Well, Tom Willis kep’ doin’ better and better and wuz gittin’ a good salary, good enough, with what property he had, for him to marry on, and Anna kep’ on lovin’ him and refusin’ to marry Von Crank, and Tamer kep’ on naggin’ Anna, and things seemed to be at a standstill. Since Cicero wuz shut up Tamer had acted worse than ever, so it seemed; the trouble instead of softenin’ had seemed to harden her.
There is some troubles you know jest like that, kinder sharp, stiff, humiliatin’ troubles, and agin there is heart meltin’, heart breakin’ griefs that soften the heart while it well nigh breaks ’em. Well, Tamer’s wuz one of them sharp, witherin’, humiliatin’ ones, and her heart seemed harder than ever and she seemed more in favor of Von Crank, more sot against Tom Willis, more hard on Jack and more naggin’. But a change wuz to come, when the right time come the Lord softened Tamer’s heart, and Anna went out of her servitude, out of the house of bondage into the Land of Promise, into a happy useful life with the man of her choice.
But, oh, my dear little Jack! my poor boy!
But to resoom backwards agin and take up the thread of history, I stayed at Hamen’s several days, visitin’ ostensibly with Celestine. For as many as three times a day, when she would be brung in to her meals from her engrossin’ Art work, Celestine would say to me: “How glad I am, Josiah Allen’s wife, that you could come while I am here, I am so glad to visit with you.” And then she would retire agin into that remote world of her own and abide there in her own pink castles set down on blue landscapes, amongst her own strange lookin’ animals and birds and flowers and things.
And Tamer would say anon and every little while, “How glad I am, Cousin Samantha, that you could come and visit with me and Celestine.” And then she would retire into her own enchanted realm amongst her own droves of pirates and outlaws and romantic heroines and villians. It wuz a queer time, queer as a dog, but I had real good visits with Anna, sweet girl, with the shadder of the deepest sorrow of youth and life hangin’ black above her. And she wuz so good and innocent and obedient that she said she had told Tom she would never marry aginst her mother’s wishes, “For,” sez she, “Aunt Samantha, with Ma’s health as it is she says it would kill her, and as I tell Tom, what comfort could I ever take even as his wife if I had been the cause of my mother’s death?”
So I didn’t really know how it wuz comin’ out. I couldn’t see much chance for Anna’s future, for I expected jest as much to see a mornin’ glory sproutin’ out of my dry oven as to see any blossom of tenderness and consideration growin’ in the ambitious, sandy, trompled sile of Tamer’s heart.
It looked dark before me, dark as Egyptian shades, blind creeter that I wuz, and, oh! of little faith. I knew well whose hand wuz at the hellum, and I might have trusted more, my faith might have been as big as the pint of a pin, but I don’t spoze it wuz, or I wouldn’t have felt as I did. If my faith had been as big as the pint of a needle, it must have removed one or two of the hillocks of gloom that towered up in high ranges in front of me when I meditated on the future of the girl I loved so well. But I sot crouched down there in the gloom, and had no idee how they wuz goin’ to be leveled down and light break through, nor how many heartaches wuz to go on below while the light broke through high up, and as mysterious as all things earthly are if we come to realize it.
Oh, my poor Jack! I never dreamed that it wuz your little hand that wuz to touch these solid, gloomy pinnacles and shiver ’em down to the earth. Dear little boy! how many times did I say I wished you wuz safe from the trials and temptations of this world and its tribulations? Wuz my wish took as a prayer, and did the Lord grant it in mercy? But, oh, poor hearts below! how you must ache on as long as you are wrapped up in this human clay, soft stuff this human clay is, anyway, and as easy to take impressions as putty.
But to stop eppisodin’ and resoom backwards agin. The day I wuz to return to the bosom of my family, that bosom incarnated in the form of my beloved pardner appeared on the seen in good season, no later than nine A. M. Celestine wuz also to depart that mornin’, she went a few minutes previous to my companion’s arrival, for she went on the Loontown stage that passed at a quarter to nine.
She got up very early and did her packin’, she had got most of her easels and canvases and paint brushes packed up, and her landscapes and panels and things all padded at the corners and wropped up safe for the journey. But Celestine said she couldn’t leave till she took a last look at the lake from the west piazza, the lake come most up to that side of the house, and it wuz a beautiful sight, I will admit, and the picture looked quite well, too, for she showed it to me. The blue of the lake and the sky overhead wuz jest about the color of little Mary’s eyes, and the light in the east wuz some the color of her fluffy wavin’ hair, and I told her Ma so as I held the little girl fondly in my arms. But she looked real indifferent at the child, as if she see some panels through her and some calenders and things and called my attention to the “cheri obscuro” of the pictures, and the “alto releevo,” or I guess that is what she called ’em, I didn’t have a idee what she meant, but not wantin’ to act green, I told her I presumed so, “I spoze they’re real favorites of yourn, but,” sez I candidly, “there hain’t a doubt of this, this child here would be a prime favorite of mine if I had her with me much.” And I hugged her to me agin real clost, and she put her soft, white arm lovin’ly round my neck.
Agin she looked at her with a fur off look, some as if she wuz in Hindoostan or Egypt or somewhere and sez: “I have never been able to get such feelin’ into a picture as I have in this.”
And I sez, “Like as not,” and I added, “I know I have a real lovin’ feelin’ for little Mary.” And I smoothed back her hair with a tender hand and made of her. And then I bid her good-by and went upstairs, bein’ called there by Anna. And the stage hove in sight, and Tamer had to draw Celestine offen her work and git into her bunnet and shawl. The stage driver wuz real profane durin’ the siege of gittin’ her started, but he got the easel in, and big framed pictures and placks and panels, and she standin’ over him and warnin’ him to be careful and not injure ’em, and he got her little satchels and boxes in and she herself, and they wuz jest drivin’ off when Hamen’s wife come runnin’ down the steps and called out to her cousin:
“Celesteena, you have forgot little Mary!” And at that minute I come downstairs and ketched sight of her and little Jack out in the yard playin’. Celestine looked at her pictures and satchels and things and seemed to come to a realizin’ sense that she did miss sunthin’, so little Mary wuz called in and put in the stage jest as she wuz, though her dress wuz fur too thin for that cool day, and her face and hands wuzn’t what they should be to start off on a journey, and she hadn’t a mite of a wrap on, but the pictures and panels wuz protected by thick wrappers, and Celestine didn’t see anything wrong. Little Mary kissed her hand to me as they went out of the gate, and I threw a dozen to her, and hundreds of wishes for her future happiness, but I must say I felt dubersome about it, dretful dubersome.
Well, we got home that night in good season, I got a delicious supper, and, oh! how good it did seem to be in my own home agin. Everything looked good to me, even to the teakettle and broom. Oh, truly, indeed, hath the poet said and sung, “There is no place like home, there is no place like home.”
I found a lot of papers there Thomas J. had sent me, and I wuz glad enough I didn’t read ’em till I eat supper and done up my work. For I knew that no supper could I partook of had I seen the dretful news these papers contained. And I didn’t see that fatal article for quite a spell. The papers told about Miss Greene Smythe’s Charity Bazar, and the first one I opened had a very full description of the party, and over a column wuz devoted to her dress, it wuz described as very shinin’ and glitterin’, and her diamonds immense. It said this Charity Ball and Bazar wuz a great success, and her city might be proud of such a woman, her native land might be proud to own her as a child, and the Hottentot would rise up and call her blessed; it wuz a powerful editorial.
Another daily paper, which I took up next, said it wuz a vulgar affair; her dress wuz gaudy, her ornaments in poor taste, and it said that after the expenses of that bazar wuz paid not over one dollar and seventy-five cents would ever git to that heathen, and it wuz very doubtful if even that sum would ever reach him, owin’ to the cupidity and selfishness of the intermediate links, Hottentot and American.
And the paper went on to say that the Hottentot didn’t need clothin’, anyway, and it wuz doubtful if he would spend the money for that purpose even if it ever reached him, for he had imbibed from Americans a strong love for alcoholic stimulants, and it wuz supposed by the editor that he would spend the money raised by the bazar in gettin’ intoxicated on Boston whisky. It wuz a dretful discouragin’ article. And in that same paper, right along in the next column describin’ the affair Miss Greene Smythe had been lookin’ forward to with such pride, wuz the dretful tragedy put down, the thing that took the nip out of Miss Greene Smythe, and made a different woman of her, so they say.
I hate to tell it; I hate to like a dog, but I must; it is the truth and has got to be told. Poor little Angenora! poor little thing! The nurse gin her too much of that opiate either through carelessness or meanness or sunthin’; ’tennyrate, she gin her an overdose that very night of the party. It wuz spozed the nurse wanted to be free to flirt round and enjoy herself, and the child bein’ over-excited and couldn’t sleep she dosed her double and treble. ’Tennyrate, she gin her so much that the next mornin’ they found her pretty little body layin’ cold and still, the sweet, misused sperit gone clear out of it. Escaped! that’s the way my mind pictured it to myself as I thought it over with the paper dropped into my lap and the tears runnin’ down my face entirely onbeknown to me.
Escaped! away from these bleak skies into a safer, happier realm. The nurse run away when she discovered it, but wuz brung back by officers of the law. Miss Greene Smythe went into spazzum after spazzum, coniption fit after coniption fit, but recovered enough to testify aginst the girl and send her to prison. The next work she did wuz to dismiss the other girl and hire a good, middle-aged woman, widder of a Lutherean minister, to take care of Algernon.
Well, I don’t envy that widder not a mite. But no missionary to Africa nor India’s coral strand wuz ever needed more, and mebby she will disseminate some gospel and some common sense into the benighted jungles of Miss Greene Smythe’s mind. ’Tennyrate, I hearn, it come quite straight too—Nancy Yerden hearn it from her sister-in-law in Jonesville and she told me—that them Danglers didn’t dangle nigh so much, Miss Greene Smythe seemin’ to not want ’em to.
But she left for the city a few weeks after little Angenora’s death; she said she couldn’t bear the associations connected with that house, and I hear she pays more attention to Mr. Greene Smythe than she did; howsumever, I don’t know. Thomas J. gets bizness letters from her occasionally—I guess he’ll git her free from Emery Tweedie, he is a villian and a blackmailer, so Thomas J. sez. As for Medora, he don’t see his way clear to free her from her husband, and I guess as long as she lives she will have to suffer from the effects of her early trainin’ and git along the best she can.
Now, can any one tell by what occult law or onseen enactment it is, or what strange, mysterious jury sets on the case and determines it thus or so, but is there one among my readers who will contradict me when I say that when one thing happens in this world other things like it will keep on happenin’, pleasant things and sad things? Now, if people have one pleasant thing happen to ’em they will keep on happenin’, and the same with sad things; if one suicide takes place don’t folks look for another? And they do not look in vain; the same with embezzlements, murders, war, and rumors of wars.
Alas! the grass wuz not yet green on little Angenora’s grave when—— But I can’t put it down yet; no, I have got to lead up to it gradual or I can’t stand it; I have got to kinder stiddy myself by relating other things first.