Well, the next mornin’ Josiah come upstairs where I wuz makin’ up the spare bed, I had had it open airin’ it, and sez he, comin’ into the room excited and agitated:
“Samantha, Delight has burnt up the world!”
I had heard her cryin’ down below, but knew she wuz with him, so didn’t worry about her, and the next thing I knew, ontirely onexpected, he told me what had took place. The Babe had burnt up the world. It wuz thrillin’ and agitatin’ news, very. But I didn’t git excited and skairt as some wimmen would, I only sez coolly:
“When did she burn it up, Josiah?”
“Since you have been up here.”
Sez I calmly, wantin’ to come to the bottom of the matter. “Did you see her, Josiah Allen? Did you see Delight burn up the world?”
“Yes, I see her. I ketched her at it. How should I know,” sez he, in a surly tone, “that she had burnt it up, if I hadn’t seen her do it?”
“Oh,” sez I, “I didn’t know but you missed the world, and mistrusted she had burnt it up.”
“No, I see her at it, I see her burn it up.”
Sez I calmly, bein’ determined to find out the truth, “How come she to burn up the world?”
“She did it to be mean and ort to be spanked for it.”
Sez I firmly, “I don’t believe she did it to be mean. I believe if she did it she did by axident.”
“She didn’t do it by axident, she done it a purpose, and her burnin’ up the world wuzn’t the worst of it, she wuz sassy about it, and ort to be spanked for sass.” I gin him a stern look and kind o’ shot up my lips clost together and tossted my head a very little, but didn’t say a word. But he resented it for all the world as if I had spoke, and there I hadn’t said a word.
“Well, I say she had! she ort to be spanked for burnin’ up the world, and she ort to be spanked for sass. But you can uphold her if you want to.”
“I hain’t said a word of upholdin’.”
“Well, you encourage her in it, and you know you do.”
“Encourage her! Josiah Allen!”
“Yes, you uphold her in burnin’ up the world, and you uphold her in sass.”
“Have I said a word, Josiah Allen?”
“You tossted your head, you know you did.”
“Well,” sez I mildly, “things have got to a strange pass if pardners can’t crook their necks a little when they are makin’ up spare beds. And,” sez I in still more gentle axents, as I patted the mattress and spread a light-colored comfortable over it, under the sheets, “tell me all about it, Josiah.”
“Well, I stepped out into the back kitchen to look for a file, and when I come back she wuz jest burnin’ up the world, jest puttin’ it into the stove.”
“She see me start the fire with an old World yesterday mornin’, and she thought she wuz follerin’ her Grandma’s doin’s and doin’ right.”
“Uphold her if you want to! and uphold her for sass!”
“What wuz the sass?” sez I mildly.
“Well, I snapped her little fingers for puttin’ the paper into the fire, and she cried, and drawed ’em back sudden, and I wuz so afraid she would burn her that I put my hand sudden between her and the fire and jest jammed my hand through the isinglass in the stove and broke it all to smash and she stopped cryin’ and sez, ‘I am glad Gappa broke the issac glass.’”
I laughed a little, a very little, and couldn’t help it. She always will call it “issac glass,” and if I try to make her say micas she will call it “michols,” she is so cunning and cute. He didn’t like my laughin’, I see he didn’t.
Sez he, “I’d laugh if I wuz in your place, sunthin’ ort to be done with her. I couldn’t git her to say she wuz sorry, do the best I could. She will have to be punished.”
“Punished for what?” sez I, as I shook up a piller and put a clean piller bier on it.
“Why, to make her say she is sorry.”
Sez I, as I laid the shams on smooth and pinned ’em up agin the head board, “Mebby she hain’t sorry.”
“Hain’t sorry!” sez he, savage-like, “well, she ort to be, there I ain’t hardly looked at it, and there is lots of news in it I know. As many as seven or eight murders, most probable, and some suicides, and hangin’s and such like, she ort to be sorry, and she has got to say she is.”
“Well,” sez I, a-smoothin’ the things out on the toilet table, “I don’t think she ort to be made to say she is sorry if she hain’t sorry. I believe lots of liars are made in jest that way; probable she told you the truth when she said she wuzn’t sorry, and you want to make her lie,” sez I dryly, “and whip her if she won’t. She see me put a whole paper into the stove this mornin’, and how could she tell the difference between this week’s paper and last? If anybody is to blame we are, we ort to told her to not touch the papers, and we must tell her to not touch the fire. And if I wuz goin’ to punish her for anything it would be for meddlin’ with the stove. I shouldn’t whip her for tellin’ the truth, that wouldn’t be my way.”
“Well, she ort to be punished for sass.”
“I don’t believe she meant it for sass,” sez I, “I wouldn’t interfere if you wuz correctin’ her. But I do not think she meant it for sass.”
“What did she mean it for, then?”
“Why,” sez I, “I believe she said she wuz glad because she wuz glad.”
“Well, she hadn’t no bizness to said it, anyway, it didn’t sound very good.”
Sez I, “Josiah Allen, didn’t you ever speak out when you had hurt you and wuz in pain, and say things that didn’t sound good, and that you would like to take back if you could?”
“No,” sez he, “I never did.”
“Josiah Allen,” sez I, “can you say that with a clear conscience?”
“Yes, I can, clear as a crystal fountain. I hain’t one of the kind that fly all to pieces if I happen to bruise my thumb, or cut me, or pound my fingers, some men do,” he admitted, “but I don’t, I never say a word I don’t mean, I never say a word I would wish to take back, no matter how severe the pain is.”
Sez I firmly, “Josiah Allen you do, you prance round and act lots of times.”
“Oh, well, encourage her in burnin’ up the world if you want to, and encourage her in sass. I spoze I can let it go.” He wuz fairly dyin’ to let it go, I knew, he jest worships her. But I continued, for I wuz rousted up in my mind. Sez I:
“Little Delight is in our power, we are physically stronger than she is. We can whip her all day if we want to. But duz it look noble and honorable in us to punish that little mite of a thing for what we do ourselves?”
“I don’t do it,” sez he.
Sez I, “She is only three years old, she has got everything to learn, she can’t endure pain as she can when she is older. She didn’t know she had done wrong, and you, instead of reasonin’ with her, and settin’ her right, skairt her, and hurt her hands, and she wuz actually glad I’ve no doubt to think that you broke the stove. She thought you wuz unjust, and wuz indignant at that, and surprised and frightened to think you wanted to hurt her, you who had always been so good to her, and loved her so well, and she spoke out quick and impatient, jest as you and I do sometimes, Josiah Allen, and we have had a lifetime to learn patience and endurance.”
I see he wuz some convinced, but wouldn’t own it, and he sez agin, in a cross tone (about as cross as a cross gut saw, his tone had been like a bayinet or spear), sez he, “She no need to burnt up the world.”
Sez I over agin, “She hadn’t no idee what she wuz doing, she thought she wuz follerin’ her Grandma’s doin’s and doin’ right. But because it hurt your own comfort a little mite——”
“A little mite!” sez he, groanin’, “and there it wuz full of tragedies, I dare presume to say, and salts and butteries, and burglaries.”
“Because she did sunthin’ that interfered with your comfort when she hadn’t the least idee of its bein’ wrong you pounced at her and hurt her, and want her whipped. And the other day, Josiah Allen, when she did do a little sunthin’ we had told her not to, because she did it in such a cunnin’ way, you laughed, and wuz mad because I spoke of punishin’ her for it.”
“Well, I spoze you want me to say that I think it is right for her to burn up the world, but you won’t git me to.” But his axent wuz gittin’ smoother, it wuz about as smooth as a gimlet hole now.
Sez I, “I believe in punishin’ children when they persist in wrongdoin’. But I always believe in findin’ out whether they have done wrong or not, and then in the next place try to punish ’em, not for revenge and to satisfy our own feelin’s, but to do them good, break ’em of wrongdoin’. And if you can talk them out of it it seems so much more noble and dignified than it duz to pound ’em. It duz somehow look so disagreeable to see a great strong man or woman weighin’ two hundred or so standin’ over a little mite of a thing that can’t help itself anyway, whippin’ it.”
“Solomon sez,” sez Josiah, “spare the rod and spile the child.”
“Well,” sez I, “if I wuz in Solomon’s place——” And then thinkses I the least said the soonest mended, and I thought I wouldn’t say anything agin Solomon and his havin’ so many wives, and actin’, and shet my lips up tight.
“Solomon what?” sez Josiah.
“Nothin’,” sez I.
And again he sez, “What? Solomon what?”
And again I sez, “Nothin’, Solomon nothin’.” And havin’ got all through upstairs, I went down and went to sweepin’ out the parlor, and jest as quick as I got that done, I went to gittin’ dinner (at Josiah’s request, who said he hadn’t eat much breakfast, though I didn’t know it and told him so). But he built a fire in the kitchen for that purpose, and I got an excellent dinner, nice tender steak, and stewed tomatoes, and smashed potatoes, and apple dumplin’s that would melt in your mouth, and lemon sauce to eat on ’em, and delicious coffee.
Josiah wuz happy in his mind, though some in pain owin’ to the last four dumplin’s. And that wuz the last I ever hearn of any anger on his part about the world’s burnin’ up. Well, they come after Delight that very night, and we both hated to have her go, it wuz awful lonesome without her. Though it wuz a great comfort to know that she wuz comin’ up a week from the next Saturday to stay over Sunday with us. We looked forward to it.
The very next day after Delight went home I wuz in the settin’ room mendin’ my Josiah’s best galluses, the buckles had come off, and I wuz settin’ there as cool as the buckles (which wuz nickle) and as collected together as the galluses after I had got ’em mended, when all of a sudden the door bust open with a bang, and in come my companion Josiah from the barn, with a splinter under his thumb nail, jest as mad as a hornet, as a man always is when he gits hurt, and he danced and jumped over the floor like a lunatick and hollered out, “It is all your dumb doin’s, Samantha! if it hadn’t been for you the board wouldn’t been there!”
Sez I calmly, for frequent seens like this had gin me knowledge, “I didn’t put it there, Josiah.”
“No, but if you had any eyes in your head you would seen there wuz splinters in it, and I couldn’t be liftin’ it round without gittin’ ’em under my thumb!”
“I didn’t know you wuz goin’ to lift it, Josiah.”
“You ort to know it! I wuz liftin’ it after hens’ eggs, I thought I would see if there wuz any under the barn before I piled the straw on the floor, and if it wuzn’t for you I wouldn’t keep a dum hen on the place! And if I ever git so I can use this hand agin,” sez he a-wavin’ it out kinder ferocious-like, “I’ll brain every dum one of ’em, there never shall a hen step her dum foot on my farm agin after to-day!”
“Well, well, do keep still, Josiah Allen, how can I git this sliver out and you prancin’ round so?”
“Oh, yes, keep right on, jaw me all you want to, keep right on jawin’ and talkin’, and not let me have a minute’s rest. And let me faint away on your hands. Oh, gracious heavens! can’t you stab a little deeper!”
“Why, you wanted me to prick it out, Josiah.”
In other times I should have rebuked him sharply for swearin’, but truly a woman learns after twenty years experience in married life that there is a time for scoldin’ and a time to refrain from scoldin’. I knew that until that sliver wuz out and the pain eased off there would be no more use reasonin’ with Josiah Allen than there would be with a wild hyena, for when pain enters into a man’s system (a ordinary man) it drives reason out of it, and common sense and decency.
After a while I got the sliver out and did it up in Pond’s extract, he groanin’ and jumpin’ and blamin’ me for it every minute. Why, he told me in one of the worst twinges that if it wuzn’t for me there wouldn’t be a hemlock board on the premises, anyway. And there I never had to my recollection said the word “hemlock” to him. But I knew that jest the minute he got cooled off, his sense would return and his affection for me (he had acted all the while jest as if I wuz prickin’ him a-purpose, and talked to that effect, and seemed mad at me as he could be). But I sot demute, and he didn’t like that, his state wuz such. Sez he:
“Set there and not say a word, will you! I should think if a man lay dead at your door you would speak up and say sunthin’, but no, you don’t care enough about it to say a word. Oh, gracious Peter! did any human bein’ ever suffer what I am sufferin’!”
And then he jumped up and stumbled over a stool and most fell and yelled out at me settin’ there peaceful, “Put that stool in my way, will you! I’ll clear this house of every stool to-morrow if I’m alive! the one that made that man-ketcher is a fool!”
And so it went on for most an hour, but Josiah got over it jest as soon as the pain stopped, he acted like a new man. And he asked me of his own accord before night if I didn’t want to buy a new kind of hens, if I thought best he would buy some Shanghais and Ayrshires. Josiah is a clever critter pretty near half the time, and before he slept he offered to buy me a new stool, or two of ’em, covered with rep. Good land! it all come out jest as I knew it would, I had passed through too many cryses jest like it to be skaired. Why, when I married Josiah Allen I took all these resks, I knew how it would be, my father wuz a man, and so wuz my youngest brother and Uncle John, and I had lived in the house with ’em all. I don’t blame Josiah so very much, I don’t spoze he could help actin’.
Now, wimmen can’t help actin’ in some respects, such as this, if company comes through the front gate onexpected, she can’t help smoothin’ back her front hair if every hair lay as smooth as satin, it is nater for her to go through the motions. And she can’t help jumpin’ if she sees a mouse as if she wuz afraid of her life, though it hain’t reasonable to expect that her life is jeapordized and she will be attackted by it. And it is nater for her to kiss a pretty baby and scold a boy voyalently who is stunnin’ a kitten or a bird. Why, some things come jest as nateral as Nater herself, and can’t be helped no more than she can. Josiah hain’t alone in his actin’ and behavin’.