mebby it wuz about one o’clock, when all of a sudden we wuz all waked up by a low, rumblin’ noise, strange and weird.
My first thought was a earthquake, and then a cyclone.
But Josiah Allen had waked up first and got his senses before I did, and sez he:
“It is that dumb fool a playin’ on a base viol.”
And that wuz what it proved to be. He had got lonesome in the night, and got up and onpacked the base viol, and wuz playin’ a low, mournful piece on it, so’s not to wake us up.
He said in the mornin’ that he held it in for that purpose.
He is a good-natured creeter, and a mourner, there hain’t no doubt on’t, and so I told Josiah.
And he snapped out enough to take my head off:
“He’d ought to mourn! I mourn,” sez he, “Heaven knows I do. But I shan’t mourn after the first ray of daylight, for I’ll take his trunks and throw ’em outdoors, and him on top of ’em. And I’ll cast out Melinda Ann like a viper,” sez he. “I’ll empty the house of the hull crew of fools and lunaticks! I’ll do it,” sez he, “if I have a breath left in my body.”
When he sez this I thought of Melinda Ann. Had she got a breath left? Wuz she alive? Or wuz she not?
I jest sprung over Josiah Allen, I trompled on him, I won’t deny it, in my haste to get up, and I left him groanin’ and a sayin’ in a low, mournful axent:
“That foot could never be stepped on agin by him.”
But I didn’t stop to comfort him; no, my mind wuz too much took up with the relation on my side.
I hastened upstairs, and there wuz my worst fears realized.
Melinda Ann wuz wild as a hen hawk.
She had got the winder up and wuz jest a springin’ out. I ketched her by her limb and hollered for Josiah. Before he got there she had got her hands clenched into my hair and wuz a tryin’ to choke me.
But, good land! she didn’t know what she wuz a doin’.
Wall, Josiah Allen by main strength got her into the house agin, and after a tussle we got her onto the bed. And then I begun to doctor her up.
But I never tried to go to bed agin that night, for it wuz daylight before I got her quieted down.
Wall, Josiah had to go off that mornin’ early on bizness, to be gone all day. And I wuz glad on’t, for I wuz afraid, in spite of all I could do, he would do sunthin’ to disgrace himself in the eyes of both sides. His last words to me wuz:
“If I find either of them cussed fools in the house when I get back, I’ll burn the house down over their heads.”
But I knew he wouldn’t, I knew he would quiet down while he wuz gone, and he did.
But my sufferin’s through that day can’t never be told or sung. And the martyrs that I called on, and the groans and sithes that I smothered in my breast waist, couldn’t be told.
But jest as I expected, when Peter first blasted out on the clarinet loud and strong, not bein’ afraid of wakin’ anybody up, I had to drop everything and go right up to Melinda Ann. But the attack wuz light, and, as usual, after she got over the first shock she enjoyed it.
And I happened to mention—havin’ that pride I have spoke of, of havin’ the relations on his side stand on their best foot before mine—I happened to mention that Peter got up and played in the night because he wuz lonesome, and that he said he would give half his property (he wuz well off) if he had somebody to play the organ while he played the clarinet.
I see she grew more meller-lookin’ and brightened up, and she sez:
“I used to be a good player.”
And if you’ll believe it—I don’t spoze you will, for Josiah wouldn’t when I told him that night—
But when Josiah Allen came home that night they wuz a playin’ together like a pair of turkle doves, she a playin’ the organ, and he a settin’ by her a tootin’, both as happy as kings.
And from that time out she never got skairt agin when he bust out sudden in song or begun gradual. And her fits grew lighter and lighter and fur seldomer.
And though our sufferin’s wuz heavy and severe to hear that organ and clarinet, or base viol, or pickelo, or brass horn a goin’ day and night, yet I seemed to see what wuz a comin’ on’t, and I held Josiah by main force to stand still and let providential circumstances have a straight path to move on in.
Wall, after two weeks of sufferin’ on our part almost onexampled in history, ancient or modern, the end come.
Peter Tweedle took Josiah out one side and told him, as bein’ the only male relation Melinda Ann had handy to get at, “that he had it in his mind to marry her quietly and take her at once to his home in the city,” and he asked Josiah “if he had any objections.”
And Josiah told me that he spoke out fervently and earnestly, and sez, “No! Heaven knows I hain’t.”
And he urged Peter warm to have the weddin’ sudden and to once, that very day and hour, and offered to get the minister there inside of twenty minutes.
But I wuz bound to have things carried on decent. So I sot the day most a week off, and I sent for Aunt Melinda and his children that wuz married, and the single one, and we had a quiet little weddin’, or it would have been, only the last thing that they done in the house before they left wuz to get the hull crew on ’em to bust out in a weddin’ song loud enough almost to raise the ruff.
Wall, Peter writ to Josiah that he hadn’t been lonesome sence it took place, not a minute.
And Melinda Ann writ to me that she hadn’t had a fit sence, nor a spazzum.
So, as I told Josiah Allen, our sufferin’s brung about good to two lonesome and onhappy and fitty creeters, and we ort to be thankful when we look back on our troubles and afflictions with ’em.
And he looked at me enough to take my head off, if a look could guletine, and sez he:
“Thankful! Oh, my gracious Heaven! hear her! Thankful!”
And his tone wuz such that I hain’t dasted to bring up the subject sence. No, I don’t dast to, but I do inside of me feel paid for all I went through.
