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

I groaned and sithed to that extent that I was almost skairt at myself, not knowin' but I would have the highstericks unbeknown to me (never havin' had 'em, I didn't know exactly what the symptoms was), and I felt dredfully. But anon, or pretty nigh anon, I grew calmer, and opened the paper, and read. It seemed to be in answer to the men who had nominated him for path-master, and it read as follers:—

Feller Constituents and Male Men of Jonesville and the surroundin' and adjacent worlds!

I thank you, fellow and male citizents, I thank you heartily, and from the depths of my bein', for the honor you have heaped onto me, in pintin' me path-master.

But I feel it to be my duty to decline it. I feel that I must keep entirely out of political matters, and that I cannot be induced to be path-master, or President, or even United-States senator. I have not got the constitution to stand it. I don't feel well a good deal of the time. My liver is out of order, I am liable to have the ganders any minute, I am bilious, am troubled with rheumatiz and colic, my blood don't circulate proper, I have got a weak back, and lumbago, and biles. And I hain't a bit well. And I dassent put too much strain on myself, I dassent.

And then, I am a husband and a father. I have sacred duties to perform about, nearer and more sacred duties, that I dast not put aside for any others.

I am a husband. I took a tender and confidin' woman away from a happy home (Mother Smith's, in the east part of Jonesville), and transplanted her (carried her in a one-horse wagon and a mare) into my own home. And I feel that it is my first duty to make that home the brightest spot on earth to her. That home is my dearest and most sacred treasure. And how can I disturb its sweet peace with the wild turmoil of politics? I can not. I dast not.

And politics are dangerous to enter into. There is bad folks in Jonesville 'lection day,—bad men, and bad women. And I am liable to be led astray. I don't want to be led astray, but I feel that I am liable to.

I have to hear swearin'. Now, I don't swear myself. (I don't call “dumb” swearin', nor never did.) I don't swear, but I think of them oaths afterwards. Twice I thought of 'em right in prayer-meetin' time, and it worrys me.

I have to see drinkin' goin' on. I don't want to drink; but they offer to treat me, old friends do, and Samantha is afraid I shall yield to the temptation; and I am most afraid of it myself.

Yes, politics is dangerous and hardenin'; and, should I enter into the wild conflict, I feel that I am in danger of losin' all them tender, winnin' qualities that first won me the love of my Samantha. I dare not imperil her peace, and mine, by the effort.

I can not, I dast not, put aside these sacred duties that Providence has laid upon me. My wive's happiness is the first thing I must consider. Can I leave her lonely and unhappy while I plunge into the wild turmoil of caurkusses and town-meetin's, and while I go to 'lection, and vote? No.

And the time I would have to spend in study in order to vote intelligent, I feel as if that time I must use in strugglin' to promote the welfare and happiness of my Samantha. No, I dassent vote, I dassent another time.

Again, another reason. I have a little grandchild growin' up around me. I owe a duty to her. I must dandle her on my knee. I must teach her the path of virtue and happiness. If I do not, who will? For though there are plenty to make laws, and to vote, little Samantha Joe has but one grandpa on her mother's side.

And then, I have sights of cares. The Methodist church is to be kep' up: I am one of the pillows of the church, and sometimes it rests heavy on me. Sometimes I have to manage every way to get the preacher's salary. I am school-trustee: I have to grapple with the deestrict every spring and fall. The teachers are high-headed, the parents always dissatisfied, and the children act like the Old Harry. I am the salesman in the cheese-factory. Anarky and quarellin' rains over me offen that cheese-factory; and its fault-findin', mistrustin' patrons, embitters my life, and rends my mind with cares.

The care of providin' for my family wears onto me; for though Samantha tends to things on the inside of the house, I have to tend to things outside, and I have to provide the food she cooks.

And then, I have a great deal of work to do. Besides my barn-chores, and all the wearin' cares I have mentioned, I have five acres of potatoes to hoe and dig, a barn to shingle, a pig-pen to new cover, a smoke-house to fix, a bed of beets and a bed of turnips to dig,—ruty bagys,—and four big beds of onions to weed—dumb 'em! and six acres of corn to husk. My barn-floor at this time is nearly covered with stooks. How dare I leave my barn in confusion, and, by my disorderly doin's, run the risk of my wive's bein' so disgusted with my want of neatness and shiftlessness, as to cause her to get dissatisfied with home and husband, and wander off into paths of dissipation and vice? Oh! I dassent, I dassent, take the resk! When I think of all the terrible evils that are liable to come onto me, I feel that I dassent vote agin, as long as I live and breathe—I dast not have any thing whatever to do with politics.

I read it all out loud, every word of it, interrupted now and then, and sometimes oftener, by the groans of my pardner. And as I finished, I looked round at him, and I see his looks was dretful. And I says in soothin' tones—for oh! how a companion's distress calls up the tender feelin's of a lovin' female pardner!

Says I, “It hain't the worst piece in the world, Josiah Allen! It is as sensible as lots of political pieces I have read.” Says I, “Chirk up!”

“It hain't the piece! It is the way it was took,” says he. “Life has been a burden to me ever sense that appeared in 'The Gimlet.' Tongue can't tell the way them Jonesvillians has sneered and jeered at me, and run me down, and sot on me.”

I sithed, and remained a few moments almost lost in thought; and then says I,—

“Now, if you are more composed and gathered together, will you tell your companion how you come to write it? what you did it for?”

“I did it to be populer,” says he, out from under his hand. “I thought I would branch off, and take a new turn, and not act so fierce and wolfish after office as most of 'em did. I thought I would get up something new and uneek.”

“Wall, you have, uneeker than you probable ever will agin. But, if you wanted to be a senator, why did you refuse to have any thing to do with politics?”

“I did it to be urged,” says he, in the same sad, despairin' tones. “I made the move to be loved—to be the favorite of the Nation. I thought after they read that, they would be fierce to promote me, fierce as blood-hounds. I thought it would make me the most populer man in Jonesville, and that I should be sought after, and praised up, and follered.”

“What give you that idee?” says I calmly.

“Why, don't you remember Letitia Lanfear? She wrote a article sunthin' like this, only not half so smart and deep, when she was nominated for school-trustee, and it jest lifted her right up. She never had been thought any thing off in Jonesville till she wrote that, and that was the makin' of her. And she hadn't half the reason to write it that I have. She hadn't half nor a quarter the cares that I have got. She was a widder, educated high, without any children, with a comfortable income, and she lived in her brother's family, and didn't have no cares at all.

“And only see how that piece lifted her right up! They all said, what right feelin', what delicacy, what a noble, heart-stirrin', masterly document hern was! And I hankered, I jest hankered, after bein' praised up as she was. And I thought,” says he with a deep sithe, “I thought I should get as much agin praise as she did. I thought I should be twice as populer, because it wus sunthin' new for a man to write such a article. I thought I should be all the rage in Jonesville. I thought I should be a lion.”