Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete · Chapter 13Contents. (10)
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“And,” sez I, “nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf,” sez I, “deep and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the very depths of my soul at his freedom.
“But,” sez I, “when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
“Yes,” sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
“When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race, and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach, I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the old, hard ground of slavery so the rich seed of justice could be planted and bring forth freedom.
“If it hadn't been for that woman's preachin', that negro exhauster would to-day most likely be a hoin' cotton with a overseer a-lashin' him up to his duties, and his wife and children and himself a-bein' bought and sold, and borrowed and lent and mortgaged and drove like so many animals. And I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told him so.”
“Oh, no,” sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', “no, you wouldn't.”
“Yes, I would,” sez I. “And I'd 've enjoyed it richly” sez I, es I turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.
Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked machin' for about the same length of time.
But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever, a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through dinner.
After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin' done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.
But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin' and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n several days.
And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.
But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia, rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart failure, and such.
And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann), and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she—
“Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake.” Rosy wuz Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest now a father's strong hand.
Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ralph, who had always been dretful religius, felt it to be his duty to go and preach to the savages. So Miss Timson took the baby and Ralph left all his property with Miss Timson to use for her, and then he girded up his lions, took his Bible and him book and went out West and tackled the savages.
Tackled 'em in a perfectly religius way, and done sights of good, sights and sights. For all he wuz so mild and gentle and religius, he got the upper hand of them savages in some way, and he brung 'em into the church by droves, and they jest worshipped him.
Wall, he worked so hard a-tryin' to do good and save souls that wuz lost—a-tryin' single-handed to overthrow barberus beliefs and habits, and set up the pure and peaceful doctrines of the Master.
He loved and followed, that his health gin out after a time—he felt weak and mauger.
And jest about this time his sister wrote to him that Rosy havin' got in with gay companions, wuz a gettin' beyond her influence, and she needed a father's control and firm hand to guide her right, or else she would be liable to go to the wrong, and draw lots of others with her, for she wuz a born leader amongst her mates, jest as her father wuz—so wouldn't Ralph come home.
Wall, Ralph come. His sister and girl jest worshipped him, and looked and longed for his comin', as only tender-hearted wimmen can love and worship a hero. For if there wuz ever a hero it wuz Ralph Smith Robinson.
Wall, Ralph had been in the unbroken silences of nature so long, that the clack, and crash, and clamor of what we call civilized life almost crazed him.
He had been where his Maker almost seemed to come down and walk with him through the sweet, unbroken stillnesses of mornin' and evenin'. The world seemed so fur off to him, and the Eternal Verities of life so near, that truly, it sometimes seemed to him as if, like one of old, “he walked with God.” Of course the savages war-whooped some, but they wuz still a good deal of the time, which is more than you can say for Yankees.
And Loontown when he got home was rent to its very twain with a Presidential election.
Ralph suffered.
But above all his other sufferin's, he suffered from church bells.
Miss Timson lived, as it wuz her wish, and often her boast, right under the droppin's of the sanctuary.
She lotted on it when she bought the place. The Baptist steeple towered up right by the side of her house. Her spare bed wuz immegietly under the steeple.
Wall, comin' as he did from a place where he wuz called to worship by the voice of his soul and his good silver watch—this volume of clamor, this rushin' Niagara of sound a-pourin' down into his ears, wuz perfectly intolerable and onbeerable. He would lay awake till mornin' dreadin' the sound, and then colapse under it, till it run along and he come down with nervous fever.
He wuz worn out no doubt by his labors before he come, and any way he wuz took bed-sick, and couldn't be moved so's the doctor said, and he bein' outside of his own head, delerius, couldn't of course advance no idees of his own, so he lay and suffered.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Miss Timson's letter wuz writ to me on the 6th day of his sickness, and Josiah and me set sail for Loontown on the follerin' day after we got it.
I laid the case before the female Sisters of the meetin' house, and they all counselled me to go. For, as they all said, on account of Sister Bobbet's fallin' on the apple parin' we could not go on with the work of paperin' the meetin' house, and so the interests of Zion wouldn't languish on account of my absence for a day or two any way. And, as the female Sisters all said, it seemed as if the work I wuz called to in Loontown wuz a fair and square case of Duty, so they all counselled me to go, every one on 'em. Though, as wuz nateral, there wuz severel divisions of opinions as to the road I should take a-goin' there, what day I should come back, what remiedies wuz best for me to recommend when I got there, what dress I should wear, and whether I should wear a hankerchif pin or not—or a bib apron, or a plain banded one, etc., etc., etc., etc.
But, as I sez, as to my goin' they wuz every one on 'em unanimus. They meen well, those sisters in the meetin' house do, every one on 'em.
Josiah acted real offish at first about goin'. And he laid the case before the male brothers of the meetin' house, for Josiah wuz fearful that the interests of the buzz saw mill would languish in his absence. One or two of the weaker brethren joined in with him, and talked kinder deprestin' about it.
But Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy said they would guard his interests with eagle visions, or somethin' to that effect, and they counselled Josiah warmly that it wuz his duty to go.
We hearn afterwards that Deacon Sypher and Deacon Henzy wanted to go into the North Woods a-fishin' and a-huntin' for 2 or 3 days, and it has always been spozed by me that that accounted for their religeus advice to Josiah Allen.
Howsumever, I don't know that. But I do know that they started off a-fishin' the very day we left for Loontown, and that they come back home about the time we did, with two long strings of trout.
And there wuz them that said that they ketched the trout, and them that said they bought 'em.
And they brung back the antlers of a deer in their game bags, and some bones of a elk. And there are them that sez that they dassent, either one of 'em, shoot off a gun, not hardly a pop gun. But I don't know the truth of this. I know what they said, they said the huntin' wuz excitin' to the last degree, and the fishin' superb.
And there wuz them that said that they should think the huntin' would be excitin', a-rummagin' round on the ground for some old bones, and they should think the fishin' would be superb, a-dippin' 'em out of a barell and stringin' 'em onto their own strings.
But their stories are very large, that I know. And each one on 'em, accordin' to their tell, ketched more trouts than the other one, and fur bigger ones, and shot more deers.
Wall, Deacon Sypher'ses advice and Deacon Henzy's influenced Josiah a good deal, and I said quite a few words to him on the subject, and, suffice it to say, that the next day, about 10 A.M., we set out on our journey to Loontown.
Miss Timson and Rosy seemed dretful glad to see me, but they wuz pale and wan, wanner fur than I expected to see 'em; but after I had been there a spell I see how it wuz. I see that Ralph wuz their hero as well as their love, and they worshipped him in every way, with their hearts and their souls and their idealized fancies.
Wall, he wuz a noble lookin' man as I ever see, fur or near, and as good a one as they make, he wuz strong and tender, so I couldn't blame 'em.
And though I wouldn't want Josiah to hear me say too much about it, or mebby it would be best that he shouldn't, before I had been there 24 hours I begun to feel some as they did.
But my feelin's wuz strictly in a meetin' house sense, strictly.
But I begun to feel with them that the middle of the world wuz there in that bedroom, and the still, white figure a-layin' there wuz the centre, and the rest of the world wuz a-revolvin' round him.
His face wuz worn and marked by the hand of Time and Endeaver. But every mark wuz a good one. The Soul, which is the best sculptor after all, had chiselled into his features the marks of a deathless endeavor and struggle toward goodness, which is God. Had marked it with the divine sweetness and passion of livin' and toilin' for the good of others.
He had gi'n his life jest as truly to seek and save them that wuz lost as ever any old prophet and martyr ever had sense the world began. But under all these heavenly expressions that a keen eye could trace in his good lookin' face, could be seen a deathly weakness, the consumin' fire that wuz a-consumin' of him.
Miss Timson wept when she see me, and Rosy threw herself into my arms and sobbed. But I gently ondid her arms from round my neck and give Miss Timson to understand that I wuz there to help 'em if I could.
“For,” sez I softly, “the hull future time is left for us to weep in, but the present wuz the time to try to help Ralph S. Robinson.”
Wall, I laid to, Josiah a-helpin' me nobly, a-pickin' burdock leaves or beet leaves, as the case might be, and a-standin' by me nobly all through the follerin' night (that is, when he wuz awake).
Josiah and I took care on him all that night, Miss Timson refusin' to give him into the charge of underlin's, and we a-offerin' and not to be refused.
Wall, Josiah slept some, or that is, I s'poze he did. I didn't hear much from him from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M., only once I heard him murmer in his sleep, “buzz saw mill.”
But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly—
“Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful.” And I wouldn't waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add in haste—
“That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a real treat to keep awake all night, now and then.”
No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without disputin' with my Josiah.
Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time, still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language, stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange, strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he said:
“And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God! the peace! the peace!”
His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside and inside, that he invoked.
Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.
Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.
Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin' bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin' it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and tackled him.
CHAPTER XXIV.
It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed goes.
Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck. And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of tenderness and sweetness of nater.
A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy. Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers would fairly suffer for rapiners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.
Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly, “business!”
So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every one of 'em good ones).
He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one, or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound, and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries to be.
Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door, and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells in the mornin' would roust him up, and I had come to see if he would omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.
“Not ring the bells!” sez he, in wild amaze. “Not ring the church bells on the Sabbath day?”
His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez—
“Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the bells in the mornin'.”
“A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a Christian to not ring the Sabbath bells!”
I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow. And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin' his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.
But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as anybody ever could, as he sez: “The bells never hurt anybody, I know, for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look broke down and weak?” sez he.
“No,” sez I, honestly. “No more than a grannit monument, or a steel trap.”
“Wall,” sez he, “what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else.”
“But,” sez I, “folks are made up different.” Sez I, “The Bible sez so, and what might not hurt you, might be the ruin of somebody else. Wuz you ever nervous?” sez I.
“Never,” sez he. And he added firmly, “I don't believe in nerves. I never did. There hain't no use in 'm.”
“It wuz a wonder they wuz made, then,” sez I. “As a generel thing the Lord don't make things there hain't no use on. Howsumever,” sez I, “there hain't no use in disputin' back and forth on a nerve. But any way, sickness is so fur apart from health, that the conditions of one state can't be compared to the other; as Ralph S. Robinson is now, the sound of the bells, or any other loud noise means torture and agony to him, and, I am afraid, death. And I wish you would give orders to not have 'em rung in the mornin'.”
“Are you a professor?” sez he.
“Yes,” sez I.
“What perswaision?” sez he.
“Methodist Episcopal,” sez I.
“And do you, a member of a sister church, which, although it has many errors, is still a-gropin' after the light! Do you counsel me to set aside the sacred and time honored rules of our church, and allow the Sabbath to go by unregarded, have the sanctuary desecrated, the cause of religion languish—I cannot believe it. Think of the widespread desolation it would cause if, as the late lamented Mr. Selkirk sung:
“'The sound of the church-going bells, These valleys and hills never heard.'”
“No church, no sanctuary, no religius observances.”
“Why,” sez I, “that wouldn't hinder folks from goin' to church. Folks seem to get to theatres, lectures, and disolvin' views on time, and better time than they do to meetin',” sez I. “In your opinin' it hain't necessary to beat a drum and sound on a bugle as the Salvation Army duz, to call folks to meetin'; you are dretful hard on them, so I hear.”
“Yes, they make a senseless, vulgar, onnecessary racket, disturbin' and agrivatin' to saint and sinner.”
“But,” sez I, “they say they do it for the sake of religion.”
“Religion hain't to be found in drum-sticks,” sez he bitterly.
“No,” sez I, “nor in a bell clapper.”
“Oh,” sez he, “that is a different thing entirely, that is to call worshippers together, that is necessary.”
Sez I, “One hain't no more necessary than the other in my opinion.”
Sez he, “Look how fur back in the past the sweet bells have sounded out.”
“Yes,” sez I candidly, “and in the sweet past they wuz necessary,” sez I. “In the sweet past, there wuzn't a clock nor a watch, the houses wuz fur apart, and they needed bells. But now there hain't a house but what is runnin' over with clocks—everybody knows the time; they know it so much that time is fairly a drug to 'em. Why, they time themselves right along through the day, from breakfast to midnight. Time their meals, their business, their pleasures, their music, their lessons, their visits, their visitors, their pulse beats, and their dead beats. They time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin', no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em started.
“Take a man with the Sunday World jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge, with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells hain't a-goin' to start him.
“And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before, and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow won't start 'em.
“And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a bell on earth.”
“Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject,” sez he (I had convinced him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). “But,” sez he wavin' off that side of the subject, “the observance is so time honored, so hallowed by tender memories and associations all through the past.”
“Don't you 'spoze, Deacon Garven,” sez I, “that I know every single emotion them bells can bring to anybody, and felt all those memorys and associations. I'll bet, or I wouldn't be afraid to bet, if I believed in bettin', that there hain't a single emotion in the hull line of emotions that the sound of them bells can wake up, but what I have felt, and felt 'em deep too, jest as deep as anybody ever did, and jest es many of 'em. But it is better for me to do without a upliftin', soarin' sort of a feelin' ruther than have other people suffer agony.”
“Agony!” sez he, “talk about their causin' agony, when there hain't a more heavenly sound on earth.”
“So it has been to me,” sez I candidly. “To me they have always sounded beautiful, heavenly. Why,” sez I, a-lookin' kinder fur off, beyond Deacon Garven, and all other troubles, as thoughts of beauty and insperation come to me borne out of the past into my very soul, by the tender memories of the bells—thoughts of the great host of believers who had gathered together at the sound of the bells—the great army of the Redeemed—
'Some of the host have crossed the flood, and some are crossin' now,'
thinks I a-lookin' way off in a almost rapped way. And then I sez to Deacon Garven in a low soft voice, lower and more softer fur, than I had used to him,
“Don't I know what it is to stand a-leanin' over the front gate on a still spring mornin', the smell of the lilacs in the air, and the brier roses. A dew sparklin' on the grass under the maples, and the sunshine a-fleckin' the ground between 'em, and the robins a-singin' and the hummin' birds a-hoverin' round the honeysuckles at the door. And over all and through all, and above all clear and sweet, comin' from fur off a-floatin' through the Sabbath stillness, the sound of the bells, a-bringin' to us sweet Sabbath messages of love and joy. Bringin' memories too, of other mornin's as fair and sweet, when other ears listened with us to the sound, other eyes looked out on the summer beauty, and smiled at the sound of the bells. Heavenly emotions, sweet emotions come to me on the melody of the bells, peaceful thoughts, inspirin' thoughts of the countless multitude that has flocked together at the sound of the bells. The aged feet, the eager youthful feet, the children's feet, all, all walkin' to the sound of the bells. Thoughts of the happy youthful feet that set out to walk side by side, at their ringin' sounds. Thoughts of the aged ones grown tired, and goin' to their long dreamless sleep to their solemn sound. Thoughts of the brave hero's who set out to protect us with their lives while the bells wuz ringin' out their approval of such deeds. Thoughts of how they pealed out joyfully on their return bearin' the form of Peace. Thoughts of how the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us (as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.
“As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells have rung into my very soul.
“But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to lead me round a good deal of the time.