Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete, Marietta Holley [learn to read books txt] 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
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“Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen will 'tend to it.”
And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the question—and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't have put the question to him.
For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house, and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and bimeby).
There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house, and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break this enterprise of theirs up—and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister Henzy.
Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
“She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on,” so she often sez, “if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'.”
Some sez he duz.
Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn. And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher begin to feel bad.
She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told me, that “what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of the deacon's society.” It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on his face till dinner time.
And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step, four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
She is a dretful admirin' woman.
She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men—always calls her husband “the Deacon,” as if he was the one lonely deacon who was perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that when she dreams about him she dreams of him as “the Deacon,” and not as Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of dreams is a place where you can't slip on your sun-bonnet and foller neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin' from hour to hour.
No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
But, as I said, this had been spozen.
But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and napkins, and piller-cases, and such, “M. D. S.” And I asked her one day what the M. stood for, for I 'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for Drusillia Sypher.
And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for “Miss Deacon Sypher.”
Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin' into the buzz saw-mill business.
But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up every time he came in sight.
They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb—he had jest smashed it in the barn door—and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a “infernal fool.”
But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so low.
But he yelled out awful at her, I do 'spoze, for his pain wuz intense, and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story books. And he sez:
“Stand there like a——fool, will you! Get me a rag!”
I guess he did say as much as that.
But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time—couldn't seem to stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general, and he makes a good deal of her.
I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
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