Josiah and me got to talkin' it over. He said it wuzn't right to think more of one child than you did of another.
And I says, “That is so, Josiah.”
And he says, “Then, why did you say yesterday, that you loved sweet Cicely better than any of the rest of your thought-children? You said you loved 'em all, and was kinder sorry for the hull on 'em, but you loved her the best: what made you say it?”
Says I, “I said it, to tell the truth.”
“Wall, what did you do it for?” he kep' on, determined to get a reason.
“I did it,” says I, a comin' out still plainer,—“I did it to keep from lyin'.”
“Wall, when you say it hain't right to feel so, what makes you?”
“I don't know, Josiah,” says I, lookin' at him, and beyend him, way into the depths of emotions and feelin's we can't understand nor help,—
“I don't know why, but I know I do.”
And he drawed on his boots, and went out to the barn.
It was somewhere about the middle of winter, along in the forenoon, that Josiah Allen was telegrafted to, unexpected. His niece Cicely and her little boy was goin' to pass through Jonesville the next day on her way to visit her aunt Mary (aunt on her mother's side), and she would stop off, and make us a short visit if convenient.
We wuz both tickled, highly tickled; and Josiah, before he had read the telegraf ten minutes, was out killin' a hen. The plumpest one in the flock was the order I give; and I wus a beginnin' to make a fuss, and cook up for her.
We loved her jest about as well as we did Tirzah Ann. Sweet Cicely was what we used to call her when she was a girl. Sweet Cicely is a plant that has a pretty white posy. And our niece Cicely was prettier and purer and sweeter than any posy that ever grew: so we thought then, and so we think still.
Her mother was my companion's sister,—one of a pair of twins, Mary and Maria, that thought the world of each other, as twins will. Their mother died when they wus both of 'em babies; and they wus adopted by a rich aunt, who brought 'em up elegant, and likely too: that I will say for her, if she wus a 'Piscopal, and I a Methodist. I am both liberal and truthful—very.
Maria wus Cicely's ma, and she wus left a widow when she wus a young woman; and Cicely wus her only child. And the two wus bound up in each other as I never see a mother and daughter in my life before or sense.
The third year after Josiah and me wus married, Maria wusn't well, and the doctor ordered her out into the country for her health; and she and little Cicely spent the hull of that summer with us. Cicely wus about ten; and how we did love that girl! Her mother couldn't bear to have her out of her sight; and I declare, we all of us wus jest about as bad. And from that time they used to spend most all of their summers in Jonesville. The air agreed with 'em, and so did I: we never had a word of trouble. And we used to visit them quite a good deal in the winter season: they lived in the city.
Wall, as Cicely got to be a young girl, I used often to set and look at her, and wonder if the Lord could have made a prettier, sweeter girl if he had tried to. She looked to me jest perfect, and so she did to Josiah.
And she knew so much, too, and wus so womanly and quiet and deep. I s'pose it wus bein' always with her mother that made her seem older and more thoughtful than girls usially are. It seemed as if her great dark eyes wus full of wisdom beyend—fur beyend—her years, and sweetness too. Never wus there any sweeter eyes under the heavens than those of our niece Cicely.
She wus very fair and pale, you would think at first; but, when you would come to look closer, you would see there was nothing sickly in her complexion, only it was very white and smooth,—a good deal like the pure white leaves of the posy Sweet Cicely. She had a gentle, tender mouth, rose-pink; and her cheeks wuz, when she would get rousted up and excited about any thing; and then it would all sort o' die out again into that pure white. And over all her face, as sweet and womanly as it was, there was a look of power, somehow, a look of strength, as if she would venture much, dare much, for them she loved. She had the gift, not always a happy one, of loving,—a strength of devotion that always has for its companion-trait a gift of endurance, of martyrdom if necessary.
She would give all, dare all, endure all, for them she loved. You could see that in her face before you had been with her long enough to see it in her life.
Her hair wus a soft, pretty brown, about the color of her eyes. And she wus a little body, slender, and sort o' plump too; and her arms and hands and neck wus soft and white as snow almost.
Yes, we loved Cicely: and no one could blame us, or wonder at us for callin' her after the posy Sweet Cicely; for she wus prettier than any posy that ever blew, enough sight.
Wall, she had always said she couldn't live if her mother died.
But she did, poor little creeter! she did.
Maria died when Cicely wus about eighteen. She had always been delicate, and couldn't live no longer: so she died. And Josiah and me went right after the poor child, and brought her home with us.
She lived, Cicely did, because she wus young, and couldn't die. And Josiah and me wus dretful good to her; and many's the nights that I have gone into her room when I'd hear her cryin' way along in the night; many's the times I have gone in, and took her in my arms, and held her there, and cried with her, and soothed her, and got her to sleep, and held her in my arms like a baby till mornin'. Wall, she lived with us most a year that time; and it wus about two years after, while she wus to some of her father's folks'es (they wus very rich), that she met the young man she married,—Paul Slide.
He wus a handsome young man, well-behaved, only he would drink a little once in a while: he'd got into the habit at college, where his mate wus wild, and had his turns. But he wus very pretty in his manners, Paul was,—polite, good-natured, generous-dispositioned,—and very rich.
And as to his looks, there wuzn't no earthly fault to find with him, only jest his chin. And I told Josiah, that how Cicely could marry a man with such a chin wus a mystery to me.
And Josiah said, “What is the matter with his chin?”
And I says, “Why, it jest sets right back from his mouth: he hain't got no chin at all hardly,” says I. “The place where his chin ort to be is nothin' but a holler place all filled up with irresolution and weakness. And I believe Cicely will see trouble with that chin.”
And then—I well remember it, for it was the very first time after marriage, and so, of course, the very first time in our two lives—Josiah called me a fool, a “dumb fool,” or jest the same as called me so. He says, “I wouldn't be a dumb fool if I was in your place.”
I felt worked up. But, like warriors on a battle-field, I grew stronger for the fray; and the fray didn't scare me none.
But I says, “You'll see if you live, Josiah Allen”; and he did.
But, as I said, I didn't see how Cicely ever fell in love with a man with such a chin. But, as I learned afterwards, she fell in love with him under a fur collar. It wus on a slay-ride. And he wuz very handsome from his mouth up, very: his mouth wuz ruther weak. It wus a case of love at first sight, which I believe in considerable; and she couldn't help lovin' him, women are so queer.
I had always said that when Cicely did love, it would go hard with her. Many's the offers she'd had, but didn't care for 'em. But I knew, with her temperament and nater, that love, if it did come to her, would come to stay, and it would come hard and voyalent. And so it did.
She worshipped him, as I said at first, under a fur collar. And then, when a woman once gets to lovin' a man as she did, why, she can't help herself, chin or no chin. When a woman has once throwed herself in front of her idol, it hain't so much matter whether it is stuffed full of gold, or holler: it hain't so much matter what they be, I think. Curius, hain't it?
It hain't the easiest thing in the world for such a woman as Cicely to love, but it is a good deal easier for her than to unlove, as she found out afterwards. For twice before her marriage she saw him out of his head with liquor; and it wus my advice to her, to give him up.
And she tried to unlove him, tried to give him up.
But, good land! she might jest as well have took a piece of her own heart out, as to take out of it her love for him: it had become a part of her. And he told her she could save him, her influence could redeem him, and it wus the only thing that could save him.
And Cicely couldn't stand such talk, of course; and she believed him—believed that she could love him so well, throw her influence so around him, as to hold him back from any evil course.
It is a beautiful hope, the very beautifulest and divinest piece of folly a woman can commit. Beautiful enough in the sublime martyrdom of the idee, to make angels smile; and vain enough, and foolish enough in its utter uselessness, to make sinners weep. It can't be done—not in 98 cases out of a 100 at least.
Why, if a man hain't got love enough for a woman when he is tryin' to win her affection,—when he is on probation, as you may say,—to stop and turn round in his downward course, how can she expect he will after he has got her, and has let down his watch, so to speak?
But she loved him. And when I warned her with tears in my eyes, warned her that mebby it wus more than her own safety and happiness that wus imperilled, I could see by the look in her eyes, though she didn't say much, that it wusn't no use for me to talk; for she wus one of the constant natures that can't wobble round. And though I don't like wobblin', still I do honestly believe that the wobblers are happier than them that can't wobble.
I could see jest how it wuz, and I couldn't bear to have her blamed. And I would tell folks,—some of the relations on her mother's side,—when they would say, “What a fool she wus to have him!”—I'd say to 'em, “Wall, when a woman sees the man she loves goin' down to ruination, and tries to unlove him, she'll find out jest how much harder it is to unlove him than to love him in the first place: they'll find out it is a tough job to tackle.”
I said this to blamers of Cicely (relatives, the best blamers you can find anywhere). But, at the same time, it would have been my way, when he had come a courtin' me so far gone with liquor that he could hardly stand up—why, I should have told him plain, that I wouldn't try to set myself up as a rival to alcohol, and he might pay to that his attentions exclusively hereafter.
But she didn't. And he promised sacred to abstain, and could, and did, for most a year; and she married him.
But, jest before the marriage, I got so rousted up a thinkin' about what I had heard of him at college,—and I studied on his picture, which she had sent me, took sideways too, and I could see plain (why, he hadn't no chin at all, as you may say; and his lips was weak and waverin' as ever lips was, though sort o' amiable and fascinating),—and I got to forebodin' so about that chin, and my love for her wus a hunchin' me up so all the time, that I went to see her on a short tower, to beset her on the subject. But, good land! I might have saved my breath, I might have saved my tower.
I cried, and she cried too. And I says to her before I thought,—
“He'll be the ruin of you, Cicely.”
And she says, “I would rather be beaten by his hand, than to be crowned by another. Why, I love him, aunt Samantha.”
You see, that meant a awful sight to her. And as she looked at me so earnest and solemn, with tears in them pretty brown eyes, there wus in her look all that that word could possibly mean to any soul.
But I cried into my white linen handkerchief, and couldn't help it, and couldn't help sayin', as I see that look,—
“Cicely, I am afraid he will break your heart—kill you”—
“Why, I am not afraid to die when I am with him. I am afraid of nothing—of life, or death, or eternity.”
Well, I see my talk was no use. I see she'd have him, chin or no chin. If I could have taken her up in my arms, and run away with her then and there, how much misery I could have saved her from! But I couldn't: I had the rheumatiz. And I had to give up, and go home disappointed, but carryin' this thought home with me on my tower,—that I had done my duty by our sweet Cicely, and could do no more.
As I said, he promised firm to give up drinking. But, good land! what could you expect from that chin? That chin couldn't stand temptation if it came in his way. At the same time, his love for Cicely was such, and his good heart and his natural gentlemanly intuitions was such, that, if he could have been kep' out of the way of temptation, he would have been all right.
If there hadn't been drinking-saloons right in front of that chin, if it could have walked along the road without runnin' right into 'em, it would have got along. That chin, and them waverin'-lookin', amiable lips, wouldn't have stirred a step out of their ways to get ruined and disgraced: they wouldn't have took the trouble to.
And for a year or so he and the chin kep' out of the way of temptation, or ruther temptation kep' out of their way; and Cicely was happy,—radiently happy, as only such a nature as hern can be. Her face looked like a mornin' in June, it wus so bright, and glowing with joy and happy love.
I visited her, stayed 3 days and 2 nights with her; and I almost forgot to forebode about the lower part of his face, I found 'em so happy and prosperous and likely.
Paul wus very rich. He wus the only child: and his pa left 2 thirds of his property to him, and the other third to his ma, which wus more than she could ever use while she wus alive; and at her death it wus to go to Paul and his heirs.
They owned most all of the village they lived in. His pa had owned the township the village was built on, and had built most all the village himself, and rented the buildings. He owned a big manufactory there, and the buildings rented high.
Wall, it wus in the second year of their marriage that that old college chumb—(and I wish he had been chumbed by a pole, before he had ever gone there). He had lost his property, and come down in the world, and had to work for a livin'; moved into that village, and opened a drinking-saloon and billiard-room.
He had been Paul's most intimate friend at college, and his evil genius, so his mother said. But he was bright, witty, generous in a way, unprincipled, dissipated. And he wanted Paul's company, and he wanted Paul's money; and he had a chin himself, and knew how to manage them that hadn't any.
Wall, Cicely and his mother tried to keep Paul from that bad influence. But he said it would look shabby to not take any notice of a man because he wus down in the world. He wouldn't have much to do with him, but it wouldn't do to not notice him at all. How curius, that out of good comes bad, and out of bad, good. That was a good-natured idee of Paul's if he had had a chin that could have held up his principle; but he didn't.
So he gradually fell under the old influence again. He didn't mean to. He hadn't no idee of doin' so when he begun. It was the chin.
He begun to drink hard, spent his nights in the saloon, gambled,—slipped right down the old, smooth track worn by millions of jest such weak feet, towards ruin. And Cicely couldn't hold him back after he had got to slippin': her arms wuzn't strong enough.
She went to the saloon-keeper, and cried, and begged of him not to sell her husband any more liquor. He was very polite to her, very courteous: everybody was to Cicely. But in a polite way he told her that Paul wus his best customer, and he shouldn't offend him by refusing to sell him liquor. She knelt at his feet, I hearn,—her little, tender limbs on that rough floor before that evil man,—and wept, and said,—
“For the sake of her boy, wouldn't he have mercy on the boy's father.”
But in a gentle way he gave her to understand that he shouldn't make no change.
And he told her, speakin' in a dretful courteous way, “that he had the law on his side: he had a license, and he should keep right on as he was doing.”
And so what could Cicely do? And time went on, carryin' Paul further and further down the road that has but one ending. Lower and lower he sunk, carryin' her heart, her happiness, her life, down with him.
And they said one cold night Paul didn't come home at all, and Cicely and his mother wus half crazy; and they wus too proud, to the last, to tell the servants more than they could help: so, when it got to be most mornin', them two delicate women started out through the deep snow, to try to find him, tremblin' at every little heap of snow that wus tumbled up in the path in front of 'em; tremblin' and sick at heart with the agony and dread that wus rackin' their souls, as they would look over the cold fields of snow stretching on each side of the road, and thinkin' how that face would look if it wus lying there staring with lifeless eyes up towards the cold moonlight,—the face they had kissed, the face they had loved,—and thinkin', too, that the change that had come to it—was comin' to it all the time—was more cruel and hopeless than the change of death.
So they went on, clear to the saloon; and there they found him,—there he lay, perfectly stupid, and dead with liquor.
And they both, the broken-hearted mother and the broken-hearted wife, with the tears running down their white cheeks, besought the saloon-keeper to let him alone from that night.
The mother says, “Paul is so good, that if you did not tempt him, entice him here, he would, out of pity to us, stop his evil ways.”
And the saloon-keeper was jest as polite as any man wus ever seen to be,—took his hat off while he told 'em, so I hearn, “that he couldn't go against his own interests: if Paul chose to spend his money there, he should take it.”
“Will you break our hearts?” cried the mother.
“Will you ruin my husband, the father of my boy?” sobbed out Cicely, her big, sorrowful eyes lookin' right through his soul—if he had a soul.
And then the man, in a pleasant tone, reminded 'em,—
“That it wuzn't him that wus a doin' this. It wus the law: if they wanted things changed, they must look further than him. He had a license. The great Government of the United States had sold him, for a few dollars, the right to do just what he was doing. The law, and all the respectability that the laws of our great and glorious Republic can give, bore him out in all his acts. The law was responsible for all the consequenses of his acts: the men were responsible who voted for license—it was not him.”
“But you can do what we ask if you will, out of pity to Paul, pity to us who love him so, and who are forced to stand by powerless, and see him going to ruin—we who would die for him willingly if it would do any good. You can do this.”
He was a little bit intoxicated, or he wouldn't have gid 'em the cruel sneer he did at the last,—though he sneeren polite,—a holdin' his hat in his hand.
“As I said, my dear madam, it is not I, it is the law; and I see no other way for you ladies who feel so about it, only to vote, and change the laws.”
“Would to God I could!” said the old white-haired mother, with her solemn eyes lifted to the heavens, in which was her only hope.
“Would to God I could!” repeated my sweet Cicely, with her eyes fastened on the face of him who had promised to cherish her, and comfort her, and protect her, layin' there at her feet, a mark for jeers and sneers, unable to speak a word, or lift his hand, if his wife and mother had been killed before him.
But they couldn't do any thing. They would have lain their lives down for him at any time, but that wouldn't do any good. The lowest, most ignorant laborer in their employ had power in this matter, but they had none. They had intellectual power enough, which, added to their utter helplessness, only made their burden more unendurable; for they comprehended to the full the knowledge of what was past, and what must come in the future unless help came quickly. They had the strength of devotion, the strength of unselfish love.
They had the will, but they hadn't nothin' to tackle it onto him with, to draw him back. For their prayers, their midnight watches, their tears, did not avail, as I said: they went jest so far; they touched him, but they lacked the tacklin'-power that was wanted to grip holt of him, and draw him back. What they needed was the justice of the law to tackle the injustice; and they hadn't got it, and couldn't get holt of it: so they had to set with hands folded, or lifted to the heavens in wild appeal,—either way didn't help Paul any,—and see him a sinkin' and a sinkin', slippin' further and further down; and they had to let him go.
He drunk harder and harder, neglected his business, got quarrelsome. And one night, when the heavens was curtained with blackness, like a pall let down to cover the accursed scene, he left Cicely with her pretty baby asleep on her bosom, went down to the saloon, got into a quarrel with that very friend of hisen, the saloon-keeper, over a game of billiards,—they was both intoxicated,—and then and there Paul committed murder, and would have been hung for it if he hadn't died in State's prison the night before he got his sentence.
Awful deed! Dreadful fate! But no worse, as I told Josiah when he wus a groanin' over it; no worse, I told the children when they was a cryin' over it; no worse, I told my own heart when the tears wus a runnin' down my face like rain-water,—no worse because Cicely happened to be our relation, and we loved her as we did our own eyes.
And our broad land is full of jest such sufferin's, jest such crimes, jest such disgrace, caused by the same cause;—as I told Josiah, suffering, disgrace, and crime made legal and protected by the law.
And Josiah squirmed as I said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law, to keep it in a warm, healthy, flourishin' condition. Why, he had helped do it himself; he had helped the United States lift up the mantilly; he had voted for it.
He squirmed, but turned it off by usin' his bandana hard, and sayin', in a voice all choked down with grief,—
“Oh, poor Cicely! poor girl!”
“Yes,” says I, “'poor girl!' and the law you uphold has made her; 'poor girl'—has killed her; for she won't live through it, and you and the United States will see that she won't.”
He squirmed hard; and my feelin's for him are such that I can't bear to see him squirm voyalently, as much as I blamed him and the United States, and as mad as I was at both on 'em.
So I went to cryin' agin silently under my linen handkerchief, and he cried into his bandana. It wus a awful blow to both on us.
Wall, she lived, Cicely did, which was more than we any one of us thought she could do. I went right there, and stayed six weeks with her, hangin' right over her bed, night and day; and so did his mother,—she a brokenhearted woman too. Her heart broke, too, by the United States; and so I told Josiah, that little villain that got killed was only one of his agents. Yes, her heart was broke; but she bore up for Cicely's sake and the boy's. For it seemed as if she felt remorsful, and as if it was for them that belonged to him who had ruined her life, to help her all they could.
Wall, after about three weeks Cicely begun to live. And so I wrote to Josiah that I guessed she would keep on a livin' now, for the sake of the boy.
And so she did. And she got up from that bed a shadow,—a faint, pale shadow of the girl that used to brighten up our home for us. She was our sweet Cicely still. But she looked like that posy after the frost has withered it, and with the cold moonlight layin' on it.
Good and patient she wuz, and easy to get along with; for she seemed to hold earthly things with a dretful loose grip, easy to leggo of 'em. And it didn't seem as if she had any interest at all in life, or care for any thing that was a goin' on in the world, till the boy wus about four years old; and then she begun to get all rousted up about him and his future. “She must live,” she said: “she had got to live, to do something to help him in the future.”
“She couldn't die,” she told me, “and leave him in a world that was so hard for boys, where temptations and danger stood all round her boy's pathway. Not only hidden perils, concealed from sight, so he might possibly escape them, but open temptations, open dangers, made as alluring as private avarice could make them, and made as respectable as dignified legal enactments could make them,—all to draw her boy down the pathway his poor father descended.” For one of the curius things about Cicely wuz, she didn't seem to blame Paul hardly a mite, nor not so very much the one that enticed him to drink. She went back further than them: she laid the blame onto our laws; she laid the responsibility onto the ones that made 'em, directly and indirectly, the legislators and the voters.
Curius that Cicely should feel so, when most everybody said that he could have stopped drinking if he had wanted to. But then, I don't know as I could blame her for feelin' so when I thought of Paul's chin and lips. Why, anybody that had them on 'em, and was made up inside and outside accordin', as folks be that have them looks; why, unless they was specially guarded by good influences, and fenced off from bad ones,—why, they could not exert any self-denial and control and firmness.
Why, I jest followed that chin and that mouth right back through seven generations of the Slide family. Paul's father wus a good man, had a good face; took it from his mother: but his father, Paul's grandfather, died a drunkard. They have got a oil-portrait of him at Paul's old home: I stopped there on my way home from Cicely's one time. And for all the world he looked most exactly like Paul,—the same sort of a irresolute, handsome, weak, fascinating look to him. And all through them portraits I could trace that chin and them lips. They would disappear in some of 'em, but crop out agin further back. And I asked the housekeeper, who had always lived in the family, and wus proud of it, but honest; and she knew the story of the hull Slide race.
And she said that every one of 'em that had that face had traits accordin'; and most every one of 'em got into trouble of some kind.
One or two of 'em, specially guarded, I s'pose, by good influences, got along with no further trouble than the loss of the chin, and the feelin' they must have had inside of 'em, that they wuz liable to crumple right down any minute.
And as they wus made with jest them looks, and jest them traits, born so, entirely unbeknown to them, I don't know as I can blame Cicely for feelin' as she did. If temptation hadn't stood right in the road in front of him, why, he'd have got along, and lived happy. That's Cicely's idee. And I don't know but she's in the right ont.
But as I said, when her child wus about four years old, Cicely took a turn, and begun to get all worked up and excited by turns a worryin' about the boy. She'd talk about it a sight to me, and I hearn it from others.
She rousted up out of her deathly weakness and heartbroken, stunted calm,—for such it seemed to be for the first two or three years after her husband's death. She seemed to make an effort almost like that of a dead man throwin' off the icy stupor of death, and risin' up with numbed limbs, and shakin' off the death-robes, and livin' agin. She rousted up with jest such a effort, so it seemed, for the boy's sake.
She must live for the boy; she must work for the boy; she must try to throw some safeguards around his future. What could she do to help him? That wus the question that was a hantin' her soul.
It wus jest like death for her to face the curius gaze of the world again; for, like a wounded animal, she had wanted to crawl away, and hide her cruel woe and disgrace in some sheltered spot, away from the sharp-sot eyes of the babblin' world.
But she endured it. She came out of her quiet home, where her heart had bled in secret; she came out into society again; and she did every thing she could, in her gentle, quiet way. She joined temperance societies,—helped push 'em forward with her money and her influence. With other white-souled wimmen, gentle and refined as she was, she went into rough bar-rooms, and knelt on their floors, and prayed what her sad heart wus full of,—for pity and mercy for her boy, and other mothers' boys,—prayed with that fellowship of suffering that made her sweet voice as pathetic as tears, and patheticker, so I have been told.
But one thing hurt her influence dretfully, and almost broke her own heart. Paul had left a very large property, but it wus all in the hands of an executor until the boy wus of age. He wus to give Cicely a liberal, a very liberal, sum every year, but wus to manage the property jest as he thought best.
He wus a good business man, and one that meant to do middlin' near right, but wus close for a bargain, and sot, awful sot. And though he wus dretful polite, and made a stiddy practice right along of callin' wimmen “angels,” still he would not brook a woman's interference.
Wall, he could get such big rents for drinkin'-saloons, that four of Cicely's buildings wus rented for that purpose; and there wus one billiard-room. And what made it worse for Cicely seemin'ly, it wus her own property, that she brought to Paul when she wus married, that wus invested in these buildings. At that time they wus rented for dry-goods stores, and groceries. But the business of the manufactories had increased greatly; and there wus three times the population now there wus when she went there to live, and more saloons wus needed; and these buildings wus handy; and the executer had big prices offered to him, and he would rent 'em as he wanted to. And then, he wus something of a statesman; and he felt, as many business men did, that they wus fairly sufferin' for more saloons to enrich the government.
Why, out of every hundred dollars that them poor laboring-men had earned so hardly, and paid into the saloons for that which, of course, wus ruinous to themselves and families, and, of course, rendered them incapable of all labor for a great deal of the time,—why, out of that hundred dollars, as many as 2 cents would go to the government to enrich it.
Of course, the government had to use them 2 cents right off towards buyin' tight-jackets to confine the madmen the whiskey had made, and poorhouse-doors for the idiots it had breeded, to lean up aginst, and buryin' the paupers, and buyin' ropes to hang the murderers it had created.
But still, in some strange way, too deep, fur too deep, for a woman's mind to comprehend, it wus dretful profitable to the government.
Now, if them poor laborin'-men had paid that 2 cents of theirn to the government themselves, in the first place, in direct taxation, why, that wouldn't have been statesmanship. That is a deep study, and has a great many curius performances, and it has to perform.
Cicely tried her very best to get the executor to change in this one matter; but she couldn't move him the width of a horse-hair, and he a smilin' all the time at her, and polite. He liked Cicely: nobody could help likin' the gentle, saintly-souled little woman. But he wus sot: he wus makin' money fast by it, and she had to give up.
And rough men and women would sometimes twit her of it,—of her property bein' used to advance the liquor-traffic, and ruin men and wimmen; and she a feelin' like death about it, and her hands tied up, and powerless. No wonder that her face got whiter and whiter, and her eyes bigger and mournfuller-lookin'.
Wall, she kep' on, tryin' to do all she could: she joined the Woman's Temperance Union; she spent her money free as water, where she thought it would do any good, and brought up the boy jest as near right as she could possibly bring him up; and she prayed, and wept right when she wus a bringin' of him, a thinkin' that her property wus a bein' used every day and every hour in ruinin' other mothers' boys. And the boy's face almost breakin' her heart every time she looked at it; for, though he wus jest as pretty as a child could be, the pretty rosy lips had the same good-tempered, irresolute curve to 'em that the boy inherited honestly. And he had the same weak, waverin' chin. It was white and rosy now, with a dimple right in the centre, sweet enough to kiss. But the chin wus there, right under the rosy snow and the dimple; and I foreboded, too, and couldn't blame Cicely a mite for her forebodin', and her agony of sole.
I noticed them lips and that chin the very minute Josiah brought him into the settin'-room, and set him down; and my eyes looked dubersome at him through my specks. Cicely see it, see that dubersome look, though I tried to turn it off by kissin' him jest as hearty as I could after I had took the little black-robed figure of his mother, and hugged her close to my heart, and kissed her time and time agin.
She always dressed in the deepest of mournin', and always would. I knew that.
Wall, we wus awful glad to see Cicely. I had had the old fireplace fixed in the front spare room, and a crib put in there for the boy; and I went right up to her room with her. And when we had got there, I took her right in my arms agin, as I used to, and told her how glad I wus, and how thankful I wus, to have her and the boy with us.
The fire sparkled up on the old brass handirons as warm as my welcome. Her bed and the boy's bed looked white and cozy aginst the dark red of the carpet and the cream-colored paper. And after I had lowered the pretty ruffled muslin curtains (with red ones under 'em), and pulled a stand forward, and lit a lamp,—it wus sundown,—the room looked cheerful enough for anybody, and it seemed as if Cicely looked a little less white and brokenhearted. She wus glad to be with me, and said she wuz. But right there—before supper; and we could smell the roast chicken and coffee, havin' left the stair-door open—right there, before we had visited hardly any, or talked a mite about other wimmen, she begun on what she wanted to do, and what she must do, for the boy.
I had told her how the boy had grown, and that sot her off. And from that night, every minute of her time almost, when she could without bein' impolite and troublesome (Cicely wus a perfect lady, inside and out), she would talk to me about what she wanted to do for the boy, to have the laws changed before he grew up; she didn't dare to let him go out into the world with the laws as they was now, with temptation on every side of him.
“You know, aunt Samantha,” she says to me, “that I wanted to die when my husband died; but I want to live now. Why, I must live; I cannot die, I dare not die until my boy is safer. I will work, I will die if necessary, for him.”
It wus the same old Cicely, I see, not carin' for herself, but carin' only for them she loved. Lovin' little creeter, good little creeter, she always wuz, and always would be. And so I told Josiah.
Wall, we had the boy set between us to the supper-table, Josiah and me did, in Thomas Jefferson's little high-chair. I had new covered it on purpose for him with bright copperplate calico.
And that night at supper, and after supper, I judged, and judged calmly,—we made the estimate after we went to bed, Josiah and me did,—that the boy asked 3 thousand and 85 questions about every thing under the sun and moon, and things over 'em, and outside of 'em, and inside.
Why, I panted for breath, but wouldn't give in. I was determined to use Cicely first-rate, and we loved the boy too. But, oh! it was a weary love, and a short-winded love, and a hoarse one.
We went to bed tuckered completely out, but good-natured: our love for 'em held us up. And when we made the estimate, it wuzn't in a cross tone, but amiable, and almost winnin'. Josiah thought they went up into the trillions. But I am one that never likes to set such things too high; and I said calmly, 3,000 and 85. And finally he gin in that mebby it wuzn't no more than that.
Cicely told me she couldn't stay with us very long now; for her aunt Mary wuz expectin' to go away to the Michigan pretty soon, to see a daughter who wus out of health,—had been out of it for some time,—and she wanted a visit from her neice Cicely before she went. But she promised to come back, and make a good visit on her way home.
And so it was planned. The next day was Sunday, and Cicely wus too tired with her journey to go to meetin'. But the boy went. He sot up, lookin' beautiful, by the side of me on the back seat of the Democrat; his uncle Josiah sot in front; and Ury drove. Ury Henzy, he's our hired man, and a tolerable good one, as hired men go. His name is Urias; but we always call him Ury,—spelt U-r-y, Ury,—with the emphasis on the U.
Wall, that day Elder Minkly preached. It wus a powerful sermon, about the creation of the world, and how man was made, and the fall of Adam, and about Noah and the ark, and how the wicked wus destroyed. It wus a middlin' powerful sermon; and the boy sot up between Josiah and me, and we wus proud enough of him. He had on a little green velvet suit and a deep linen collar; and he sot considerable still for him, with his eyes on Elder Minkly's face, a thinkin', I guess, how he would put us through our catechism on the way home. And, oh! didn't he, didn't he do it? I s'pose things seem strange to children, and they can't help askin' about 'em.
But 4,000 wus the estimate Josiah and me calculated on our pillows that night wus the number of questions the boy asked on our way home, about the creation, how the world wus made, and the ark—oh, how he harressed my poor companion about the animals! “Did they drive 2 of all the animals in the world in that house, uncle Josiah?”
“Yes,” says Josiah.
“2 elfants, and rinosterhorses, and snakes, and snakes, and bears, and tigers, and cows, and camels, and hens?”
“Yes, yes.”
“And flies, uncle Josiah?—did they drive in two flies? and mud-turkles? and bumble-bees? and muskeeters? Say, uncle Josiah, did they drive in muskeeters?”
“I s'pose so.”
“How could they drive in two muskeeters?”
“Oh! less stop talkin' for a spell—shet up your little mouth,” says Josiah in a winnin' tone, pattin' him on his head.
“I can shut up my mouth, uncle Josiah, but I can't shut up my thinker.”
Josiah sithed; and, right while he wus a sithin', the boy commenced agin on a new tack.
“What for a lookin' place was paradise?” And then follered 800 questions about paradise. Josiah sweat, and offered to let the boy come back, and set with me. He had insisted, when we started from the meetin'-house, on havin' the boy set on the front seat between him and Ury.
But I demurred about any change, and leaned back, and eat a sweet apple. I don't think it is wrong Sundays to eat a sweet apple. And the boy kep' on.
“What did Adam fall off of? Did he fall out of the apple-tree?”
“No, no! he fell because he sinned.”
But the boy went right on, in a tone of calm conviction,—
“No big man would be apt to fall a walking right along. He fell out of the apple-tree.”
And then he says, after a minute's still thought,—
“I believe, if I had been there, and had a string round Adam's leg, I could kep' him from fallin' off;—and say, where was the Lord? Couldn't He have kept him? say, couldn't He?”
“Yes: He can do any thing.”
“Wall, then, why didn't He?”
Josiah groaned, low.
“If Adam hadn't fell, I wouldn't have fell, would I?—nor you—nor Ury—nor anybody?”
“No: I s'pose not.”
“Wall, wouldn't it have paid to kept Adam up? Say, uncle Josiah, say!”
“Oh! less talk about sunthin' else,” says my poor Josiah. “Don't you want a sweet apple?”
“Yes; and say! what kind of a apple was it that Adam eat? Was it a sweet apple, or a greening, or a sick-no-further? And say, was it right for all of us to fall down because Adam did? And how did I sin just because a man eat an apple, and fell out of an apple-tree, when I never saw the apple, or poked him offen the tree, or joggled him, or any thing—when I wasn't there? Say, how was it wrong, uncle Josiah? When I wasn't there!”
My poor companion, I guess to sort o' pacify him, broke out kinder a singin' in a tone full of fag, “'In Adam's fall, we sinned all.'” Josiah is sound.
“And be I a sinning now, uncle Josiah? and a falling? And is everybody a sinning and a falling jest because that one man eat one apple, and fell out of an apple-tree? Say, is it right, uncle Josiah, for you and me, and everybody that is on the earth, to keep a falling, and keep a falling, and bein' blamed, and every thing, when we hadn't done any thing, and wasn't there? And say, will folks always keep a falling?”
“Yes, if they hain't good.”
“How can they keep a falling? If Adam fell out of the apple-tree, wouldn't he have struck on the ground, and got up agin? And if anybody falls, why, why, mustn't they come to the bottom sometime? If there is something to fall off of, mustn't there be something to hit against? And say”—
Here the boy's eyes looked dreamier than they had looked, and further off.
“Was I made out of dirt, uncle Josiah?”
“Yes: we are all made out of dust.”
“And did God breathe our souls into us? Was it His own self, His own life, that was breathed into us?”
“Yes,” says Josiah, in a more fagged voice than he had used durin' the intervue, and more hopelesser.
“Wall, if God is in us, how can He lose us again? Wouldn't it be a losing His own self? And how could God lose Himself? And what did He find us for, in the first place, if He wus going to lose us again?”
Here Josiah got right up in the Democrat, and lifted the boy, and sot him over on the seat with me, and took the lines out of Ury's hands, and drove the old mair at a rate that I told him wus shameful on Sunday, for a perfessor.
Wall, Cicely and the boy staid till Tuesday night. Tuesday afternoon the children wus all to home on a invitation. (I had a chicken-pie, and done well by 'em.)
And nothin' to do but what Cicely and the boy must go home with 'em: they jest think their eyes of Cicely. And I couldn't blame 'em for wantin' her, though I hated to give her up.
She laid out to stay a few days, and then come back to our house for a day or two, and then go on to her aunt Mary's. But, as it turned out, the children urged her so, she stayed most two weeks.
And the very next day but one after Cicely went to the children's—And don't it beat all how, if visitors get to comin', they'll keep a comin'? jest as it is if you begin to have trials, you'll have lots of 'em, or broken dishes, or any thing.
Wall, it wus the very next mornin' but one after Cicely had gone, and my voice had actually begun to sound natural agin (the boy had kep' me hoarse as a frog answerin' questions). I wus whitewashin' the kitchen, havin' put it off while Cicely wus there; and there wus a man to work a patchin' up the wall in one of the chambers,—and right there and then, Elburtus Smith Gansey come. And truly, we found him as clever a critter as ever walked the earth.
It wus jest before korkuss; and he wus kinder visatin' round amongst his relations, and makin' himself agreable. He is my 5th cousin,—5th or 6th. I can't reely tell which, and I don't know as I care much; for I think, that, after you get by the 5th, it hain't much matter anyway. I sort o' pile 'em all in promiscous. Jest as it is after anybody gets to be 70 years old, it hain't much matter how much older they be: they are what you may call old, anyway.
But I think, as I said prior and beforehand, that he wus a 5th. His mother wus a Butrick, and her mother wus a Smith. So he come to make us a visit, and sort o' ellectioneer round. He wanted to get put in county judge; and so, the korkuss bein' held in Jonesville, I s'pose he thought he'd come down, and endear himself to us, as they all do.
I am one that likes company first-rate, and I always try to do well by 'em; but I tell Josiah, that somehow city folks (Elburtus wus brought up in a city) are a sort of a bother. They require so much, and give you the feelin', that, when you are a doin' your very best for 'em, they hain't satisfied. You see, some folks'es best hain't nigh so good as other folks'es 3d or 4th.
But this feller—why! I liked him from the first minute I sot my eyes on him. I hadn't seen him before sence I wus a child, and so didn't feel so awful well acquainted with him; or, that is, I didn't, as it were, feel intimate. You know, when you don't see anybody from the time you are babies till you are married, and have lost a good many teeth, and considerable hair, you can't feel over and above intimate with 'em at first sight.
But I liked him, he wus so unassuming and friendly, and took every thing so peaceable and pleasant. And he deserved better things than what happened to him.
You see, I wus a cleanin' house when he come, cleanin' the kitchen at that out-of-the-way time of year on account of Cicely's visit, and on account of repairin' that had promised to be done by Josiah Allen, and delayed from week to week, and month to month, as is the way with men. But finally he had got it done, and I wus ready to the minute with my brush and scourin'-cloth.