Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician, Marietta Holley [best books to read ever txt] 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
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And Cicely had told him he mustn't go in a swimmin'. But he went; and because it made his mother feel bad, he would deceive her jest as good-natured as you ever see.
Why, once he come in with his pretty brown curls all wet, and his little shirt on wrong side out.
He was kinder whistlin', and tryin' to act indifferent and innocent. And when his mother questioned him about it, he said,—
“He had drinked so much water, that it had soaked through somehow to his hair. And he turned his shirt gettin' over the fence. And we might ask Let Peedick if it wuzn't so.”
We could hear Letty a whistlin' out to the barn, and we knew he stood ready to say “he see the shirt turn.”
But we didn't ask.
But when the boy see that his actin' and behavin' made his mother feel real bad, he would ask her forgiveness jest as sweet; and I knew he meant to do jest right, and mebby he would for as much as an hour, or till some temptation come along—or boy.
But the good-tempered easiness to be led astray made Cicely feel like death: she had seen it in another; she see it was a inherited trait. And she could see jest how hard it was goin' to make his future: she would try her best to break him of it. But how, how was she goin' to do it, with them weak, good-natured lips, and that chin?
But she tried, and she prayed.
And, oh, how we all loved the boy! We loved him as we did the apples in our eyes.
But as I said, he was a child that had his spells. Sometimes he would be very truthful and honest,—most too much so. That was when he had his sort o' dreamy spells.
I know one day, she that wus Kezier Lum come here a visitin'. She is middlin' old, and dretful humbly.
Paul sot and looked at her face for a long time, with that sort of a dreamy look of hisen; and finally he says,—
“Was you ever a young child?”
And she says,—
“Why, law me! yes, I s'pose so.”
And he says,—
“I think I would rather have died young, than to grow up, and be so homely.”
I riz up, and led him out of the room quick, and told him “never to talk so agin.”
And he says,—
“Why, I told the truth, aunt Samantha.”
“Wall, truth hain't to be spoken at all times.”
“Mother punished me last night for not telling the truth, and told me to tell it always.”
And then I tried to explain things to him; and he looked sweet, and said “he would try and remember not to hurt folks'es feelin's.”
He never thought of doin' it in the first place, and I knew it. And I declare, I thought to myself, as I went back into the room,—
“We whip children for tellin' lies, and shake 'em for tellin' the truth. Poor little creeters! they have a hard time of it, anyway.”
But when I went back into the room, I see Kezier was mad. And she said in the course of our conversation, that “she thought Cicely was too much took up on the subject of intemperance, and some folks said she was crazy on the subject.”
Kezier was always a high-headed sort of a woman, without a nerve in her body. I don't believe her teeth has got nerves; though I wouldn't want to swear to it, never havin' filled any for her.
And I says back to her, for it made me mad to see Cicely run,—
Says I, “She hain't the first one that has been called crazy, when they wus workin' for truth and right. And if the old possles stood it, to be called crazy, and drunken with new wine—why, I s'pose Cicely can.”
“Wall,” says she, “don't you believe she is almost crazy on that subject?”
Says I, deep and earnest, “It is a good crazy, if it is. And,” says I, “to s'posen the case,—s'posen the one we loved best in the world, your Ebineezer, or my Josiah, should have been ruined, and led into murder, by drinkin' milk, don't you believe we should have been sort o' crazy ever afterwards on the milk question?”
“Why,” says she, “milk won't make anybody crazy.”
There it wuz—she hadn't no imagination.
Says I, “I am s'posen milk, I don't mean it.” Says I, “Cicely means well.”
And so she did, sweet little soul.
But day by day I could see that her eagerness to accomplish what she had sot out to, her awful anxiety about the boy's future, wus a wearin' on her: the active, keen mind, the throbbin', achin' heart, was a wearin' out the tender body.
Her eyes got bigger and bigger every day; and her face got the solemnest, curiusest look to it, that I ever see.
And her cheeks looked more and more like the pure white blow of the Sweet Cicely, only at times there would be a red upon 'em, as if a leaf out of a scarlet rose had dropped dowrn upon their pure whiteness.
That would be in the afternoon; and there would be such a dazzlin' brightness in her eyes, that I used to wonder if it was the fire of immortality a bein' kindled there, in them big, sad eyes.
And right about this time the executor (and I wish he could have been executed with a horse-whip: he knew how she felt about it)—he wuz sot, a good man, but sot. Why, his own sir name wuz never more sot in the ground than he wuz sot on top of it. And he didn't like a woman's interference. He wrote to her that one of her stores, that he had always rented for the sale of factory-cloth and sheep's clothin', lamb's-wool blankets, and etcetery, he had had such a good offer for it, to open a new saloon and billiard-room, that he had rented it for that purpose; and he told how much more he got for it. That made 4 drinkin' saloons, that wuz in the boy's property. Every one of 'em, so Cicely felt, a drawin' some other mother's boys down to ruin.
Cicely thought of it nights a sight, so she said,—said she was afraid the curses of these mothers would fall on the boy.
And her eyes kep' a growin' bigger and solemner like, and her face grew thinner and thinner, and that red flush would burn onto her cheeks regular every afternoon, and she begun to cough bad.
But one day she felt better, and was anxious to go. So she and I went to see the executor, Condelick Post.
We left the boy with Philury. Josiah took us to the cars, and we arrove there at 1 P.M. We went to the tarven, and got dinner, and then sot out for Mr. Post'ses office.
He greeted Cicely with so much politeness and courtesy, and smiled so at her, that I knew in my own mind that all she would have to do would be to tell her errent. I knew he would do every thing jest as she wanted him to. His smile was truly bland—I don't think I ever see a blander one, or amiabler.
I guess she was kinder encouraged, too, for she begun real sort o' cheerful a tellin' what she come for,—that she wanted him to rent these buildin's for some other purpose than drinkin' and billiard saloons.
And he went on in jest as cheerful a way, almost jokeuler, to tell her “that he couldn't do any thing of the kind, and he was doing the business to the best of his ability, and he couldn't change it at all.”
And then Cicely, in a courteus, reasonable voice, begun to argue with him; told him jest how bad she felt about it, and urged him to grant her request.
But no, the pyramids couldn't be no more sot than he wuz, nor not half so polite.
And then she dropped her own sufferings in the matter, and argued the right of the thing.
She said when she was married, her husband took the whole of her property, and invested it for her in these very buildings. And in reality, it was her own property. The most of her husband's wealth was in the mills and government bonds. But she wanted her money invested here, because she wanted a larger interest. And she was intending to let the interest accumulate, and found a free library, and build a chapel, for the workmen at the mills.
And says she, “Is it right that my own property should be used for what I consider such wicked purposes?”
“Wicked? why, my dear madam! it brings in a larger interest than any other investment that I have been able to make. And you know your husband's will provides handsomely for you—the yearly allowance is very handsome indeed.”
“It is all I wish, and more than I care for. I am not speaking of that.”
“Yes, it is very handsome indeed. And by the time Paul is of age, in the way I am managing the property now, he will be the richest young man in this section of the State. The revenue of which you make complaints, will be of itself a handsome property, a large patrimony.”
“It will seem to be loaded with curses, weighed down with the weight of heavy hearts, broken hearts, ruined lives.”
“All imagination, my dear madam! You have a vivid imagination. But there will be nothing of the kind, I assure you,” says he, with a patronizing smile. “It will all be invested in government bonds,—good, honest dollars, with nothing more haunting than the American eagle on them.”
“Yes, and these words, 'In God we trust.' But do you know,” says she, with the red spot growin' brighter on her cheek, and her eyes brighter,—“do you know, if one did not possess great faith, they would be apt to doubt the existence of a God, who can allow such injustice?”
“What injustice, my dear madam?” says he, smilin' blandly.
“You know, Mr. Post, just how my husband died: you know he was killed by intemperance. A drinking-saloon was just as surely the cause of his death, as the sword is, that pierces through a man's heart. Intemperance was the cause of his crime. He, the one I loved better than my own self, infinitely better, was made a murderer by it. I have lost him,” says she, a throwin' out her arms with a wild gesture that skairt me. “I have lost him by it.”
And her eyes looked as big and wild and wretched, as if she was lookin' down the endless ages of eternity, a tryin' to find her love, and knew she couldn't. All this was in her eyes, in her voice. But she seemed to conquer her emotion by a mighty effort, tried to smother it down, and speak calmly for the sake of her boy.
“And now, after I have suffered by it as I have, is it right, is it just, that I should be compelled to allow my property to be used to make other women's hearts, other mothers' hearts, ache as mine must ache forever?”
“But, my dear madam, the law, as it is now, gives me the right to do as I am doing.”
“I am pleading for justice, right: you have it in your power to grant my prayer. Women have no other weapon they can use, only just to plead, to beg for mercy.”
“O my dear madam! you are quite wrong: you are entirely wrong. Women are the real rulers of the world. They, in reality, rule us men, with a rod of iron. Their dainty white hands, their rosy smiles, are the real autocrats of—of the breakfast-table, and of life.”
You see, he went on, as men used to went on, to females years ago. He forgot that that Alonzo and Melissa style of talkin' to wimmen had almost entirely gone out of fashion. And it was a good deal more
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