SAMANTHA’S SWORD OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE.
Wall, if you’ll believe it, it wuz the very next day I had a occasion to go to Jonesville for some necessaries; and Josiah wuz busy a-makin’ a new stanchil in the barn, so I sot off alone after breakfast with a large pail of good butter, and a cross-cut saw that Josiah had sent down to be filed, and the mair.
Wall, jest about a mild from our house is a old tarvern that has been fixed up and is used now as a sort of a half-way house between Jonesville and Loontown. Teamsters and sech stop there a sight to git “Refreshments for man and beast,” as the sign reads.
Wall, I had got most there when I see a man approachin’ me a-walkin’ afoot. And I knew him the first minute I sot my eyes on him.
It wuz Ellick Gurley.
And the very minute I sot my eyes onto his face Duty and Principle both hunched me up hard to tackle him in this matter.
Wall, most probble he had been hangin’ round for some time, for he knew me the first thing, and he come up to the side of the democrat wagon I wuz a-ridin’ in, bold as brass, and he sez:
“Is this Josiah Allen’s wife?” sez he.
“Yes, sir,” sez I, up clear and decided.
“Is a woman calling herself Anna Clark at your house?”
I wuzn’t a-goin’ to fight for Annie with any pewter weepons of untruth. No, I wuz a-goin’ to fight with the two-edged sword of Eternal Truth and Jestice, and I took ’em out and whetted ’em (as it were), and sez I, sharp and keen—
“Yes, sir!”
“Well,” sez he, lookin’ dretful defiant and mad at me, “she is my wife, and I hereby forbid you harboring her, for I will pay no debts of her contracting.”
“Like as not,” sez I coolly, “as you never paid any of your own.”
He kinder blushed up some, but he went on some as if he wuz a-rehearsin’ a piece he had learnt:
“She has left my bed and board!”
Then I waved that sword of Truth agin that I had been a-whettin’, and sez I—
“It wuz her bed. Her mother gin it to her for her settin’ out, and picked every feather in it from her own geese and ganders. I got it from Annie’s own lips, and you sold it for drink. As for the boards,” sez I candidly, for even in the midst of the fiercest battle with the forces of wrong I must be jest to my foe, and so sez I—
“As for the piece of board you speak of, I d’no whose it wuz, but I believe it wuz hern. Anyway, I know she earnt every mite of food and drink you took into your miserable body.”
And the remembrance of Annie’s wrongs and woes so overmastered me, that I sez right out—
“You drunken, low-lived snipe, you! how dast you be comin’ round that good little creeter, and tryin’ to git her back into her starvation and slavery, and peril of life and limb? How dast you, you drunken coot, you?” sez I, a-lookin’ two or three daggers at him and some simeters.
He quailed. I d’no as I ever see signs of quail any plainer than I see it in him.
But he muttered sunthin’ about—“A man’s having a right to his wife and child.”
“A right?” sez I; “do you dast to look anybody in the face and talk of your right to wife and child, when it wuz your poor, abused, half-starved wife’s weak arms and mighty love that riz up between you and your child and murder? Riz up between you and the gallows?”
He quailed deeper, fur deeper than he had quailed, and his lips trembled.
And I see under the quail, come to look clost at him, that there wuz a kinder good-hearted look under all the weakness and dissipated look of his face. I see, or thought I see, that it wuz bad influences that had led him astray, and if he had kep’ under good influence and away from bad ones (the B. I. L. and his hard cider, etc.), I thought like as not, from the generous lay of his features, that he might have been a tolerable good-lookin’ feller and behaved middlin’ well.
And that is why I spozed that Annie looked so heart-broken, that wuz why, I spoze, that, in spite of all she had underwent, my contoggler loved him.
But anon he sprunted up some and said sunthin’ about bein’ bound to have his wife.
And I waved my sword of Jestice agin (mentally) and sez—
“Wall, I am bound that you shan’t have her, and you’ll see,” sez I, “who’ll carry the day!”
And then he sez, “What right have you to interfere? What relation are you to her?”
And sez I, a-liftin’ up my head in a very noble way—“The same relation that the Samaritan wuz to the man by the wayside. She’s my relation on the heart’s side, the Pity and Sympathy’s side. Closter ties than the false, shaky ones that bound her to a life of slavery and danger with you—bound her to you, who promised to protect her, and then half-murdered her. And you’ll find out so!” sez I, a-lookin’ as bold as brass, but in my heart I quaked considerable, not knowin’ but I wuz a-goin’ agin the hull statute and constitution and by-laws of the U. S. of America.
But I spoze my mean skairt him. It had sech determination and courage into it, and he sez—
“I will go and call my brother-in-law. He is a rich and respectable man and very religious. I will bring him to talk with you.”
“Wall, do so!” sez I, bold as a lioness on the outside. “I’d love to set my eyes onto that creeter, jest out of curosity, jest as I would look at a menagerie of wild beasts and man-eaters.”
So he went back into the tarvern and brung him.
He wuz a mean-lookin’ creeter in his face, and he wuz short in statter, and his figger looked sort o’ sneakin’ under the weight of guilt he wuz a-carryin’ round under the cloak of religion.
And his little black eyes looked guilty, and his hull face, under some kinder red hair, looked withered and hardened, as if his doin’ for years what he knew wuz wicked had hardened his face into a cruel meanness. He looked mean as mean could be.
But he tried to hold his head up, and he bust out the first thing about takin’ the law to me!
“You take the law to me! you!”
And oh! how my simeter of Truth and Jestice jest flashed round that man’s short, meachin’ figger.
“You take the law on anybody, you mean creeter you! who have brung all this sin and misery to pass for your own selfishness. You, who took the good-tempered, weak boy and poured your poison down his throat till you flooded out all his moral sense and husbandly and fatherly affection, and filled up the empty space with the demons of Hatred and Brutality and crazy quarrelin’s!
“You talk of law, who stole away every mite of that poor girl’s happiness and every cent of her money for your cursed drink!
“You, who drove out of their home the sweet angel of Happiness, who used to board with ’em stiddy, and drove in your beasts of prey!
“You ruined her happiness, you starved her, you broke her heart, and now you want her back to torment her agin!
“Wall, you won’t have her, unless you take her over my prostrate form!”
The B. I. L. wuz half skairt to death, and he stood demute.
But Ellick broke in with tremblin’ lips. He stopped talkin’ about Annie for a spell, bein’, I spoze, perfectly overcome by my eloquence. And he begun on another tack, and sez he in tremblin’ axents—
“I want my boy,” sez he, “I will have my child!”
And I see that he did have a deathly longin’ and hungry look in his eyes. I could see that he did love his wife and child, deep and earnest. And I felt a little mite tenderer towards him, not much, for I kep’ a-thinkin’ of how Annie’s face had looked as she come and throwed herself at my feet.
The memory of that white face and them big, anguished eyes riz my heart up and kep’ it from meltin’ right down under the agony of that man’s look.
The B. I. L., whose selfishness had done the hull work, he too looked a heartfelt anxiety about the boy. I see that he loved him too, and wuz proud of him.
But, as I say, the memory of the Giant Wrong that had struck down Annie and the boy stood right by me and nerved me up, and I sez—
“You can’t have the child!”
Then Ellick flared right up, and sez he—
“I will have the child, and I’ll let you know that I will! I am his natural guardian, and I’ll let you know that the law is on my side, and I can take him, and I will take him!”
“No,” sez I, “you can’t take him!”
“He can!” sez the B. I. L., speakin’ up sharp as a meat-axe—“he can; nobody loves the child as well as we do; and he is the child’s natural guardian, and we can take him away from any place you have put him in.”
And agin I sez, “No you can’t, not from the place he is in now. The boy has got another gardeen now, a better one.”
“Another guardian!” sez the father; “well, I will tear him right out of his hands; I will make him give him up!”
He wuz jealous as a dog, I could see, of the gardeen.
“No you won’t!” sez I.
“Yes he will!” sez the B. I. L.; “we’ll teach him what the law is, and that a father can get his boy every time!”
“Not this time!” sez I; “this gardeen is powerful and kind, too; and he has got him in a safe place. He wuz misused and kicked and beaten and half starved; but he has enough now; he has got a home of plenty and rest and happiness. He is safe,” sez I.
“No matter how safe it is we will have him right out of it!” sez the B. I. L.
“He is my child, and I will have him!” says Ellick Gurley.
“No,” sez I, “you can’t have him. You can’t pull that tender little body out of the grave to misuse it agin. You can’t draw the sweet little sperit out of God’s happy home to torment it agin. The Lord is his father and his gardeen now, and He will keep the boy!”
“Dead!” cried the B. I. L., and he staggered back like a drunken man, and his face turned white as a bleached white cotton shirt.
“Dead! my baby dead!” sez Ellick Gurley. “Then I am his murderer!”
And he threw up his arms as if he had received a pistol shot right in his heart, and then he fell jest like a log right down in the road. Wall, I disembarked from my democrat, and by the time the B. I. L. had got him up in a more settin’ poster on a log by the side of the road, I wuz by him a-holdin’ his head and a-chafin’ his hands and his forward.
When he come to and riz up and sot upright, his first words wuz—
“Oh! poor Annie! poor girl! how did she bear it, all alone with our dead boy! Oh! my boy! my boy that I killed!”
I see plain that there wuz good in the man, after all.
But the B. I. L. had by this time sprunted up, and wuz a-thinkin’ of his phylakricy, and a-pullin’ it over himself and Ellick, and seemed anxious to sort o’ hush him up, and sez he—
“It wasn’t your doings, it wasn’t the accident that killed the boy, it was probably something else.”
“Yes,” sez I, lookin’ at the B. I. L. straight in the face—“yes, it wuz sunthin’ else, it wuz you! You smooth-faced, selfish hyppocrite, you; it wuz your doin’s that killed the boy! If you had left his Pa alone, and not led him into a condition fit to murder, jest to put a few cents into your own pocket, the boy would have been alive and happy to-day, and so would Ellick and Annie.” Sez I, “It wuz your doin’s, and you don’t want to forgit it!” sez I.
“YES, IT WUZ SUNTHIN’ ELSE; IT WUZ YOU.”
He quailed, he quailed hard, and sez he—
“You talk like a fool!”
“No,” sez I; “you are the fool, for it is the fool that hath said that there is no God, and you see there is,” sez I—“a God that punishes sin, who is even now a-punishin’ you; a God who said, “Cursed is he who putteth the cup to his neighbor’s lips.” Sez I, “You have prospered and grown rich in your bizness of beast-makin’, and you didn’t believe there wuz Eternal Jestice a-watchin’ over your sinful deeds, and you find now that you wuz a fool to believe it. For you find now that there is a God. You find now that you are cursed for your sin in makin’ murderers and assassins and wife-beaters and child-killers!”
Sez I, “You loved little Rob; your bad heart is achin’ now this minute to think it wuz your hand that dealt out the poison that reached him through his father’s weakness and miserable vice!”
He wuz demute. He didn’t say a word, but a look come over his face that I don’t want to see agin. He didn’t want to give up and own up his guilt and repent, and he wuz jest crushed right down about little Rob. He wuz jest tosted both ways, between agony and selfishness. He didn’t want to give up his profitable bizness of beast-makin’, and he wuz horrow struck to think that his own little idol had fell a victim.
His face looked like a humbly fallen angel’s, or how I spoze they look. I never see one fall.
He didn’t say another word, but turned on his heel and walked off.
The last word he said to me, as I stated heretofore, wuz callin’ me “a fool.”
But I didn’t care for that. I knew I wuzn’t.
But still that broken-hearted father, that wretched, lonesome husband sot there by the side of the road. Finally he spoke——
“Can I see Annie?”
“No, sir!” sez I plain and square—jest as plain and jest as square as if my own heart wuzn’t a-achin’, and a-achin’ hard, too, for the miserable, broken-hearted man.
My tears, if they fell, and I spoze they did from my feelin’s, fell inside of my head; for I wouldn’t let him have a chance to misuse and torment that good little creeter agin, not if I could help it.
He trembled like a popple leaf. He wuz paler than any dish-cloth I ever see, and I see my advantage, and I hardened my heart, some like Pharo’s, only a more pious hardenin’, for it wuz done on principle.
“You talk of wantin’ that poor girl to go back to your cold, naked home, to hardship, to starvation, to wretchedness—bodily wretchedness and heart wretchedness. For she loves you still, you poor snipe, you; she loves you, fool that she is, but wimmen are weak.”
I see his face grow brighter for a minute, and then turn pale as death agin.
“Will she forgive me?” sez he in axents weak as a cat, and weaker, too, and fur hopelesser than any cat I ever see.
“Not if I can help it!” sez I heartlessly (on the outside) and boldly.
“I’ll do better. I’ll promise her to not drink another drop!”
“Promises are cheap,” sez I in a lofty way, a-lookin’ up into a tree, for his pale face weakened me, and I felt that I must be strong. So I looked up into the tree overhead. It wuz a slippery ellum, but I held firm.
“Promises are cheap and slippery,” sez I. I spoze it wuz that tree that put me in mind of that simely. “She shan’t be led away by ’em agin, by my consent.”
“If I don’t drink for a year will you help me to have my wife back again?”
His voice trembled.
“That is beginnin’ to talk like a human creeter,” sez I, and I looked down from the ellum sort o’ benignantly. And I sez in a more warmer axent, but not too warm—jest about milk warm—
“You stop drinkin’ for a year. You git another home for her as good as you took her to at first, and I’ll advise her to talk with you about goin’ back, and not one minute before!” sez I.
“Can I see her one minute?” sez he.
Annie wuz to home. Josiah wuz away. All devolved on me, and I riz up to the occasion.
“No!” sez I, “you can’t; you can’t see her to-day for a minute, or a secont!”
(I knew putty wuz hard in comparison to her heart, and I wouldn’t run the resk.)
“You stop drinkin’ for six months,” sez I, “and you may see her for one-half hour in my presence, and not a minute longer,” sez I, as resolute as iron. “I’ll take care of her, and when you’ve earnt the right to have her agin with you, I’ll give her up to you and not a minute before,” sez I—“not a minute!”
He riz right up, the tears runnin’ down his face, and he ketched holt of my hand and kissed it. I d’no when I’ve been so kinder took back.
But I knew that Josiah wouldn’t care on sech a occasion as this, there wuzn’t anything immoral in it, and I couldn’t hender it anyway, it wuz done so quick. And then he started right off, fast as he could go.
And as sure as the world, that man went to work at his trade. Got two dollars a day. He didn’t drink a drop. He rented a little house with five acres of grass land round it and a paster. He kep’ two cows, milked ’em nights and mornin’s, sold his milk and laid up money.
Workin’ with all his heart and soul to be worthy of his wife and home.
And I writ to that man stiddy, jest as stiddy as though I wuz a-keepin’ company with him, every week of my life.
Josiah didn’t care. Good land! I writ on duty. I sent him good letters, all about how Annie wuz, and how she looked, and what she said, and a-holdin’ up his arms like Arun and Hur (specially Hur, it sounds some like a woman).
She made it her home with me, but went out to contoggle here and there, and laid up money, bought sheets and piller-cases and sech. And I helped her to two comforters and a bed-spread.
But she didn’t go back to him till the year wuz up.
No, I see to that.
And when that year had gone by, he wuz a sober man all the time, completely out from under the influences of the B. I. L. and cider and whiskey and saloons, and completely under ourn, Annie’s and mine and Temperance. And we a-doin’ our very best for him, and a-believin’ in him, and a-helpin’ him, all three on us.
Why, then I ventered to let her go and live with him agin. And I even made a party for ’em on the occasion. Some like a weddin’ party, for we all brung presents to ’em. And the children and a few sincere well-wishers that she had contoggled for and Josiah and me all jinin’ hearty in the prayer Elder Minkley put up after supper for the peace and prosperity of the new home.
And they’ve prospered first-rate.
Their sweet, cozy home is pleasant, as a home where Love is always must be. But it is a-settin’ down under a shadder, and always will set there. It can’t be helped.
The shadder stands up behind it, some like a mountain; but the peace and happiness of the present is gradually a-makin’ a meller, tender haze in front on’t; some as the blue, luminous sky of Injun Summer floats in and softens the truth of the year’s decay.
It is there, all the same, but time and that soft, tender mist wears off the sharp edges on’t, and sometimes the shadders fall some in the shape of a cross. The sun hits it in jest the right way.
Annie and Ellick jined the meetin’-house the year after they come together agin, and the Elder and several of us bretheren and sistern gathered round ’em, and held up their courage and helped ’em along all we could.
And though some are kinder mean and throw out hints, for human nater can’t be helped, and mean and small souls have got to act out what is inherient in ’em, and some, specially the B. I. L. and his family, made lots of talk about him and her, and poked fun at ’em, and acted. But Ellick is a-learnin’ to be patient and bear what he says he knows is “The Wages of Sin.”
But, as naterally follers, he is now in the employ of another Master, and his wages is a-comin’ in better and better every day.
And wuzn’t he happy when he held another little boy on his knee? Little Tom Josiah, named after my two best-beloved males.
And Annie wanted to add “Sam” to it for me, but I demurred, sayin’, “They didn’t seem to go together smooth. Tom Josiah Sam didn’t seem to have the flow and rythm to suit my melodious idees.
Sez I, “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer.”
“SAVE THE SAM, IT MAY COME IN HANDY IN THE FUTER.”
But the dimpled hands of that child seemed to draw Annie and Ellick nigher together than they’d ever been, and pull ’em both along, onbeknown to ’em, into the sunshiny fields of happiness.
Thomas J. gin little Tom Josiah ten dollars to put in the Savin’s Bank at compounded interest, and Josiah gin him two lambs, which are a-goin’ to be put out to double to the very best advantage for him.
By the time he is twenty-one he will have considerable money, and a big flock of sheep to drive on before him down the path of the futer.
But I might talk for hours and hours and not exhaust the fascinatin’ subject of the peace and prosperity of the one who has left the paths of sin and hard cider and whiskey, etc., and is walkin’ in the paths of sobriety and success.
But to them not interested so much in this cause, so dear to the heart of her whose name wuz once Smith, the subject may grow monotunous and tejus, so I will resoom and take up the thread of my discourse over my finger agin, and let it purr along on the spool of History.
