It wuzn’t long after this that Josiah had to go over to South Scriba to sell some spruce lumber, he wanted to dicker for some salted white fish, they ketch sights of white fish to the lake, and by goin’ a little round we could go right by the summer hotel where Miss Greene Smythe wuz stayin’. The hotel wuz a big buildin’ standin’ in large, beautiful grounds; it wuz the biggest hotel in the place, and she had the hull floor of one wing, lived there jest as independent as you please with her own servants, and her daughter, Medora, and the young twins, Algernon and Angenora.
Josiah left me there, and, as I wuz waitin’ to be showed up to her room, I hearn the twins fightin’ fiercely at the head of the stairs and kickin’ each other and swearin’ like two young pirates at the top of their voices, and while I wuz lookin’ on in astonishment a girl come runnin’ downstairs and yanked ’em back, one in each hand, and swore at ’em, for I hearn her with my own ears, and scolded ’em like a termagant. I spoze it wuz their French nurse, for her swearin’ had a kinder queer axent. Well, I sot there quite a spell while the man went to see whether Miss Greene Smythe wuz to home; he wuz gone a awful while.
And while I sot there a good lookin’ woman, with a rather sharp chin and nose, come along, and sot down in a chair near me, she come in jest as the girl dragged ’em off, quarrelin’ and usin’ words I wouldn’t speak for a dollar bill. And this woman went on and told me things I hated to hear—I didn’t ask her, she told of her own accord.
Sez she, “Miss Greene Smythe makes a great show, and don’t want to even speak to folks full as good as she is.” And here she tosted her head quite a good deal. “But if she would spend some of the time on her children she spends on fashion and them everlastin’ young men danglin’ round her, she would be less apt to have a gallows rared up in her family.” She said she didn’t believe there ever wuz such a actin’ child in the hull world as Algernon. Angenora, she said, wuz better dispositioned to start with, but wuz bein’ spilte by Algernon’s plaguin’ her so. She had got so she would swear and kick almost as loud and hard as he would while he wuz fightin’ her.
“Well,” sez I, “they’re little things, they don’t know any better.”
“I know it,” sez she, “their nurses are ugly dispositioned, both on ’em, and they’re jest as mean as they can be to the children, though they keep ’em clean enough. But,” she said they wuz ignorant as might be expected, and used so many slang words and low phrases the children had ketched their language and oaths, so their talk wuz more like a pirate’s children or a buckaneer’s than the children of Christian parents. “And fight!” sez she, she didn’t believe there wuz a bigger fighter on earth than Algernon for his age. And lie! why, Algernon’s nurse, she said, wuz such a liar that she fairly seemed to prespire untruth through her pores, and them children wuz with her all the time and breathed her atmosphere, drinkin’ it down with their milk (they wuz both brung up on a bottle, Miss Greene Smythe thinkin’ it more genteel). And Algernon would lie now in such a picturesque, dashin’ way as to fairly stunt anybody to hear it.
And Angenora follered on as fast as her temperament and nateral nater would let her. She said the children wuz with the nurses most all the time, for Miss Greene Smythe and Medora wuz out nights, and when they wuz to home they didn’t seem to have time to pay any attention to the children, and she said little Angenora herself wuz out nights sometimes till one and two o’clock to children’s parties, and eat rich stuff and drunk coffee and champagne at midnight, and that wuz another thing that made her so bad lately.
Sez I, “Our grandchildren have parties, but they invite their little comrades of both sects to come in the afternoon, and they play games, blind man’s buff, and tag, and they have swings, and they play with dolls and balls and marbles jest like the babies they are, and at six o’clock they have a good hullsome supper, sweet bread and butter, and a little briled chicken mebby, and one kind of good plain cake baked and frosted in pretty shapes to please the childish eye, and plenty of ripe fruit, oranges, etc., and a little candy, and good chocolate with cream in it to drink, and they home by sundown, happy and tired, a good, healthy tire, that makes ’em sleep like tops and wake up refreshed to meet the mornin’ greetin’ of the rising sun, ready and willin’ to tackle their lessons or their play agin.”
Well, she said, “That wuzn’t Miss Greene Smythe’s way, and,” sez she, “it is killin’ Angenora, her little head is gittin’ weak, and she is jest on the pint of nervous prostration and heart failure.”
“Heart failure and nervous prostration at nine years of age!” sez I convelsively.
“Yes,” sez she, “and you’ll see I’m right, though her mother wouldn’t pay any attention if I should speak to her about it. She don’t see me half the time,” sez she, “right when I meet her face to face.” She stood ready, I could see, to talk aginst Miss Greene Smythe, but I wuzn’t goin’ to jine in it, but I felt dretful worried about what she had told me, and sez:
“How duz Algernon stand it?”
“Oh, he won’t go,” sez the woman; “he jest swears and throws himself and acts so his Ma has gin up tryin’ to make him go. He sez he hain’t a-goin’ to dance with girls and stay out all night for nobody; and he is so ugly dispositioned they dassent try to make him do what he don’t want to.”
“Well,” sez I, “ugly or not, he shows good sense in that.” But at that minute the man returned and told me Miss Greene Smythe wuz to home, and I followed him upstairs. Medora wuz away for a week or so at some other resort, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz alone, and she seemed quite glad to see me. She give me a big easy chair, and almost to once begun to consult me about the entertainment.
Sez she, “I shall have musicians and elocutionists from the city, there will be a big special train to bring the guests down, but I would like also to please the natives, if I could. I am bound to have the biggest affair of the season, and everybody who comes of course will feel bound to buy something.”
And I sez reasonable, “I don’t believe that there are any natives round here, not more than one, anyway—I hearn there is one old Injun basket maker tentin’ in the woods back of Sylvester Bobbettses, but it hain’t no ways likely he will come.”
She sez, “I mean the folks that live round here.”
“Oh,” sez I, “I guess they will turn out first rate, it is a real charitable place here.”
“I want your help,” sez she; “do help me by talkin’ it up to people, won’t you?”
And I told her I would, “For,” sez I, “Charity never faileth, and,” sez I, “if I wuz not interested in charity I should feel like soundin’ brass and tinklin’ cymbal, not that I know what a cymbal is, but suppose it is a brass horn.”
“Yes,” sez she, “charity for the heathen is the main work of course, but socially I want it to be a great success.”
I had told her, when I first went in, that I couldn’t stay long, and had refused to take off my bunnet, so pretty soon she mentioned she wuz goin’ to a lawn party to a neighborin’ hotel that afternoon, and asked me if I would feel hurt if she went on dressin’ while she talked to me, and I told her no, and I sez, “Josiah is liable to come any minute, he’ll come jest as soon as he makes his dicker.”
So her maid proceeded to put on her shoes, she had got her underclothes all on and wuz in her dressin’ jacket and slippers. She had handsome silk stockin’s on, embroidered beautiful, but she wuz cut out for a big, fat woman, and her feet wuz big, they wuz at the least calculation number five feet, but the shoe that maid tried to get on them feet wuzn’t more than number three. I see the efforts for quite a spell and didn’t say a word, why her feet wuz squooze to that extent that her toes any good excuse for makin’ a lame martyr of herself.
“Oh, they would make light, and say I wuzn’t fashionable.”
And I sez, “I believe I could bear that better than I could what you’re sufferin’ now. But I don’t believe they would notice ’em, I believe you could wear a shoe big enough for your feet, so you could walk and enjoy life, and nobody would find it out, nobody would ever think to look and tell on’t.”
“Oh, yes, they would,” sez she, “they would laugh.”
“Well, mebby you would be in a condition to laugh yourself, which you are fur from bein’ now,” sez I pityin’ly. But I couldn’t convince her, and she stood up on them pinted toes and high, slim heels, and waddled off to the bed where her dress wuz.
And then follered another battle between mind and matter, between too compressed matter, namely a big, fat waist, and a small but firm minded cosset and waist. For a long time the victory seemed to be on the side of the fat body, but it had to gin in, the last button wuz drawed to, the last fortress of flesh, which resisted to the death, wuz overcome and crowded in, and the steel walls of the prison told no tales of the agony within. Heavy skirts wuz adjusted and draped about the achin’ form, the long train lay out on the carpet, and the number six hands crowded into the number four gloves, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz ready to go and enjoy fashionable life. She said she wouldn’t go until dear Mr. Allen come, but we would go and sit down on the balcony, where it would be pleasanter than here.
Well, as we sot there in that upper piazza we could hear plain the voices of Algernon and his nurse, and occasionally the voice of Angenora, enough to show she wuz there, and we heard swear words and nasty words, lots of ’em, words that our grandchildren, in their love-guarded home, had never dremp of and wouldn’t as long as their Pa’s and Ma’s and grandparents had eyes to see and ears to hear. Miss Greene Smythe looked up to me and sez, “I am ashamed of the way that boy talks, but he got it from his nurse, she is good as gold in some things, but has got a voylent temper, and when she is angry she uses awful language, but she don’t have her mad fits often.”
And I sez, “Hain’t you afraid it will ruin the twins to be under such influence now in the most impressionable age?”
And she admitted she had worried some about it, and sez she, “I should got rid of her long ago, but she is a be-a-uti-ful hairdresser, that wuz her father’s bizness, and her mother wuz a dressmaker, and she has natural taste about dress. And you know if hair don’t have proper attention it will lose its gloss and won’t friz as it ought to. And, as for loopin’ up drapery, I have never seen that woman’s equal in my life, my maid is jest nowhere beside her. And goin’ into society as much as I do, you can see how necessary it is I should have some one right in the house that I can depend on, that I can put confidence in as to the hanging of my skirt, and my bangs.”
“Well,” sez I, in a ruther cold axent, “if you don’t see curiouser loopin’s and bangs in the twin’s heads and hearts bime-by than any you ever had in a dress or foretop, then I’ll miss my guess.” And I went on and argued with her for quite a spell for the children’s good.
I tried hard to make her think that the well-doin’ of her children, and the immortal destiny of their souls, wuz of more consequence than the puckerin’s of her dress, or the frizzle of her hair, but I couldn’t seem to make her think as I did, and so I spoze it will have to go on. That girl’s nasty mad swearin’ talk settin’ the example, and the twins follerin’ on and workin’ it out as plain as my grandmother ever worked a blue rose and pink horse from a exampler at school and framed it for us to look at. I knew the sampler the twins wuz workin’ under that woman’s teachin’ wuz goin’ to be framed in a stronger frame than I ever sot eyes on and hung on a higher wall. I felt bad, I knew that the frame wuz as strong as a deathless life, and the wall high as eternity.
Little Angenora’s nurse wuzn’t so fiery dispositioned as Algernon’s. But she give her opiates to make her sleep when she wanted to go out with her bo’s, and hurt her body in that way, and others I don’t want to talk about, but mebby she didn’t hurt her soul so much as she did Algernon’s, ’tennyrate it didn’t show quite so plain now, she didn’t swear so loud as he did, nor throw herself so heavy.
But the opiates made the little creeter look wan and pale and sleepy more’n half the time, and I said to Miss Greene Smythe in this conversation, it seemed a shame to have her little constitution all ruined in that way onbeknown to her, before she wuz old enough to defend it. But she said she guessed she didn’t give Angenora very much, she wuz a pale child naturally.
But I see her attention wuz wanderin’ from what I wuz sayin’ to sunthin she wuz beholdin’ on the inside of her mind, and anon she asked me if I could tell her where she could find a perfectly white Spitz dog with a black ring around its neck.
And I sez in a kind of impatient way, for I didn’t like to be broke up in my high minded, conscientious talk, “I don’t know anything about such a pup.”
Sez she, “I didn’t really suppose you would, but I am so anxious to git one I improve every opportunity to inquire. They are the height of fashion, and, while I am obliged to stay here in the country, waiting the ending of this tedious lawsuit, such a pet would be so much company for me.”
“Company!” sez I, in a deep, impressive voice, “if you want company, where are your own girl and boy, where are the two little immortal souls the Lord gin you to guide and fit for a place with Him bime-by? Them two little white souls you are leavin’ with ignorant, coarse servants to train?”
And I went on real eloquent for as much as four minutes and a half, but she didn’t hear me, for, after I got through with my powerful remarks and wuz kinder waitin’ for a reply, she sez, “I can’t possibly make up my mind which to have.”
And I wuz real encouraged, for I thought I had convinced her and she wuz turnin’ it over in her mind which it wuz best to have, help about her puckers and frizzles or more assured hope about her children’s future, and I sez, “I could tell quick.”
“Well, then, do tell,” sez she, “for I don’t believe I can ever make up my mind alone, there are so many things dependent on it, it is not itself alone that you should take into consideration.”
“That is jest what I have been tryin’ to make you understand,” sez I, “All the mighty consequences hangin’ on it, and I am glad you feel to realize it.”
“Well, then,” sez she, “what color would you have?”
“Color!” sez I.
“Yes,” sez she, “what color would you have for the awnings and trimmings for the big tent where I am to receive? I myself should prefer pink as more becoming to my complexion. Medora wants pale-blue on account of her hair, which she has just dyed a golden color. But Mrs. La Flamme, at her great charity ball, had blue awnings and draperies, and I wouldn’t for the world have her think I copied her or was lacking in originality—what do you think of a delicate shell pink?”
I riz up with a real lot of dignity, and, as I glanced down, I see one of her danglers sot there in a stylish carriage, waiting for her, evidently.
So I sez, “Don’t let me hender you any longer; Josiah will be here in a few minutes, and I have got some bizness of my own to tend to before I go.” I did want to see the landlord about some jars of butter I had sold him, he had made a mistake about sendin’ home the jars. So she went downstairs on that side of the buildin’, and I swep’ through the hall with a sight of dignity, and didn’t finish sweepin’ till I swep over some playthings of Algernon’s, and he swore at me till I got to the bottom of the stairs.
Well, the landlord promised to send home my jars, and I went out on the lower piazza, which wuz most deserted at this hour, and pretty soon Angenora come and found me there. She had got sick of playin’ with Algernon, she said, and, as we sot there, we could hear him swearin’ at his nurse and tearin’ at the cat’s tail. And the cat’s yells of distress and the nurse’s coarse rebukes all come mellowed by the distance, and she leaned up aginst me and we had a good little visit. She knew me quite well, for she had been to our house a number of times, and I had seen her at Thomas J.’s when she’d been there to play with the children.
She wuz a affectionate little thing, or she wouldn’t have worried so over Jimmy De Graffe. Her eyes wuz big and black and solemn lookin’, and her hair curled in little short black curls all over her head, her complexion wuz white and clear, and she looked wan. But I believe it wuz what she had had gin her that made her look so, as well as her late hours and fashionable flirtations. But she wuz very handsome, and I didn’t wonder so much what I had always heard, that of all her children Miss Greene Smythe loved this one best, and wuz proudest of her and bound to have her shine in society even at the age of nine, poor little thing! I don’t doubt but what her Ma loved her, but it wuz a love so covered up and hid underneath fashion and frivolity and show that I thought to myself it might jest about as well not been there at all for all the good it did her.
Though they say Miss Greene Smythe did once in a while, when she had a few minutes’ reprieve from her life work of show and sham, pet little Angenora, and tell her how she loved her, and that she wuz the only comfort of her Ma’s hard, toilsome life. Love begets love, and that is why, I spoze, little Angenora wuz the only livin’ thing on earth that really loved Miss Greene Smythe, she did love her fondly.
She wuz a tender-hearted child, anyway, and had to love somethin’, and wanted to be mothered, wanted to dretfully, but, seein’ her mother wuz engaged in her labor of fashionable display, she didn’t git mothered at all, and that gin her the wistful, longin’ look in her eyes, that and her late hours and the stuff her nurse gin her. And she had a sort of pitiful, skairful look in her eyes, and that come, I found out, from her nurse skairin’ her nights ever sence she wuz a baby to make her lay still, tellin’ her that somebody would jump at her, or that there wuz great green eyes lookin’ out at her from different places, and there wuz wicked men ready to appear to her, and ghosts and everything, and as the nurse had always told her that she would eat her up alive, if she told anything about it, why, it had gin her a dretful subdued look and afraid to say her little soul wuz her own. But I spoze the deep, silent, constant love of this little thing wuz a rock of support for her Ma to think on in her fashionable career, I spoze so.
Well, I put my arm round her, and she laid her little cheek up aginst me real confidin’ and sweet, and I told her stories and mothered her jest as well as I could till my Josiah appeared drivin’ up the long avenoo with the mair and colt. And I told her to have her Ma let her come down and stay a week with us, and she brightened up real bright and said she would.
Josiah had made the dicker, so he told me, as we drove home, and had swapped five hundred feet of spruce lumber for white fish put down in sweet pickle. And I sez, “For mercy sake! what do you want of so many fish!”
And he sez, “I love ’em dearly, Samantha.”
“But,” sez I, “you may love anything and not want to be swamped by it, run over and drownded in it.”
“Well,” he said, fish agreed with his stomach and wuz nourishin’ to the brain.
And I, takin’ a second thought on his last proposition, sez, “Mebby you hain’t got any too many, Josiah, I guess you had better eat all you can.” I knew if he couldn’t git down four or five kags of ’em we could give ’em to the children.