Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete, Marietta Holley [learn to read books txt] 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
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As for me I wouldn't gin a cent for the book, and I remember we had some words when she come to our house with it. I told her plain that I wouldn't buy no book that belittled my companion, or tried to—sez I, “Arvilly, men are jest as good as wimmen and no better, not a mite better.”
And Arvilly didn't like it, but I made it up to her in other ways. I gin her some lamb's wool yarn for a pair of stockin's most immegictly afterwerds, and a half bushel of but'nuts. She is dretful fond of but'nuts.
Wall, Sister Shelmadine had sold ten pounds of maple sugar, and brought the worth on it.
And Sister Henzy brung four dollars and a half, her husband had gin her for another purpose, but she took it for this, and thought there wuzn't no harm in it, as she laid out to go without the four dollars and a halt's worth. It was fine shoes he had gin the money for, and she calculated to make the old ones do.
And Sister Henzy's mother, old Miss Balch, she is eighty-three years old, and has inflamatery rheumatiz in her hands, which makes 'em all swelled up and painful. But Sister Henzy said her mother had knit three pairs of fringed mittens (the hardest work for her hands she could have laid holt of, and which must have hurt her fearful). But Miss Henzy said a neighbor had offered her five dollars fer the three pairs, and so she felt it wuz her duty to knit 'em, to help the fair along. She is a very strong Methodist, and loved to forwerd the interests of Zion.
She wuz goin' to give every cent of the money to the meetin' house, so Sister Henzy said, all but ten cents, that she had to have to get Pond's Extract with, to bathe her hands. They wuz in a fearful state. We all felt bad for old Miss Balch, and I don't believe there wuz a woman there but what gin her some different receipt fer helpin' her hands, besides sympathy, lots and lots of it, and pity.
Wall, Sister Sypher'ses husband is clost, very clost with her. She don't have anythin' to give, only her labor, as well off as they be. And now he wuz so wrapped up in that buzz saw mill business that she wouldn't have dasted to approach him any way, that is, to ask him for a cent.
Wall, what should that good little creeter do but gin all the money she had earned and saved durin' the past year or two, and had laid by for emergincies or bunnets.
She had got over two dollars and seventy-five cents, which she handed right over to the treasurer of the fair to get materials for fancy work. When they wuz got she proposed to knit three pairs of men's socks out of zephyr woosted, and she said she was goin' to try to pick enough strawberrys to buy a pair of the socks for Deacon Sypher. She said it would be a comfort for her to do it, for they would be so soft for the Deacon's feet.
Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in dress gin to her by her uncle out to the Ohio. It wuz gin her to mourn for her mother-in-law in.
And what should that good, willin' creeter do but bring that dress and gin it to the fair to sell.
We hated to take it, we hated to like dogs, for we knew Sister Gowdy needed it.
But she would make us take it; she said “if her Mother Gowdy wuz alive, she would say to her,
“Sarah Ann, I'd ruther not be mourned for in bombazeen than to have the dear old meetin' house in Jonesville go to destruction. Sell the dress and mourn fer me in a black calico.”
That Sister Gowdy said would be, she knew, what Mother Gowdy would say to her if she wuz alive.
And we couldn't dispute Sarah Ann, for we all knew that old Miss Gowdy worked for the meetin' house as long as she could work for anything. She loved the Methodist meetin' house better than she loved husband or children, though she wuz a good wife and mother. She died with cramps, and her last request wuz to have this hymn sung to her funeral:
“I love thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of thine abode,
The church our dear Redeemer bought
With His most precious blood.”
The quire all loved Mother Gowdy, and sung it accordin' to her wishes, and broke down, I well remember, at the third verse—
“For her my tears shall fall,
For her my prayers ascend,
For her my toil and life be given,
Till life and toil shall end.”
The quire broke down, and the minister himself shed tears to think how she had carried out her belief all her life, and died with the thought of the church she loved on her heart and its name on her lips.
Wall, the dress would sell at the least calculation for eight dollars; the storekeeper had offered that, but Sarah Ann hoped it would bring ten to the fair.
It wuz a cross to Sarah Ann, so we could see, for she had loved Mother Gowdy dretful well, and loved the uncle who had gin it to her, and she hadn't a nice black dress to her back. But she said she hadn't lived with Mother Gowdy twenty years for nothin', and see how she would always sacrifice anything and everything but principle for the good of the meetin' house.
Sister Gowdy is a good-hearted woman, and we all on us honored her for this act of hern, though we felt it wuz almost too much for her to do it.
Wall, Sister Gowdy wuz the last one to gin in her testimony, and havin' got through relatin' our experiences we proceeded to business and paperin'.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Sister Sylvester Bobbet and I had been voted on es the ones best qualified
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