Things went on in their usual roteen in our home in Jonesville, Josiah good, over-good at times, anon puggicky and hard to git along with, softened into amiability agin by his own good principles and his pardner’s oncommon tact and cookin’. Meetin’s, socials, visitors, agents, and colporters varied the calm roteen as of yore; the children had been home frequent, and Hamenses folks had been down on a visit and stayed several days.
One day Aunt Polly Worden come to spend the day with me. She lives with her brother and his wife, and is pretty well off if she only knew it, but she don’t know it, and probable never will. She will go on and complain of her sister-in-law by the hour if folks will listen to her. But I always git her attention off as soon as I can onto other subjects, knittin’ or piecin’ up, or the minister’s wife, or sunthin’ or ruther. Well, little Delight wuz stayin’ with us for a few days, and Aunt Polly seemed to forget her grievances lookin’ at the dear little creeter and hearin’ her pretty talk as she played with her dollys and books and toys.
I got a oncommon good dinner—Aunt Polly loves her vittles—and she brightened up considerable and wuz talkin’ real agreeable for her, and that afternoon Thomas J. and Maggie stopped in for a few minutes with their baby. They wuz out ridin’ and come in for a few minutes, and Thomas J. went to find his Pa, wantin’ to see him on bizness. The baby looked sweet as a rosebud, and Maggie looked like the parent rose on the same stem.
Maggie couldn’t take off her bunnet even, for they had to be back before noon, but she said they wuz comin’ down that week to stay all day. But I did take off the baby’s little white silk hood and snowy cashmere cloak, and made of it a sight, Delight lookin’ on as happy as a little queen. After they went away I spoke as is nateral to Aunt Polly about the charms and loveliness of that baby, and Aunt Polly winked at me real knowin’ and sez to Delight:
“Your nose is broke now, young lady.”
Delight put her little finger up to her nose and felt of it anxiously, and I wunk at Aunt Polly to say no more, for I knew what she meant—it wuz that this new babe of Thomas Jefferson’s would push little Delight out of my heart. But Aunt Polly is real kinder obstinate; I guess her sister-in-law is right when she sez, “No mule wuz ever more balky than Polly Worden.”
But then I realize that she is a old maiden and has had five disappointments and some say seven, and they have embittered her. She heeded not the wink I wunk at her and kep’ right on:
“The little new baby will take your place now in Grandma’s heart.”
Delight looked troubled, on her smooth little brow I could see fall the first faint shadow of that great, black shape that we call jealousy. Her sweet eyes looked as if they wuz cloudin’ up ready for tears. And I wunk severer and more voyalent winks at Aunt Polly; if ever a wink spoke them did, and said, “Stop immegiately.” But she kep’ right on (poor creeter! I spoze them disappintments wuz the cause on’t), and sez:
“You won’t be Grandma’s baby any more; she has got somebody else to love now.”
And then the cloud did burst into a rainfall of tears. Delight jest burst out a-cryin’ and snuggled down in my arms and laid her wet cheeks on my bosom through the power of old custom, and anon (how much like human creeters accordin’ to her size) she drew her head away agin as if sayin’, “I can’t lay my head there any more; if the love has gone out of the heart it won’t rest or comfort me any more to lay there.”
And pride woke up in her; she wuz too proud to make a fuss or beg for love (how much, how much like big children), so she set up kinder straight on my lap with her pretty lips quiverin’ and the tears runnin’ silent down her cheeks, and I riz right up with her and went out of the room.
Josiah wuz there, and I wouldn’t bring Miss Worden to terms before a male, owin’ to the five or seven things mentioned by me; but I felt that I must make it right with Delight that very minute. I knew how she felt, woonded pride and love and jealousy, a few hard syllables of the hardest lessons of life had come to Delight, and I must help her spell ’em, I must help her with her lesson.
So I took her into the parlor and sot down with her in the big chair and never said a word for a minute or two, only held her clost to me and kissed the shinin’ hair that lay up aginst my cheeks, she strugglin’ at first, Jealousy and Pride naggin’ her, and at first not bein’ able to hear any voices only jest them of J. and P. (jest like older children exactly). But, after a while, I held her so warm and clost, with my cheek layin’ on the pretty head, the stiddy firm clasp and contact sort o’ calmed her, and then anon she drew one little arm up around my neck, and anon the other one, and I looked down deep into her eyes, right into the little true soul, and that little true soul see the truth in mine. Words couldn’t have convinced Delight so well as that look she had learnt to depend on. Love has a language that, though mebby it can’t be exactly parsed and analyzed, yet it can be understood, entirely understood, and Delight see that I loved her. And then wuz the time the little creeter put up her lips and kissed me, and I sez sort o’ low but very tender:
“Sweetheart, you know jest how much I love you, don’t you?”
And she said, “Yes.”
And then I kissed her several times in various places on her face, every one on ’em sweet places. And went on and talked dretful good to her about the new baby. I confided in her, told her all about how the little new soul had come onbeknown to itself into a great, strange world, how helpless it wuz, how weak, and how we must all help it and try to make it feel at home amongst us.
And I tried to explain it to her, that as she wuz here first she owed a courtesy to the newcomer, and that she must be ready and willin’ to neighbor with her; I didn’t use jest the words, but them wuz my idees.
I told her how blind the little creeter wuz, and Delight, if only out of politeness, must try to see for her, lead her straight over ways she knew nothin’ about, and keep her from harmin’ herself. How baby couldn’t talk for herself at all now, and Delight must talk for her, good talk that the little one could learn of her bimeby. How she couldn’t walk, and Delight, bein’ stronger, must go ahead of her and make a pretty path for her to foller when she got big enough. I told her jest how hard it wuz for the baby to be put here so helpless in the midst of sorrows and troubles and dangers, and how we must all of us be jest as good to her as we could out of pity for the dear little creeter.
So I rousted up Delight’s pity for her, and she wuz all animated about helpin’ her, and I told her the baby had come to be a great blessin’ and comfort to her, but she must take great care of it and not let it get harmed in any way, for it would need her care and love for a long time.
And don’t you see that the fact of Delight havin’ to do a kindness to the baby, havin’ to take thought and study out good things to do for her, wuz the surest way to make her love her? For it is a great fact in our human nater that you can’t love them you have injured in any way, and at the same time if you have ever been good to anybody you always feel softer toward ’em and more mellerer.
Curious, hain’t it? But it is a fact, and I spoze the reason on’t is you have sort o’ lowered yourself in your own estimation by doing a onkind act, and so in order to satisfy your mental criticism on yourself and try to make it right, you lay hold and bring up all the faults of that person you can to justify your own act, and so you keep on that mental naggin’ at ’em, that oncomfortable sort of a feelin’ toward ’em makes you restless and oneasy, and you are glad every time you can stand justified to your own consciousness by ketchin’ ’em in a bad act—hain’t that so, now? Why, I know it is, so I made sure Delight shouldn’t begin wrong. For when you do a good, helpful thing for a person your hull soul feels comfortable and you bring up unconscious mental reasons why you did it, it wuz because they wuz so good, so smart, and so you keep on feelin’ good and comfortable, you keep on praisin’ ’em to your own self till you git fairly in love with ’em, as it were.
A very curious thing. But the way I do when I git hold of a strange fact or truth, I don’t wait to explain it full to myself before I act on it; no, I grasp hold of it and use it for my own benefit and afterwards wonder at it to my heart’s content.
So Delight got to thinkin’ she wuz necessary to the baby’s happiness, and that tickled her little self-esteem jest as though she wuz a older child (only accordin’ to her weight). She got to thinkin’ she must watch over her or she might git hurt, which called out all the good motherly protectin’ impulses of her little soul which wuz in her (still accordin’ to her weight, forty pounds more or less). And day by day Delight’s love for the little creeter grew till it wuz fairly beautiful to see ’em together, and so Josiah said, and her Pa and Ma and the neighbors.
But to resoom backwards a little. As for Miss Worden, I thought to myself, disappintments or not, I have got to give her a-talkin’ to, and so I did, the very next time I see her. She had gone when Delight and I went out of the parlor, Delight with bright, happy eyes, and I with kinder thoughtful, pityin’ ones, and all four on ’em kinder wet. But the next time I see her alone I tackled her, and she jest as good as promised she wouldn’t ever say to any human child agin what she had said to Delight. And I don’t believe she will. She hain’t such a bad creeter after all, and, good land! what can you expect, six or seven right along one after the other?
Well, I guess it wuz the afternoon of the very day I tackled Aunt Polly Worden and got her promise, or as good as a promise, I got a letter from Jack, he don’t write to me often, but like all congenial souls I felt we wuz nigh each other whether we communed in spoken or written words or not, his letters are printed and are sights of work, I know. Josiah brung the letter in when he come in to dinner. Jack’s letter wuz written on Sunday, it run as follers:
“My deer Ant,
“We want you to come over a visitin’ ma sez so and i say so i want to see you bad I’ve been to meetin’ to day Ma told me to remember what the minister sed and tell you i don’t Remember nothin’ only i Herd him say more’n twenty times my herers i will close my remarks
“deer Ant i hate lyin
“All day if i moved ma Told me i never would be a little joseph or a little sammel i don’t want to be a little joseph i drather be a colt they can move sundays they can kick up their Heels and Run lass night father made me go to bed at ate he sed it wood make me grow sez i father you lett anna set up she is bigger sez he then she ort to sleep more sez i for there is more of her to git tired Father never stopped readin but sez he you are a cute one sez i father what is cute you run along to Bed that is all father sed when i wuz goin upstairs to bed i called out to mother mother what is cute and she never looked up from her book but sez run right along to bed Jack Then i gripped right onto the hired girl and sez i you shall tell me what cute is i’ll cute you sez she and she snaked me right into bed and Blowed out the lamp deer Ant they won’t never tell me nothin there is lots and lots of things i feel i must know about and if i ask them they say a little boy should be seen and not Herd deer Ant i don’t want to be seen i drather be Herd how be i goin’ to find out things if they won’t tell me, Youre shure nuff you answer questions deer Ant i like you and we want you to come here a visitin so no more
“remaining your respected friend,
“JACK.
“P. S.
“I want you to come here a visitin the worst kind,
“your obedient servant
“JACK.
“P. S. agin
“ma told me to tell you to come wednesday for shure do come to see your respected cousin
“JACK.
“P. S. agin
“Ma is goin to have a party and wants you to stay all night and so duz yours truly
“JACK.
“P. S. ma told me to ask you and unkel Josiah to come
“P. S. be sure and come J.”
Well, a letter come from Tamer by the same mail or mails, by Ury, brung in by Josiah.
Jack wuz in the right on’t. Tamer wuz goin’ to have a afternoon party of the Allen race and dynasty and wanted Josiah and I to be sure and come and stay all night, for the rest wuz comin’ and goin’ by train and stage, and they would all go home that night but us and mebby Celestine, and she begged Josiah and me to stay a few days. Well, bein’ through with his hardest work and owin’ the visit, Josiah consented to go and we sot off in good season and arrove there about ten A. M. We see the house looked real stirred up when we got there, the winders open above and below, and the piazzas on both sides full of little groups of the relations; we wuz about the last ones there, owin’ to most all the rest havin’ come on the cars or the stage from Zoar and Loontown.
Uncle Submit Allen and Aunt Patience and their three daughters and their children, and Tamer’s brother’s folks and her Uncle Preserved, and Aunt Priscilla and Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy Joe, widders of the old twins, John and Joseph Allen, and Uncle Ichabod Allen, poor creeter! he had lost his wife, but he kep’ his old maid girl to keep house for him; yes, Huldy wuz there, too, takin’ first rate care of her Pa; Cousin Joel and his wife and Marii, she is a kind of a widder, that is, her husband, Jotham Allen, left her a year ago this comin’ fall, run away with Elam Snyderses widder and a three-year-old colt that belonged to Marii, and, as I told her, I should mourn some for the colt, but should consider it wuz a colt well lost to git red of Jotham. A poor, whifflin’ creeter, drinkin’ and behavin’, and had ever sence they wuz married. Marii is a good deal better off without him, and she begins to think so, too; she is a tailoress and gits good wages and don’t have to have her heart and mind on a strain all the time.
Why, sometimes I think it is easier to settle down and be real onhappy than it is to be between and betwixt, and not know what roll you will be called to play the next minute. If you know you are onhappy you can set down and mourn and give your hull time to it as it were, and not strain your mind, not knowin’ what you are goin’ to do next.
But to resoom. These relations I have named all pressed forwards in the stoop to greet me; after Tamer and Anna and Jack, bless him! had met us with a hearty welcome, Hamen, havin’ gin me a cordial greetin’, had gone on to the horse barn with the mair and my pardner. I see Celestine settin’ at the other end of the stoop with her easel all up a’ready, and she paintin’ away at some landscape or ruther, not mindin’ seemin’ly the waves of relationship surgin’ round her on every side. But, as I drawed near, she did take her brush in her other hand and shake hands with me, but her hand wuz real limpsy, she didn’t realize me much of any, her mind wuzn’t in our world at all as I could see.
She wuz paintin’ the cloud effects on the water, she said, and her canvas did look all kinder swashy and blue with some storks storkin’ along in front, to give the picture character, she said, and she said she never see the cloud effects more strikin’ than they wuz that mornin’.
And I sez, “Yes, like as not.” And I looked off dreamily for a number of minutes. The lake lay like a long, bright mirror, and all the tiny white and pink clouds that wuz floatin’ on the clear, blue sky above wuz reflected on the face of the water, the willers that grew along the banks on one side wuz reproduced and living agin down in that strange underworld, and the big oak tree that sort o’ bent over the water with a bluebird settin’ out on one branch and singin’ sweet and clear.
There they wuz livin’ agin, bluebird and all, it wuz a fair seen, a fair seen, and I didn’t wonder that Celestine admired it. But with all my admiration, and, though I wuz borne off a considerable ways by my almost boundless delight in the seen, yet some practical common sense remained with me. When anybody is in danger of bein’ carried away by their emotions they ort to tie a string to themselves as it were to bring themselves back to this life as long as they have got to stay in it. And so I give a little hitch to this string and found myself back in this world agin, and I sez, “Where is little Mary!”
“Oh,” sez Celestine, in a rapt way, “how sweetly the bird song blends in with the tender feeling of the landscape, and yet a stork is a more striking adjunct,” sez she.
But I sez agin, “Where is little Mary?”
And after repeating the question for the third time, she sez, looking round her in a vague way, “Oh, I guess she is playing somewhere with some of the children.” And I left her, she not sensin’ it at all, and went down the steps towards the lake where I heard the sound of children’s voices. I found little Mary settin’ on a stun and lookin’ fur off onto the water, she had been throwing pebbles into the clear depths, but sot still now, seemin’ly wropped up in her thoughts.
She seemed dretful glad to see me, and I her visey versey, sweet little creeter! Jack joined us pretty soon, and we sot there for some time, and I told ’em quite a number of stories, and I held Mary in one arm and Jack in the other, and we enjoyed ourselves first rate. But the voices of Duty and Tamer called me back to the house and the assembled guests. Von Crank wuz there, for Tamer would have it so, and he paid Anna all the attention he possibly could, and she repulsed it all she could, so it made quite queer times and quite romantic. But Anna told me out on the west piazza, when we happened to be there alone, that since Cicero had been sent to the penitentiary her Ma had not acted quite so headstrong and stern about Von Crank, “But yet,” sez she, “I see her mind is still set on our union, and what shall I do, Aunt Samantha? She has been through so much trouble with Cicero. I am afraid any other blow would be the means of killing her.” And she sez agin, as she had said before, “I could never be happy, never, if I wuz the means of breaking her heart, and so I don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” sez I, “you’re young yet, you and Tom; you can wait a spell and trust the Lord and ask Him to help you out of your wilderness.”
“Oh, I do, Aunt Samantha! I ask Him, and I trust Him, or I couldn’t live. He has seemed so much nearer than ever before since I have been so wretched and haven’t known what to do.”
“Well, you know who said that all things work together for good to them that love God, and if you do love Him the promise is made to you, and you must lay holt of it.”
And then she went on and told me more about Tamer, and I did pity her, pity her like a dog. She said when Cicero wuz sent away her Pa, in the first hours when he wuz most dead with shame and mortification, told his wife she wuz the cause of it all; she had filled his brain with stories of vice and crime, and Cicero had acted out what his brain had been filled with, and from what Anna said I guess Hamen throwed Arabeller in her face and told her she had, for the sake of convenience and what she called gentility, just schooled Cicero in morbid romance and vicious adventure, and he sez, “You are now reaping what you have sown.” Anna said her Ma went into one hysterick fit after another, and she had to git her Pa out of the room and take care of her herself day after day, and sez she, “They are so cool to each other, now, I don’t believe they will ever be even friends agin, and everything is so sad, Aunt Samantha,” sez she.
And agin I told her, “It is always the darkest jest before day, Anna.”
But little did I think whose small hand it wuz that wuz goin’ to lift the cloud and let the light of reconciliation into the darkened home life of Hamen and Tamer and bring their hearts together agin. A Hamen realizin’ his own weaknesses and waywardness and softenin’ into a feeling of pity for the blind mistakes of a Tamer, and being willin’ to jine hands and hearts with her agin and pick up the tangled threads of life and try to straighten ’em out into plain runnin’ agin. Oh, poor little Jack! dear little creeter!