Sweet Cicely โ or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley (the best books of all time .TXT) ๐
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- Author: Marietta Holley
Read book online ยซSweet Cicely โ or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley (the best books of all time .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Marietta Holley
But Cicely looked at him calm and earnest, and says,โ
โWill you do as I wish you to in this matter?โ
โWell, really, my dear madam, I don't quite get at your meaning.โ
โWill you let this store remain as it is, and rent those other saloons to honest business men for some other purpose than drinking-saloons?โ
โO my dear, dear madam! What can you be thinking of? The rent that I get from those four buildings is equal in amount to any eight of the other buildings of the same size. I cannot, I cannot, consent to make any changes whatever.โ
โYou will not, then, do as I wish?โ
โI cannot, my dear madam: I prefer to put it in that way,โI cannot. I do not see as you do in the matter. And as the law empowers me to use my own discretion in renting the buildings, investing money, etc., I shall be obliged to do so.โ
Cicely got up: she was white as snow now, but as quiet as snow ever wus.
Mr. Post got up, too, about the politest actin' man I ever see, a movin' chairs out of the way, and a smilin', and a waitin' on us out. He was ready to give plenty of politeness to Cicely, but no justice.
And I guess he was kinder sorry to see how white and sad she looked, for he spoke out in a sort of a comfortin' voice,โ
โYou have had great sorrows, Mrs. Slide, but you have also a great deal to comfort you. Just think of how many other widows have been left in poverty, or, as you may say, penury, and you are rich.โ
Cicely turned then, and made the longest speech I ever heard her make.
โYes, many a drunkard's wife is clothed in rags, and goes hungry to bed at night, with her hungry children crying for bread about her. She can lie on her cold pile of rags, with the snow sifting down on her, and think that her husband, a sober, honest man once, was made a low, brutal wretch by intemperance; that he drank up all his property, killed himself by strong drink, was buried in a pauper's grave, and left a starving wife and children, to live if they could. The cold of winter freezes her, the want of food makes her faint, and to see her little ones starving about her makes her heart ache, no doubt. I have plenty of money, fine clothes, dainty food, diamonds on my fingers.โ
Says she, stretching out her little white hands, and smilin' the bitterest smile I ever see on Cicely's face,โ
โBut do you not think, that, as I lie on my warm, soft couch at night, my heart is wrung by a keener pang than that drunkard's wife can ever know? I can lie and think that by my means, my wealth, I am making just such homes as that, making just such broken hearts, just such starving children, filling just such paupers' graves,โlaying up a long store of curses and judgments, for my boy's inheritance. And I am powerless to do any thing but suffer.โ
And she opened the door, and walked right out. And Mr. Post stood and smiled till we got to the bottom of the stairs.
โGood-afternoon, good-afternoon, my clear madam, call again; happy to see youโGood-afternoon.โ
Wall, Cicely went right to bed the minute we got home; and she never eat a mite of supper, only drinked a cup of tea, and thanked me so pretty for bringin' it to her.
And there was such a sad and helpless, and sort of a outraged, look in her pretty brown eyes, some as a noble animal might have, who wus at bay with the cruel hunters all round it. And so I told Josiah after I went down-stairs.
And the boy overheard me, and asked me 87 questions about โa animal at bay,โ and what kind of a bay it wasโwas it the bay to a barn? or on the water? orโ
Oh my land! my land! How I did suffer!
But Cicely grew worse fast, from that very day. She seemed to run right down.
CHAPTER XII.
One day Cicely had been worryin' dretfully all the forenoon about the boy. And I declare, it seemed so pitiful to hear her talk and forebode about him, with her face lookin' so wan and white, and her big eyes so sorrowful lookin', as if they was lookin' onto all the sadness and trouble of the world, and couldn't help herselfโsuch a sort of a hopeless look, and lovin' and broken-hearted, that it was all I could do to stand it without breakin' right down, and cry in' with her.
But I knew her state, and held firm. And she went over all the old grounds agin to me, that she had foreboded on; and I went over all the old grounds of soothing agin and agin.
Why, good land! I had had practice enough. For every day, and every night, would she forebode and forebode, and I would soothe and soothe, till I declare for't, I should have felt (to myself) a good deal like a bread-and-milk poultice, or even lobelia or catnip, if my feelin's on the subject hadn't been so dretful deep and solemn, deeper than any poultice that was ever madeโand solemner.
Why, Tirzah Ann says to me one day,โshe had been settin' with Cicely for a hour or two; and she come out a cryin', and says she,โ
โMother, I don't see how you can stand it. It would break my heart to see Cicely's broken-hearted look, and hear her talk for half a day; and you have to hear her all the time.โ And she wiped her eyes.
And I says, โTongue can't tell, Tirzah Ann, how your ma's heart does ache for her. And,โ says I, โif I knew myself, I had got to die and leave a boy in the world with such temptations round him, and such a chin on him, why, I don't know what I should do, and what I shouldn't do.โ
And says Tirzah Ann, โThat is jest the way I feel, mother;โ and we both of us wiped our eyes.
But I held firm before her, and reminded her every time, of what she knew already,โโthat there was One who was strong, who comforted her in her hour of need, and He would watch over the boy.โ
And sometimes she would be soothed for a little while, and sometimes she wouldn't.
Wall, this day, as I said, she had worried and worried and worried. And at last I had soothed her down, real soothed. And she asked me before I went down-stairs, for a poem, a favorite one of hers,โโThe Celestial Country.โ And I gin it to her. And she said I might shet the door, and she would read a spell, and she guessed she should drop to sleep.
And as I was goin' out of the room, she called me back to hear a verse or two she particularly liked, about the โendless, ageless peace of Syon:โโ
โTrue vision of true beauty, Sweet cure of all distrest.โAnd I stood calm, and heard her with a smooth, placid face, though I knew my pies was a scorchin' in the oven, for I smelt 'em. I did well by Cicely.
After she finished it, I told her it was perfectly beautiful, and I left her feelin' quite bright; and there wuzn't but one of my pies spilte, and I didn't care if it wuz. I wuzn't goin' to have her feelin's hurt, pies or no pies.
After I got my pies out, I went into my nearest neighbor's on a errent, tellin' Josiah to stay in Thomas Jefferson's room, just acrost from Cicely's, so's if she wanted any thing, he could get it for her. I wuzn't gone over a hour, and, when I went back, I went up-stairs the first thing; and I found Cicely a cryin,' though there was a softer, more contented look in her eyes than I had seen there for a long time.
And I says, โWhat is the matter, Cicely?โ
And she says,โ
โOh! if I had been a better woman, I could have seen my mother! she has been here!โ
โWhy, Cicely!โ says I. โHere, take some of this jell.โ
But she put it away, and says in a sort of a solemn, happy tone,โ
โShe has been here!โ
She said it jest as earnest and serene as I ever heard any thing said; and there was a look in her eyes some as there wuz when she come home from her aunt Mary's, and told me โshe almost wished her aunt had died while she was there, because she felt that her mother would be the angel sent from heaven to convey her aunt's soul homeโand she could have seen her.โ
There was that same sort of deep, soulful, sad, and yet happy look to her eyes, as she repeated,โ
โShe has been here! I was lying here, aunt Samantha, reading 'The Celestial Country,' not thinking of any thing but my book, when suddenly I felt something fanning my forehead, like a wing passing gently over my face. And then something said to me just as plain as I am speaking to you, only, instead of being spoken aloud, it was said to my soul,โ
โ'You have wanted to see your mother: she is here with you.'
โAnd I dropped my book, and sprung up, and stood trembling, and reached out my hands, and cried,โโ'Mother! mother! where are you? Oh! how I have wanted you, mother!'
โAnd then that same voice said to my heart again,โ
โ'God will take care of the boy.'
โAnd as I stood there trembling, the room seemed full. You know how you would feel if your eyes were shut, and you were placed in a room full of people. You would know they were thereโyou would feel their presence, though you couldn't see them. You know what the Bible says,โ'Seeing we are encompassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses.' That word just describes what I felt. There seemed to be all about me, a great cloud of people. And I put my arms out, and made a rush through them, as you would through a dense crowd, and said again,โ
โ'Mother! mother! where are you? Speak to me again.'
โAnd then, suddenly, there seemed to be a stir, a movement in the room, something I was conscious of with some finer, more vivid sense than hearing. It seemed to be a great crowd moving, receding. And farther off, but clear, these words came to me again, sweet and solemn,โ
โ'God will take care of the boy.'
โAnd then I seemed to be alone. And I went out into the hall; and uncle Josiah heard me, and he came out, and asked me what the matter was.
โAnd I told him 'I didn't know.' And my strength left me then; and he took me up in his arms, and brought me back into my room, and laid me on the lounge, and gave me some wine, and I couldn't help crying.โ
โWhat for, dear?โ says I.
โBecause I wasn't good enough to see my mother. If I had only been good enough, I could have seen her. For she was here, aunt Samantha, right in this room.โ
Her eyes wus so big and solemn and earnest, that I knew she meant what she said. But I soothed her down as well as I could, and I says,โ
โMebby you had dropped to sleep, Cicely: mebby you dremp it.โ
โYes,โ says Josiah, who had come in, and heard my last words.
โYes, Cicely, you dremp it.โ
Wall, after a while Cicely stopped cryin', and dropped to sleep.
And now what I am goin' to tell you is the truth. You can believe it, or not, jest as you are a mind to; but it is the truth.
That night, at sundown, Thomas J. come in with a telegram for Cicely; and she says, without actin' a mite surprised,โ
โAunt Mary is dead.โ
And sure enough, when she opened it, it was so. She died jest before the time Cicely come out into the hall. Josiah remembered plain. The clock had jest struck two as she opened the door.
Her aunt died at two.
This is the plain truth; and I will make oath to it,
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