Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley (the best books of all time .TXT) 📕

I riz right up, and grasped holt of his arm, and says in stern, avengin' tones,—

“Josiah Allen, will you go right against God's commands, and put the cup to your neighbor's lips, for your own gain? Do you expect, if you do, that you can escape Heaven's avengin' wrath?”

“They hain't my neighbors: I never neighbored with 'em.”

Says I sternly, “If you commit this sin, you will be held accountable; and it seems to me as if you can never be forgiven.”

“Dumb it all, Samantha, if everybody else does so, where will I get my votes?”

“Go without 'em, Josiah Allen; go down to poverty, or the tomb, but never commit this sin. 'Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips.'”

“They hain't my neighbors, and it probable hain't no cup that they will drink out of: they will drink out of gobblers” (sometimes when Josiah gets excited, he calls goblets, gobblers). But I wus too wrought up and by the side of myself to notice it.

Says I, “To think a human bein', to say nothin' of a perfessor, would go to work deliberate to get a man into a state that is jest as likely as not to end in a murder, or any crime, for gain to himself.” Says I, “Think of the different crimes you commit by that one act, Josiah Allen. You make a man a fool, and in that way put yourself down on a level with disease, deformity, and hereditary sin. You steal his reason away. You are a thief of the deepest dye; for you steal then, from the man you have stole from—steal the first rights of his manhood, his honor, his patriotism, his duty to God and man. You are a thief of the Government—thief of God, and right.

“Then, you make this man liable to commit any crime: so, if he murders, you are a murderer; if he commits suicide, your guilty soul shall cower in the presence of Him who said, 'No self-murderer shall inherit eternal life.' It is your own doom you shall read in them dreadful words.”

“Good landy, Samantha! do you want to scare me to death?” and Josiah quailed and shook, and shook and quailed.

“I am only tellin' you the truth, Josiah Allen; and I should think it would scare anybody to death.”

“If I don't do it, I shall appear like a fool: I shall be one by myself.”

Oh, how Josiah duz want to be fashionable!

“No, you won't, Josiah Allen—no, you won't. If you try to do right, try to do God's will, you have His armies to surround you with a unseen wall of Strength.”

“Why, I hain't seen you look so sort o' skairful and riz up, for years, Samantha.”

“I hain't felt so. To think of the brink you wuz a standin' on, and jest a fallin' off of.”

Josiah looked quite bad. And he put his hand on his side, and says, “My heart beats as if it wuz a tryin' to get out and walk round the room. I do believe I have got population of the heart.”

Says I, in a sarcasticker tone than I had used,—

“That is a disease that is very common amongst men, very common, though they hain't over and above willin' to own up to it. Too much population of the heart has ailed many a man before now, and woman too,” says I in reasonable axents. “But you mean palpitation.”

“Wall, I said so, didn't I? And it is jest your skairful talk that has done it.”

“Wall, if I thought I could convince men as I have you, I would foller the business stiddy, of skairin' folks, and think I wuz doin' my duty.” Says I, my emotions a roustin' up agin,—

“I should call it a good deal more honorable in you to get drunk yourself; and I should think more of you, if I see you a reelin' round yourself, than to see you make other folks reel. I should think it was your own reel, and you had more right to it than to anybody else's.

“Oh! to think I should have lived to see the hour, to have my companion in danger of goin' aginst the Scripter—ready to steal, or be stole, or knock down, or any thing, to buy votes, or sell 'em!”

“Wall, dumb it all, do you want me to appear as awkward as a fool? I have told you more than a dozen times I have got to do as the rest do, if I want to make any show at all in politics.”

I said no more: but I riz right up, and walked out of the room, with my head right up in the air, and the strings of my head-dress a floatin' out behind me; and I'll bet there wus indignation in the float of them strings, and heart-ache, and agony, and—and every thing.

I thought I had convinced him, and hadn't. I felt as if I must sink. You know, that is all a woman can do—to sink. She can't do any thing else in a helpful way when her beloved companion hangs over political abysses. She can't reach out her lovin' hand, and help stiddy him; she can't do nothin' only jest sink. And what made it more curious, these despairin' thoughts come to me as I stood by the sink, washin' my dinner-dishes. But anon (I know it wus jest anon, for the water wus bilein' hot when I turned it out of the kettle, and it scalded my hands, onbeknown to me, as I washed out my sass-plates) this thought gripped holt of me, right in front of the sink,—

“Josiah Allen's wife, you must not sink. You must keep up. If you have no power to help your pardner to patriotism and honor, you can, if your worst fears are realized, try to keep him to home. For if his acts and words are like these in Jonesville, what will they be in Washington, D.C., if that place is all it has been depictered to you? Hold up, Samantha! Be firm, Josiah Allen's wife! John Rogers! The nine! One at the breast!”

So at last, by these almost convulsive efforts at calmness, I grew more calmer and composeder. Josiah had hitched up and gone.

And he come home clever, and all excited with a new thing.

They are buildin' a new court-house at Jonesville. It is most done, and it seemed they got into a dispute that day about the cupelow. They wanted to have the figger of Liberty sculped out on it; and they had got the man there all ready, and he had begun to sculp her as a woman,—the goddess of Liberty, he called her. But at the last minute a dispute had rosen: some of the leadin' minds of Jonesville, uncle Nate Gowdey amongst 'em, insisted on it that Liberty wuzn't a woman, he wuz a man. And they wanted him depictered as a man, with whiskers and pantaloons and a standin' collar, and boots and spurs—Josiah Allen wus the one that wanted the spurs.

He said the dispute waxed furious; and he says to 'em,—

“Leave it to Samantha: she'll know all about it.”

And so it was agreed on that they'd leave it to me. And he drove the old mare home, almost beyond her strength, he wus so anxious to have it settled.

I wus jest makin' some cream biscuit for supper as he come in, and asked me about it; and a minute is a minute in makin' warm biscuit. You want to make 'em quick, and bake 'em quick. My mind wus fairly held onto that dough—and needed on it; but instinctively I told him he wus in the right ont. Liberty here in the United States wuz a man, and, in order to be consistent, ort to be depictered with whiskers and overcoat and a standin' collar.

“And spurs!” says Josiah.

“Wall,” I told him, “I wouldn't be particular about the spurs.” I said, “Instead of the spurs on his boots, he might be depictered as settin' his boot-heel onto the respectful petition of fifty thousand wimmen, who had ventured to ask him for a little mite of what he wus s'posed to have quantities of—Freedom.

“Or,” says I, “he might be depictered as settin' on a judgment-seat, and wavin' off into prison an intelligent Christian woman, who had spent her whole noble, useful life in studyin' the laws of our nation, for darin' to think she had as much right under our Constitution, as a low, totally ignorant coot who would most likely think the franchise wus some sort of a meat-stew.”

Says I, “That will give Liberty jest as