Samantha at Saratoga by Marietta Holley (online e book reader TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Marietta Holley
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Yes, I believe it—I believe they would tost their heads and say, they always had had their thoughts about anybody that tooted so loud—it might be all right but it didn’t look well, and would be apt to make talk. Or they would say that he wuz shiftless and extravagant a loafin’ round in the clouds, when he might go to work—or that he might raise the money himself by selling the feathers offen his wings for down pillers—or some of the rest of the Gabriel family might help him—or something, or other—anyway they would propose some way of gittin’ out of givin’ a cent to Gabriel. I believe it as much as I believe I live and breathe; and so does Josiah.
Wall, Miss Mooney wouldn’t give anything because she thought Jane Smedley wuzn’t so sick as she thought she wuz; she said “she was spleeny.”
And I told Miss Mooney that when a woman was sick enough to die, I thought she ort to be called sick.
But Miss Mooney wouldn’t give up, and insisted to the very last that Miss Smedley wuz hypoey and spleeny—and thought she wuz sicker than she really wuz. And she held her head and her nose up in a very disagreeable and haughty way, and said as I left, that she never could bear to help spleeny people.
Wall, all that forenoon did I traipse through the street and not one cent did I get for the Smedleys, only Miss Gowdey said she would bring a cabbage and Miss Deacon Peedick and Miss Ingledue partly promised a squash apiece. And I mistrusted that they give ’em more to please me than anything else.
Wall, I wuz clean discouraged and beat out, and so I told Josiah. But he encouraged me some by sayin’:
“Wall, I could have told you jest how it would be,” and, “You would have done better, Samantha, to have been to home a cookin’ for your own famishin’ family.” And several more jest such inspirin’ remarks as men will give to the females of their families when they are engaged in charitable enterprises.
But I got a good, a very good dinner, and it made me feel some better, and then I haint one to give up to discouragements, anyway.
So I put on a little better dress for after noon, and my best bonnet and shawl, and set sail again after dinner.
And if I ever had a lesson in not givin’ up to discouragements in the first place I had it then. For whether it wuz on account of the more dressy look of my bonnet and shawl—or whether it wuz that folks felt cleverer in the afternoon—or whether it wuz that I had gone to the more discouragin’ places in the forenoon, and the better ones in the afternoon—or whether it wuz that I tackled on the subject in a better way than I had tackled ’em—whether it wuz for any of these reasons, or all of ’em or somethin’—anyway my luck turned at noon, 12 M., and all that afternoon I had one triumph after another—place after place did I collect pound or pounds as the case may be (or collected the promises of ’em, I mean). I did splendid, and wuz prospered perfectly amazing—and I went home feelin’ as happy and proud as a king or a zar.
And the next Tuesday evenin’ we had the pound party. They concluded to have it to our house. And Thomas Jefferson and Maggie, and Tirzah Ann and Whitefield came home early in the afternoon to help trim the parlor and setin’ room with evergreens and everlastin’ posies, and fern leaves.
They made the room look perfectly beautiful. And they each of ’em, the two childern and their companions, brought home a motto framed in nice plush and gilt frames, which they put up on each side of the settin’ room, and left them there as a present to their pa and me. They think a sight of us, the childern do—and visey versey, and the same.
One of ’em wuz worked in gold letters on a red back-ground “Bear Ye One Another’s Burdens.” And the other wuz “Feed my Lambs.”
They think a sight on us, the childern do—they knew them mottoes would highly tickle their pa and me. And they did seem to kinder invigorate up all the folks that come to the party.
And they wuz seemingly legions. Why, they come, and they kept a comin’. And it did seem as if every one of ’em had tried to see who could bring the most. Why, they brought enough to keep the Smedleys comfortable all winter long. It wuz a sight to see ’em.
It wuz a curious sight, too, to set and watch what some of the folks said and done as they brought their pounds in.
I had to be to the table all the time a’most, for I wuz appointed a committee, or a board—I s’pose it would be more proper to call myself a board, more business like. Wall, I wuz the board appointed to lay the things on—to see that they wuz all took care of, and put where they couldn’t get eat up, or any other casuality happen to ’em.
And I declare if some of the queerest lookin’ creeters didn’t come up to the table and talk to me. There wuz lots of ’em there that I didn’t know, folks that come from Zoar, Jim Smedley’s old neighborhood.
There wuz a long table stretched acrost one end of the settin’ room, and I stood behind it some as if I wuz a dry goods merchant or grocery, and some like a preacher.
And the women would come up to me and talk. There wuz one woman who got real talkative to me before the evenin’ wuz out. She said her home wuz over two miles beyond Zoar.
She had a young babe with her, a dark complexioned babe, with a little round black head, that looked some like a cannon ball. She said she had shingled the child that day about eight o’clock in the forenoon; she talked real confidential to me.
She said the babe had sights of hair, and she told her husband that day that if he would shingle the babe she would come to the party and if he wouldn’t shingle it she wouldn’t come. It seemed they had had a altercation on the subject; she wanted it shingled and he didn’t. But it seemed that ruther than stay away from the party—he consented, and shingled it. So they come.
They brought a eight pound loaf of maple sugar and two dozen eggs. They did well. Then there wuz another woman who would walk her little girl into the bedroom every few minutes, and wet her hair, and comb it over, and curl it on her fingers. The child had a little blue flannel dress on, with a long plain waist, and a long skirt gethered on full all round. Her hair lay jest as smooth and slick as glass all the time, but five times did she walk her off, and go through with that performance. She brought ten yards of factory cloth, and a good woollen petticoat for the old grandma. She did first-rate.
And then there wuz another woman who stayed by the table most all the evenin’. She would gently but firmly ask everybody who brought anything, what the price of the article wuz—and then she would tackle the different women who come up to the table for patterns. I do believe she got the pattern of every bask waist there wuz there, and every mantilly.
And Abram Gee brought twenty-five loaves of bread—of different sizes, but all on ’em good. And he looked at Ardelia Tutt every minute of the time. And Ardelia brought a lot of verses,—“Stanzas on a Grandmother.” I didn’t think they would do Grandma Smedley much good, and then on the other hand I didn’t s’pose they would hurt her any.
But we had a splendid good time after the things wuz all brought in—of course, bein’ a board the fore part of the evenin’ I naturally had a harder time than I did the latter part, after I had got over it.
The children, Thomas J., and Tirzah Ann, and Ardelia Tutt, and Abram Gee, and some of the rest of the young folks sung and played some beautiful pieces, and they had four tablows, which wuz perfectly beautiful.
And then we passed good nice light biscuit and butter, and hot coffee, and pop corn and apples. And it did seem, and all the neighbors said so, that it wuz the very best party they had ever attended to.
And before they went away they made a motion some of the responsable men did—some made the motions and some seconded ’em—that they would adjourn till jest one year from that night, when if the Smedleys was still alive and in need—we would have jest such a party ag’in.
And at the last on’t Elder Minkley made a prayer—a very thankful and good prayer, but short. And then they went home.
Wall, the next mornin’ we started to carry the things to the Smedleys. It wuz very early, for Josiah had got to go clear to Loontown on business, and I wuz goin’ to stay with the childern till he got back.
It wuz a very cold mornin’. We hadn’t heard from the Smedleys for two or three days, because we wanted to surprise ’em, so we didn’t want to give ’em a hint beforehand of what we wuz a doin’. So, as I say, it wuz a number of days sense we had heard from ’em, and the weather wuz cold.
When we got to the door it seemed to be dretful still there inside. And there wuz some white frost on the latch jest as if a icy, white hand had onlatched the door, and had laid on it last.
We rapped, but nobody answered. And then we opened the door and went in, and there they all lay asleep. The children waked up. But old Grandma didn’t.
There wuzn’t any fire in the room, and you could see by the freezing coldness of the air that there hadn’t been any for a day or two.
Grandma Smedley had took the poor old coverin’s all off from herself, and put ’em round the youngest baby, little Jim. And he lay there all huddled up tight to his Grandma, with his red cheek close to her white one, for he loved her.
Josiah cried and wept, and wept and cried onto his bandana—but I didn’t.
The tears run down my face some, to see the childern feel so bad when Grandma couldn’t speak to ’em.
But I knew that the childern would be took care of now, I knew the Jonesvillians would be all rousted up and sorry enough for ’em, and would be willin’ to do anything now, when it wuz some too late.
And I felt that I couldn’t cry nor weep (and told Josiah so), the tears jest dripped down my face in a stream, but I wouldn’t weep—for as I said to myself:
While the Jonesvillians had been a disputin’ back and forth, and wrestin’ Scripter, and the meanin’ of Providence in regard to helpin’ Grandma Smedley and gittin’ her a comfortable place to stay in, and somethin’ to eat, the Lord himself had took the case in hand and had gin her a home and the bread that satisfies.”
ARDELIA AND ABRAM GEE.
Wall, I don’t s’pose there had been a teacher in our deestrict for years and years that gin’ better satisfaction than Ardelia Tutt. Good soft little creeter, the scholars any one of ’em felt above hurtin’ on her or plagin’ her any way. She sort a made ’em feel they had to take care on her, she wuz so sort a helpless actin’, and good natured, and yet her learnin’ wuz good, fust-rate.
Yes, Ardelia was thought a sight on in Jonesville by scholars and parents and some that wuzn’t parents. One young chap in perticiler, Abram Gee by name, who had just started a baker’s shop in Jonesville, he fell so deep in love with her from the very start that I pitied him from about the bottom of my heart. It wuz at our house that he fell.
The young folks of our meetin’-house had a sort of a evenin’ meetin’ there to see about raisin’ some money for the help of the steeple—repairin’ of it. Abram is a member, and so is Ardelia, and I see the hull thing. I see him totter
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