Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Volume I Part 14

Says I, in a almost eloquent way: "I don't believe in makin' such exertions after pleasure. As I have told you time and agin, I don't believe in chasin' of her up. Let her come of her own free will. You can't ketch her by chasin' after her no more than you can fetch up a shower in a drowth by goin' outdoors and runnin' after a cloud up in the heavens above you. Sit down and be patient, and when it gets ready the refres.h.i.+n' raindrops will begin to fall without none of your help. And it is jest so with pleasure, Josiah Allen; you may chase her up over all the oceans and big mountains of the earth, and she will keep ahead of you all the time; but set down and not fatigue yourself a-thinkin' about her, and like as not she will come right into your house unbeknown to you."

"Wal," says he, "I guess I'll have another griddle-cake, Samantha."

And as he took it and poured the maple syrup over it, he added gently but firmly:

"I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have you present at it, because it seems jest to me as if I should fall overboard durin' the day."

Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin'

could stir me up like that one speech. For though I hain't no hand to coo, and don't encourage him in bein' spoony at all, he knows that I am wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.

Wal, the day before the exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a errant, and I asked him if he was goin' to the exertion; and he said he would like to go, but he da.s.sent.

"Da.s.sent!" says I. "Why da.s.sent you?"

"Why," says he, "how would the rest of the wimmin round Jonesville feel if I should pick out one woman and wait on her?" Says he bitterly: "I hain't perfect, but I hain't such a cold-blooded rascal as not to have any regard for wimmen's feelin's. I hain't no heart to spile all the comfort of the day for ten or a dozen wimmen."

"Why," says I, in a dry tone, "one woman would be happy, accordin' to your tell."

"Yes, one woman happy, and ten or fifteen gauled--bruised in the tenderest place."

"On their heads?" says I, inquirin'ly.

"No," says he, "their hearts. All the girls have probable had more or less hopes that I would invite 'em--make a choice of 'em. But when the blow was struck, when I had pa.s.sed 'em by and invited some other, some happier woman, how would them slighted ones feel? How do you s'pose they would enjoy the day, seein' me with another woman, and they droopin'

round without me? That is the reason, Josiah Allen's wife, that I da.s.sent go. It hain't the keepin' of my horse through the day that stops me. For I could carry a quart of oats and a little jag of hay in the bottom of the buggy. If I had concluded to pick out a girl and go, I had got it all fixed out in my mind how I would manage. I had thought it over, while I was ondecided and duty was a-strugglin' with me. But I was made to see where the right way for me lay, and I am goin' to foller it.

Joe Purday is goin' to have my horse, and give me seven s.h.i.+llin's for the use of it and its keepin'. He come to hire it just before I made up my mind that I hadn't ort to go.

"Of course it is a cross to me. But I am willin' to bear crosses for the fair sect. Why," says he, a-comin' out in a open, generous way, "I would be willin', if necessary for the general good of the fair sect--I would be willin' to sacrifice ten cents for 'em, or pretty nigh that, I wish so well to 'em. I _hain't_ that enemy to 'em that they think I am. I can't marry 'em all, Heaven knows I can't, but I wish 'em well."

"Wal," says I, "I guess my dishwater is hot; it must be pretty near bilin' by this time."

And he took the hint and started off. I see it wouldn't do no good to argue with him that wimmen didn't wors.h.i.+p him. For when a feller once gets it into his head that female wimmen are all after him, you might jest as well dispute the wind as argue with him. You can't convince him nor the wind--neither of 'em--so what's the use of wastin' breath on 'em. And I didn't want to spend a extra breath that day anyway, knowin'

I had such a hard day's work in front of me, a-finis.h.i.+n' cookin' up provisions for the exertion, and gettin' things done up in the house so I could leave 'em for all day.

We had got to start about the middle of the night; for the lake was fifteen miles from Jonesville, and the old mare's bein' so slow, we had got to start an hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first on't, that I had just as lives set up all night as to be routed out at two o'clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin' that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that we would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did. So we went to bed the sun an hour high. And I was truly tired enough to lay down, for I had worked dretful hard that day--almost beyond my strength. But we hadn't more'n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop at the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin.' Elder Bamber and his family, and Deacon Dobbinses' folks.

Josiah vowed that he wouldn't stir one step out of that bed that night.

But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin' on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I hain't deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on before they came in I wouldn't tell 'em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn't took my nightcap off. They looked dreadful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin'. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin'. But when Josiah come out of the bedroom with what little hair he has got standin' out in every direction, no two hairs a-layin' the same way, and one of his galluses a-hangin' most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told 'em. I thought mebby they wouldn't stay long. But Deacon Dobbinses' folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin'; so they never went home till after ten o'clock.

It was 'most eleven when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin' into a drowse, I heered the cat in the b.u.t.tery, and I got up to let her out. And that roused Josiah up, and he thought he heered the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a-marchin' round 'most all night.

And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin' and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet 'most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that Josiah was a-drowndin', and Deacon Dobbins was on the sh.o.r.e a-prayin'

for him. It started me so that I jist ketched hold of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, "What does ail you, Samantha? I hain't been asleep before to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is!"

And then he got out of bed again and went and looked at the clock. It was half-past one, and he said he "didn't believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn't miss that for nothin'."

"Exertion!" says I, in a awful cold tone. "I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell."

But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a-goin' to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown-and-black gingham, and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up.

So jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.

And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons I had been a-makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a milatary company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red stripe down the sides--a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to 'em, and says he:

"I will wear 'em, Samantha; they look so dressy."

Says I: "They hain't hardly done. I was goin' to st.i.tch that red stripe on the left leg on again. They ain't finished as they ort to be, and I would not wear 'em. It looks vain in you."

Says he: "I will wear 'em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once."

I didn't contend with him. Thinks I: we are makin' fools of ourselves by goin' at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself by wearin' them blue pantaloons, I won't stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto 'em, so I felt that I had got to wash 'em, anyway, before Thomas J. took 'em to wear. So he put 'em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of 'em. The basket wouldn't hold 'em all, so Josiah had to put a bottle of red rossberry jell into the pocket of his dress-coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons and knives and forks, in his pantaloons and breast pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land!

he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him to, he felt so neat about goin', and boasted so on what a splendid exertion it was goin' to be.

We got to the lake about eight o'clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep' a-comin', and before ten o'clock we all got there.

The young folks made up their minds they would stay and eat their dinner in a grove on the mainland. But the majority of the old folks thought it was best to go and set our tables where we laid out to in the first place. Josiah seemed to be the most rampant of any of the company about goin'. He said he shouldn't eat a mouthful if he didn't eat it on that island. He said what was the use of going to a pleasure exertion at all if you didn't try to take all the pleasure you could. So about twenty old fools of us sot sail for the island.

I had made up my mind from the first on't to face trouble, so it didn't put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins, in gettin' into the boat, stepped onto my new lawn dress and tore a hole in it as big as my two hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin' felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when, jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off and blew it away out onto the lake. He had made up his mind to look so pretty that day that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat down onto him; and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have seemed more shady.

But I did the best I could by him. I stood by him and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a-fixin' it on, I see there was suthin' more than mortification ailded him. The lake was rough and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginning to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad, too. Oh! the wretchedness of that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness in so short a time as I did on that pleasure exertion to that island. I s'pose our bein' up all night a'most made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.

I sot right down on a stun and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After awhile I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight and sense things a little; though it was tejus work to walk anyway, for we had landed on a sand-bar, and the sand was so deep it was all we could do to wade through it, and it was as hot as hot ashes ever was.

Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The b.u.t.ter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had washed over the side of the boat, so my pies and tarts and delicate cakes and cookies looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of the company's did.

But we did the best we could, and the chicken and cold meats bein' more solid, had held together quite well, so there was some pieces of it conside'able hull, though it was all very wet and soppy. But we separated 'em out as well as we could, and begun to make preparations to eat. We didn't feel so animated about eatin' as we should if we hadn't been so sick to our stomachs. But we felt as if we must hurry, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night by the way the sun scalded.

There wasn't a man or a woman there but what the presperation and sweat jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy lookin'

set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn't one of us but what had the rheumatiz more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep tea and coffee as it was.

After we got the fire started, I histed a umberell and sot down under it and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.

Wal, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, Where is Josiah? I hadn't seen him since we had got there. I riz up and asked the company, almost wildly, if they had seen my companion, Josiah.

They said, No, they hadn't.

But Celestine Wilkin's little girl, who had come with her grandpa and grandma Gowdy, spoke up, and says she:

"I seen him goin' off toward the woods. He acted dretful strange, too; he seemed to be a walkin' off sideways."

"Had the sufferin's he had undergone made him delerious?" says I to myself; and then I started off on the run toward the woods, and old Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdy, and Sister Bamber, and Deacon Dobbinses' wife all rushed after me.

Oh, the agony of them two or three minutes! my mind so distracted with fourbodin's, and the presperation and sweat a-pourin' down. But all of a sudden, on the edge of the woods, we found him. Miss Gowdy, weighin' a little less than me, mebby one hundred pounds or so, had got a little ahead of me. He sot backed up against a tree in a awful cramped position, with his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable.

But when Miss Gowdy hollered out: "Oh, here you be! We have been skairt about you. What is the matter?" he smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he: "Oh, I thought I would come out here and meditate a spell. It was always a real treat to me to meditate."

Just then I come up a-pantin' for breath, and as the wimmen all turned to face me, Josiah scowled at me and shook his fist at them four wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions of his hands toward 'em. But the minute they turned round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin'.

Says I, "What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you off here for?"